Paper and Threads

I went to the Morgan Library and Museum last week to see the current exhibits - and sketched a demon from the illuminated manuscript called the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (15th C.).  It has a very interesting history and the borders on each page are amazing and never repeated.  I sketched one of the demons (which appeared on the corner of the border of page 94 and was enlarged in a photograph as part of the exhibit.)

It is worth looking at the facsimiles on the webpage in my link to the exhibit just to see the quality of the painting and the brilliance of the colors. 

Donna posted drawings today that she did with her new Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.  I agree with everything she says about the pen and ...

I decided to upload this drawing today in order to demonstrate that on my Fabriano Artistico 140 lb soft press paper, the ink that comes in the cartridges with the Pental Pocket Brush Pen is watersoluble.  The gray color of my demon is just ink pulled into the drawing with plain water.  I allowed the ink to dry for 15-30 minutes before "painting it" with the water.  I know that others don't have this problem, so I assume it is paper-dependent, since we have compared pen product numbers, etc, etc.

Posted by Shirley at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I love the drawings of Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) and today joined my friend Melly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to draw some of them for the second time.  My first drawings were posted here.  The exhibit ends April 18th. so I will even have time to return for more.  All of the drawings were done with a Caran d'Ache aquarelle pencil (Mahogany).

 Study for his painting Jealousy - and for me More Hand Drawing Practice:

Head of a Young Woman - and for me the challenge was getting the correct angle for the head: 

Study of Crossed Legs - and for me lots of crosshatching for shading

Posted by Shirley at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

 We took our 6 year old grandson Henry to the 3rd Young People's Concert in this year's series at the New York Philharmonic and a fabulous Spanish guitarist was the soloist with the orchestra.  We were sitting too far away for me to see his hands, so I sketched him from one of his website photos for my daily sketch.  His hands really were in that position, but it reminded me that I need lots more practice drawing hands.  I am slowly drawing each letter from photos on an American Sign Language website and I decided that it was time for J and K.  Pablo Saenz Villegas was drawn with my water-soluble Pilot Varsity pen and then brushed with water.

American Sign Language letters - drawn with a watercolor pencil from photos on a website.

Posted by Shirley at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Even though I appear to have the same pen as other members of EDM, my pen ink runs when I add a watercolor wash.  These two drawings dried for 15 and 30 minutes respectively and you can still see where my wet brush touched the ink.  It might be due to the Fabriano soft press paper that I use, but since I don't plan to change paper, or the way I work with ink and watercolor, I will just have to accept this!

                  Drawn from a book of Picasso "One Liners"

           Drawn by pausing the fantastic polar bear video that was shown during the Olympics.

Posted by Shirley at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I love watching the Winter Olympics and spent large blocks of time glued to the coverage.  Probably because of my lifelong interest in dance, and specifically ballet, figure skating is one of my very favorite events.  As I was getting ready to watch the Women's Short Program, I was surfing the NBC Olympic website and found this photo of Mirai Nagasu.  I fell in love with this perky, skilled, 16 year old while watching her skate at Nationals several weeks before.  Although she was being considered the US hope for the future, she appeared to be in a group with other world class skaters already.  I loved the entire coverage of the Women's event and have never been so impressed as I was with Kim Yu-Na's free skate on Thursday evening.  But I was even more thrilled that Mirai finished in 4th place!!   

Posted by Shirley at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)