Paper and Threads

Yesterday my husband and I went to an open rehearsal of the Philharmonic Orchestra in NYC - with Itzhak Perlman playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.  While my husband waited on line inside Avery Fisher Hall, I sketched the new Lincoln Center Plaza Fountain with State Theater behind it.

I'm trying to fill up one of my first recycled books and it has paper that I hate.  And my scanner also hates it and the buckling of the paper shows as dark shadows. 

It is great fun to see the Orchestra and Conductor dressed in jeans and T-shirts - and to hear parts of each piece several times while they work on it.  I'm getting better at sketching people who return to the same or similar positions frequently so I decided to sketch the Music Director, Alan Gilbert, while he was conducting the first piece.  Then I sketched the Concertmaster.

After sketching at the morning concert, I felt like sketching more and went to Figure Drawing at the Society of Illustrators last night.  Before the models appeared and while the jazz group was setting up, I did a quick small painting of the bass player.  Sketches from figure drawing will be scanned and uploaded later....

My blog has been down several times in the last week, and my poor son, who maintains the server it was on, had to come home from several long days at work and try to fix it.  Last night he moved it to a new server, so I think it will be OK.  Isn't he amazing?  Although he is a self-taught computer guru, he is a busy physician and was packing for morning flight with his wife and my fabulous grand daughter Annabelle.  A public thank you and a big hug for JJ. 

Posted by Shirley at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Two members of our Journal Study Group are in Europe at the moment, so Pat and I consoled ourselves with lunch, an art auction preview, the Pastel Society of America Show, and a late afternoon stop for coffee and sweets.

Swann Galleries is auctioning several hundred prints of old New York today. so we went to enjoy them during the previews.  I was so inspired by these drawings of master artists that I wanted to go out then and sketch my way through this wonderful City.

We walked from Swann to Gramercy Park and went to see the current exhibit from the Pastel Society of America.  Neither of us use pastels and were amazed at the photographic detail possible.  When we left the National Arts Club, we stopped across the street and did quick sketches of the entrance for me to work out my need to "sketch NYC."

While drinking our coffee, both of us wanted to do another in our Carla Sonheim 100 Faces project.  So we sketched each other, across the table, with our non-dominant hands.  Quite a challenge.  Here are 4 more of my Face series, these are all full face instead of profile like the last ones I uploaded.  Pat is the one with sunglasses on her head and reading glasses on her nose!  It makes her look really young which she says is OK, because in her mind she is 22 years old.

Posted by Shirley at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Most of the time my watercolor sketchbook is a visual journal and I try to incorporate part of my  life in my sketch of the day.  But I don't always think that I have enough time, or the perfect location, and I skip a wonderful opportunity.

Catherine Carey of In and Out of the Studio wrote about this recently and I remembered it while we were eating a quick lunch with our 7 year old grandson after we took him to MoMA. 

Catherine said, 

"In this week's sketchbook journal workshop we have been talking a lot about painting very simply and quickly. It is not about laboring over a masterpiece. It is about getting the impression of "here and now" on the journal page.
 

I understand that it is difficult to take a chance on a page being less than perfect, or even less than good, because someone might look at it, and of course, we will look at it ourselves and feel as if we have failed if it isn't great (or good).

So I sketched during our special lunch, just the scene of the area where waiters were placing orders, and picking up bills, menus, etc.  And Henry watched the drawing and then the painting, with great interest, making lunch and my journal page more special.  I sketched what was in front of me quickly and painted it, and then was ready to move on!  Now - to remember this!

Posted by Shirley at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

The August summer break just ended at the Society of Illustrators and last night I went to Figure Drawing with my friends Istar and Casey.  Casey is visiting her family in N.J. from France and was able to come into the City for a visit.  I hope that she posts a few of her figure paintings to her blog when she returns home.  Her ink/watercolor drawings inspired me and gave me a new goal for 2011.

My current sketch book is slightly too big for my scanner, so there are lots of ugly scan marks.  I also had to increase contrast so my 6B pencil lines were darker, and all of my left-hended smudges then were more noticeable.   

There were two models, clothed, for every pose.  This was a sketch done of both of them during 5 minutes - just to try to capture their positions and clothing.

During another 5 minute pose, I sketched only the male model because he was in a challenging twisted position.

I sketched both models during the next two 20 minute poses - the male model without and with shirt and the woman in a negligee.

vvvvv

This is the beginning of my second year of live figure drawing and I am trying to spend more time on faces.  After I finished sketching both models during a 20 minute pose, I spent some time trying to better capture the face of the male model. 

Posted by Shirley at 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Linda Kemp's book, Watercolor Painting Outside the Lines, was mentioned on the Everyday Matters message board, and on View From the Oak Blog.  When I have gift cards, I buy this type of art technique book for my library and this year it is one of my goals to actually read and sometimes do exercises or demos from some of these books.  This was my book for August.

In order to really understand the technique of painting just the negative space, I had to try the first two exercises in this book.

Exercise 1:  Paint many different size circles in groups and paint only the negative space.  This painting has 5 layers.  I was quite messy, and didn't keep nice smooth edges, but I accomplished my goal.  I did understand the concept after doing this exercise.

I just found Linda doing this exercise on a You Tube Video.

Exercise 2:  Same technique, but with a stem with 2 leaves, and a watercolor underpainting.  Again, I was quite messy with the outlines, but now understood working wet-in-wet and creating interesting color washes.

Although I did this exercise from her book, I just found a demo of it on her website.

Extending the Lesson Using My Original Image:  Friends brought a lovely bouquet of flowers Saturday evening and I decided to use the flower and leaf shape from one of the flowers to create my own negative painting.

Then I created Two Magnetic Bookmarks using the same flower and leaf shapes.  The technique for making these was posted previously.  But now I use individual magnets sold at Staples as adhesive business card magnets - and I cut them in half vertically. 

Posted by Shirley at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)