Paper and Threads

This was a busy week.  We visited our San Francisco friends at their lake house in NH as we do most summers.  And it was hot even in the woods.  The dogs were therefore sleepy much of the time and I could sit and sketch them more easily.  I just decided that I love square watercolor sketchbooks, but then needed to put both pages together in Photoshop because I couldn't fit the double pages on my scanner!

We also stop at the Farm Stand to buy some fresh produce and flowers to take with us.  This is one ear of corn before husking and one of many varieties of sunflowers that they grow.

We returned home Thursday and on Friday morning at 8:30 met a fabulous visitor at the corner of 96th St. and Lexington in NYC.  Can you guess who?  How about if I tell you that today is Borromini's 3rd birthday?  In the few minutes while I was waiting, I sketched the flower in one of our many flower stands and painted it after a full day of exploration, talking, sketching, and fun.  More later....

Posted by Shirley at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

My friends and I had many fun evenings during our beach week doing the exercises from the first two sections of this book.  In the mornings we sketched beach treasures that we picked up on our walks and after dinner we played" by doing these fun lab exercises which really loosen you up and don't arouse the inner critic.  Perfection is not expected!

Here are 3 of my favorites: The giraffe on the left was drawn blind and the one on the right while looking occasionally at the photo.

Blind Contour of a Giraffe:

Imaginary Creature:

Drawing with Your Non-Dominant Hand - which I had never tried. This doesn't look at all like Sara - but I was actually able to hold the pen and make it move!  Sara decided that she was going to use her non-dominant hand more - she loved the drawings she did.

Rice Freeman-Zachary of Notes From the Voodoo Cafe just did a podcast interview with Carla Sonheim.  You can go to her blog and click on the Podcast from a list on the right side of the home page.  You can also reach it from Carla's blog.  It is a delightful interview and she verbally gives you the Picasso Dog lab exercise during the Podcast.  Here's mine:

Posted by Shirley at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I started sketching in 2003, after buying Gwen Diehn's book The Decorated Page.  It took me almost 2 years to fill a watercolor sketchbook because I was still working long hours.  One of those early sketches, and watercolor painting with student grade watercolor paints, was of Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, New York. 

This morning it was 68 degrees and sunny when I woke up and I couldn't resist an 8AM walk to the Park and to Bethesda Fountain for another sketch.  I thought it would be fun to upload my first sketch and this morning's sketch since I didn't even start sketching daily or start my blog until Jan. 2006.

Here is a sketch from July 2003:

 I then redrew the top of the fountain and painted it the same morning:

And here is my still unpainted sketch from this morning - from a different bench.  The sun was changing the shadows very quickly, so I took a photo and will paint it at home sometime soon.  The faint pencil lines are the top of the trees/sky line.

Posted by Shirley at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I started going to figure drawing sessions in September 2009, and averaged one session per month over the whole year.  There is now a summer break until after Labor Day and that seems a long time away.  I think I'm making progress, and more frequently sketch faces during the longer poses.  Here are the two 10 minute poses and two 20 minute poses done this week.

Posted by Shirley at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My daughter's 3 children (ages 7,5,3) spent 3 days with us while their parents celebrated their anniversary at the Beach.  They are really energetic and fun children, so I dedicated my daily journal pages to them.  The two youngest ones actually "colored" in their sketchbooks during the weekend and had me draw some of their favorite images for them to color.  New York City was soooo hot, that we started each day at the newly renovated Central Park playground that is next to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  They wore their bathing suits to take full advantage of the water play for several early morning hours.

Sydney and Callum have Christmas birthdays and for the second year in a row Syd and I celebrated her birthday in July with a trip to the art supply store.  This year we went to Dick Blick and she selected a wonderful assortment of art supplies and activity kits.  She used the last few dollars to buy cute little flash card notebooks for herself and two brothers, so I sketched all of them.

Callum really, really loves dinosaurs and dragons and brought a big box of them to play with during the weekend.  He was showing me his squishy dragon when I decided that this was the perfect image for the day.

Yesterday afternoon, my son dropped off their youngest (11 month old Zach) while they went to a baseball game to celebrate their other son Robbie's 5th birthday.  Zach stands alone, crawls really, really fast, and would love to be walking-running.  We spent some time with him in our long hallway, pushing the baby carriage that we bought for Syd for her 1st birthday (but now lives with us to share with the babies).  Here is Zach squealing with delight as Syd and my husband try to slow him down a little.

After Henry, Sydney, and Callum went home and Zach fell asleep, I took a few minutes to paint Zach's really cute little sandal. 

Posted by Shirley at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)