Paper and Threads

Here are a few sketches from this week's Figure Drawing in Battery Park City - on the tip of Manhattan.  I struggled with some of the sketches, but I'm not going to blame the model! 

We sketch in a beautiful area right along the edge of the Hudson River where it enters New York Harbor, and this is now Zone A.  Evacuation is being advised due to an anticipated storm surge of 6-12 feet due to Hurricane Irene which will arrive early Sunday morning.  Evacuation may become mandatory by Saturday, but all mass transportation will be discontinued late Saturday afternoon, so people are being encouraged to leave now and tomorrow.

Two minute poses:

Five minute pose:

Two 10 minute poses - for which the model put on a dress and attached a feather in her hair.

Posted by Shirley at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Pooh Bear was given to Christopher Robin Milne on his first birthday in 1921 and the New York Public Library celebrated his 90th birthday this past weekend.  Pooh, a gift from Harrods, was one of 5 of Christopher's stuffed toys that were used by his father A.A. Milne as the inspiration for the characters in his 4 Pooh books.  E.H. Shepherd also based his original illustrations on the toys.  The toys were given to the American publisher, E.F. Dutton, in 1947.  They in turn gave them to the New York Public Library in 1987.  This is a picture I took of Pooh Bear and Piglet on my visit Monday.

Kanga, Tigger, Piglet, Pooh, and Eeyore live in a glass case in the Children's Library in the main NYPL Library Building on 5th Ave.

I first saw these toys at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1970 and assumed they "lived" in London.  The Milne House is in London - in Chelsea, right off the King's Road.  So I was later thrilled to learn that they actually live in NYC and yesterday I went to the Library to sketch them in honor of Pooh's birthday.

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This week my friend Pat met me for lunch and then went to the Battery Park City Summer Drawing figure drawing session.  She always worries about whether it will be too hot, but the setting is beautiful, with cross breezes from the Hudson River.  This was a great opportunity for her to figure out whether she could sketch all of the poses on her iPad - and she could!

I'm used to 2 minute warmup poses and find the ten 1 minute poses at this site a real challenge.  But I thought I should share a few.  We did 12!

The next drawings are from the 5 minute and 10 minute poses - with which I'm much more comfortable.  The model was terrific and suddenly, when you looked up, she had transitioned to a new pose effortlessly and quietly.

The two hour session ended with a 20 minute pose.  I sketched her in brown watercolor pencil and then added watercolor and watercolor washes.

Posted by Shirley at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I really enjoy drawing figures and have a variety of exercises that I've done over several years to practice sketching body parts:  faces, hands, and feet. 

Drawing faces:  I save full face portraits from magazines and for this exercise I divide them in half vertically.  I collage one half of the face to a sketchbook page and then sketch the missing side - trying to copy the original as closely as possible.  I saw this idea on a website or blog, but don't remember where.

Drawing hands:  I have an articulated hand, that I bought second hand at a mannequin supply store in Manhattan, that I can position and then draw.  And for almost two years I worked my way through a website with photos of hands forming the American Sign Language letters.  I just finished Y and Z - so I'm done.

Drawing feet:  So far most of my sketches are of my feet and my husband's feet as we sit watching TV.

Here are the last 6 pages in my practice sketchbook.

Posted by Shirley at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

My 93 year old Mother fell and broke her right hip and shoulder last November.  She lives in a retirement community in New Jersey, about an hour drive outside NYC.  She has her own apartment, but now requires a home health aid 24/7.  Since her injury, hospitalization, and rehab, I visit weekly.   Sometime in the morning, we go for a "walk" and sit in the big recreation areas or on the patio.  And we laugh, alot, as I try to sketch her portrait.  Her she is in a photo.

Most of my early sketches all looked like the same woman, just not my Mother.  So we named her Lilly and created a persona for her.  I finally decided to use a grid on a photo of her to try to get a better likeness using that time-honored technique.  You can still see some of the unerased grid markings on this pencil drawing.  But that didn't look like her either.  Note:  I used a different photo for the grid.

She always looks at my drawing and says something like "great job on my hair, or the earrings."  Here is the latest one - she still says that I'm not close.  But at least we have fun, and it makes the visit more interesting.

Posted by Shirley at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)