Paper and Threads

Picasso's Guitars 1912-1914 just opened at the Museum of Modern Art.  The museum website for the exhibit is wonderful and ArtDaily.org has a great discussion of the exhibit with several photos.  I saw "Guitars"  last week with my Journal Study Group friends and did several sketches.

I enjoyed reading and hearing about the uniqueness of Picasso's cardboard and string primitive wall sculpture and never realized what an important step this was in art history.  My sketches include a flat version of the cardboard guitar, the metal guitar from the front and side to show the actual 3D shapes, and one of the exhibit collages - Student with a Pipe - just because I loved it!

Cardboard and String Guitar Sculpture Sketched with Watercolor Pencils:  

Two Views of the Metal Guitar - sketched at the exhibit and painted at home:

Collage - Student With Pipe:  I sketched this piece at the exhibit and then redrew it at home in this version.  There is a map of the galleries at MoMA as the first layer, then a layer of absorbent ground, then my drawing and watercolor paint to complete the image.

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My EDM "Select-a-Challenge Jar" is working well - and here are two challenges that I completed recently.  I only select from the jar when I have absolutely NO IDEAS for my daily journal page because I've been hibernating!

EDM Challenge # 273 : Draw a Collection of Tools

These were a few kitchen tools that were used that day. 

EDM Challenge #288:  Draw Something With Spots

This baby leopard was drawn from a photo.

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The weather in New York City made it easy to hibernate and work on many projects around my apartment.  But my lack of sensory input from my city environment made it necessary for me to dig deep and challenge myself to find anything of interest for my daily journal page.  I know, I know - I could have added more apartment drawings to my precious watercolor journal, but I didn't!  

I am still working through the Carla Sonheim Drawing lab book and did two of her labs.  In the first, I searched for some bug shapes on Google images and then decorated them with Pitt pens.  In the second, I quickly gathered 5 books from one bookshelf, just as quickly flipped them open and chose something to sketch, and then put the drawings on one page.

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I am slowly practicing drawing hands from photos on the American Sign Language site.  I am moderately pleased with these drawings, but when I am faced with a real model, and hands are only part of the challenge, I can't draw individual fingers.  Oh well!  

 Here are my most recent hand drawings.  And then I added some drawn from photos of one of my grandchildren's hands.The sign language hands were drawn with a watercolor pencil and then brushed with water.  My grand daughter's hands were drawn with a standard color pencil.

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I am still slowly working my way through the Carla Sonheim Drawing Lab entitled 100 Faces.  The majority of these are sketched on the bus or subway in New York City.  Among these six, however, there is one of Howard Jacobson, the author of the Finkler Question.  I was watching a YouTube video of him talking about his book and couldn't resist drawing his interesting face and hat.

I still haven't gotten past #40 Face - this is a slow project for sure....

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