Paper and Threads

Matthew Midgley, a British teacher and illustrator, was the Artist for week 5 in Sketchbook Skool 6.  He is a master at painting his meals, even if it means that he doesn't eat it until cold.  I knew that I couldn't draw and paint, postponing my enjoyment of dinner, so I took photos at our pre-theater dinner last weekend and painted it this weekend.

Italian bread with olive oil, Caesar salad, a Super Tuscan red wine, sausage pizza, and a cappuccino.  Yum!  

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Wednesday is Art Day in Battery Park City from now through October.  This week I went to the morning session in Wagner Park, searching for newly bloomed flowers and painted 3 flowers, all growing from the same stem.  I chose them because I could sit in the shade on the artist stools the Conservancy provides!  But it presented me with the challenge of drawing white flowers on white paper - and kept me happily engaged for an hour.

In the afternoon I arrived in South Cove (2 blocks away) just as one of the big ships was sailing around the tip of Manhattan and heading north up the Hudson River for fleet week.  There were sailors lined up all around the ship looking at the beautiful views of Lower Manhattan.

I love Claudia, who was our model for Figure Al Fresco.  I've sketched her before and have good memories of those sessions.  Here is my work for our two hour session - photographed instead of scanned because of the paper size.  I had a mat at home that I put around my longer pose drawings just for fun!

From 10 One Minute Poses:

Our 4 Five Minute Poses:

My 4 Ten Minute Poses - I only sketched for 10 minutes even with the 20 minute pose: 

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Vin Ganapathy, a teacher in Sketchbook Skool 6, demonstrated portrait drawing and then assigned us homework using his technique.  He likes to do a quick drawing live, then take lots of photos, and use them to finish the drawing later.  He did two people sitting on a couch, but my first opportunity to draw and take photos was when I was sitting next to a grandchild - in profile.

I find it very difficult to capture a likeness of family members, and these 3 are a little better than usual.  Henry was sitting next to me at a concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Sydney was presenting a project to us at school.  And Zachary was sitting next to me at a Young People's concert at Lincoln Center.

The drawings were done with pencil on watercolor postcards that I carried with me.   The technique was helpful, and the photos helped me better draw nose shapes and lips.

The very next week in Sketchbook Skool, Dutch artist Nelleke Verhoef imtroduced "Faces" from photo inspirations.  She maintains envelopes containing eyes, noses, mouths, and hair clipped from magazines - and mixes and matches them to inspire random face drawings.  One of her special additions is red cheeks - which is also the name of her illustration studio.

I got a Vogue magazine from my daughter, clipped apart face components, and made my own reference envelopes for the project.   I quickly sketched this face in ink and painted it with watercolor, and may use this technique for my imaginary drawing project.

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I went to my second Monotype session this week at MoMA and made 3 prints - but only uploaded two here - another ballerina and another Axel print.

Weekday NYC Urban Sketchers met in Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City this week, and I was completely mesmerized by ducks.  When I arrived I watched a male swimming all over the pond behind a female and a total of 7 ducklings that were scattered and having fun.  I sketched them quickly and spent the next hour watching them to determine their coloration.  I can't describe how much pleasure I got from sitting in the sun, watching and photographing them.  Midway through the hour 3 gangster males arrived and fights began.  But the original male kept them away from his family.  It was very noisy! 

I quickly sketched one of Dubuffet's four large LaVache paintings when at his exhibit at Acquavella Gallery on the Upper Eastside.  My goal was to paint it with my acrylic paints before putting them away after my abstract painting class ended.  The painting is on a watercolor postcard. 

Monotypes, Pen Drawing with Watercolor Wash, and an Acrylic Painting - I think I need to focus! 

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My 3rd and last painting of my FIT Abstract Painting class is finished.  For this painting we were instructed to use different materials and/or processes in the painting, and I chose collage, paint, and ink. 

1.  I covered the canvas panel with torn scraps of papers that I've been saving or making, and mounted the paper with matte medium. 

2.  I painted over the collage with acrylic paints, taking care not to cover up the images completely.  In the next layer I added more collage - of either paper I painted or fabric strips I dyed. 

3.  At the end of our last class  our professor told me she thought that I could push it further.  So I used Daler-Rowney F and W acrylic brown ink for calligraphy, drawing, and mark making for the final layer,  Adding ink was an inspiration from the Hannalore Baron exhibit I saw several weeks ago.

This is the finished 16 X 20" painting:

These are 6 random closeups: 

I was very hesitant to take this class because I had no experience painting with acrylic paints and loved drawing, i.e. representational art.  I learned so much and expanded my vision and skills a little - which in the end was my real desire.  But first I had to "shut the monkey."  For those of you who also have a strong inner critic, follow Danny Gregory's podcasts devoted to this topic at:

http:/?dannygregory/monkey

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