Paper and Threads

Last Friday I picked Sydney up at school for our 4th annual Birthday-Christmas trip to Rockefeller Center to have lunch, and Bryant Park to see the Christmas Village, watch the skaters, and eat dessert.   The end of our walk is always Beads World - her favorite store in the Garment District.  While we were eating lunch in 30 Rock, she took photos of the Santa skating on the ice skating rink and later that day I sketched and painted from the photo.

I took Sydney to see the New York City Ballet Nutcracker 4 years in a row.  Twenty five years ago we took her mother and her brothers to see Phantom of the Opera right after it opened on Broadway and suggested that we see it this year instead of the ballet.  It is the longest running Broadway show in history and it is still full for every performance.  We both loved it!

This is my quilted Christmas tree, made in 1992, and hung in my studio at Christmas each year since then.  There are small wood ornaments and strings of colored lights that I added after quilting it.  As I make Christmas presents for my grandchildren each year in my studio, I thoroughly enjoy my little tree!  I hope that it continues to grow old with my grandchildren. 

On Sunday I spent one more day in my studio for this year and made Sydney a Teal Blue minky elephant  like I made for Charlie and posted a week ago.  Shhhh!  It is a surprise!  All she wanted this year as a gift from us was money toward custom made sneakers - and with a Birthday last week and now Christmas, I wanted a little surprise for her.

Last night, as I made a list of my last minute tasks before Christmas Eve dinner in our apartment, I was inspired to paint a Christmas tree ball in my sketchbook.  The idea came from a watercolor artist I follow (Suzanne Smith if I remember correctly) and I  wanted to try to create a reflection using a wet in wet technique.

Now signing off until after the Holiday.... 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS!

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Last year Charlie, our 8th grandchild, was only 3 months old at Christmas.  I made him a Christmas stocking, but not a gift bag.  Over the years I made stockings and giftbags for all of our children, their spouses, and children.  So this year I made Charlie his gift bag.

The Santa image was drawn from a photo I used in 1976 to create a santa ornament.  I have no idea which magazine it came from.

This is our 2013 Christmas tree with all of the gift bags filled and placed at the bottom of the tree.  They are not complete yet, but it is the easiest place to hide presents from the kids.

I made Charlie a blanket, a pillow, and a stuffed elephant out of that incredibly soft, plush fabric known as "minky."  His big brothers each have the same blanket and pillow, in different colors,  from last year.  The elephant was made from a pattern from "Carol's Zoo."

I love the elephant, and remember the fun I had drawing and painting more than 20 elephants last winter.  Here is my teal blue elephant which I painted in my sketchback for Charlie.

Posted by Shirley at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

 I love the Holiday season and especially adore being back in the Northeast where Christmas is cold and snow is forecast for today.  Wednesday evening my husband and I made a pilgrimage to Rockefeller Center to see "The Tree."  It never disappoints.

Santa's Workshop is busier than ever here at home.  And I'm even trying to draw and paint a few of the projects.  Here is my sketchbook page from last night, after finishing all 12 of this year's Christmas ornaments. 

And here are the Jolly Dozen - one for each of our 8 grandchildren and one for each of our children and their spouse.

This is a pattern that I bought many years ago from Twice As Nice Designs.  The small size, made with a 62mm bell, is perfect for ornaments.  Here you can see the Christmas bell which is the body.

And here his is sitting comfy.

I've also made many gifts for our grandchildren - so entries from Santa's Workshop will continue next week. 

Posted by Shirley at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Our Central Park Sketching and Art Meetup Group met at the Museum of the City of New York for indoor sketching on Sunday.  (http://www.mcny.org/)

Our first gallery contained enormous paintings of Central Park by Janet Ruttenberg.  She works on huge strips of paper that are torn from a role, placed on the grass, and painted with brushes on long sticks while standing.  Reading about her process was more interesting to me than the actual paintings, so I sketched from a photo of her taken during a painting session. 

Next we went to an exhibit sponsored by Tiffany - 100 works from New York at the end of the 19th Century, including clothes, jewelry, paintings, sculptures, and decorative objects.  I loved one one of the evening dresses by House of Wirth in Paris and sketched  and painted it.  It was made of silk, satin, bobbin lace, and ostrich feathers.

My final drawing was done in an exhibit about the theater and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes.  I loved this watercolor painting of one of his costume designs for a 1924 play named The Miracle.

I guess I am not surprised that each of my drawings represented a figure!   

Posted by Shirley at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am having trouble coordinating my schedule due to a big Thanksgiving celebration and my Santa Workshop activities as I prepare for Christmas.  I looked back in my sketchbook and discovered I missed these when I visited the two exhibits with my friends in late October.

Readers of this blog know that I like to copy paintings by the Masters - always hopeful that I will learn something from their styles and compositions. 

The Frick Collection exhibit has 15 paintings from the Mauritshuis Museum in the Netherlands, including those by Vermeer and Rembrandt.  The highlight is Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring and it is hung alone in a lovely gallery.  The Frick displayed their 3 Vermeers and 3 Rembrandts in an adjoining gallery, so it was a real treat. 

http://www.frick.org//exhibitions/mauritshuis 

There is an amazing Chagall exhibit at the Jewish Museum.  It is titled "Love, War, and Exile" and includes paintings from late in his life. 

http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chagall-love-war-exile 

I loved the shape of this figure and the composition from the moment I saw it and needed to circle back to draw it at the end.

Monday is my last Figure Drawing class at FIT - and hopefully I will then have more motivation to find non-figure subjects for drawing and painting.   

Posted by Shirley at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)