Paper and Threads

Saturday we took our 6 year old grandson, Henry, to his second NY Philharmonic Young People's Concert.  At Kidzone, an hour before the concert, he was able to try playing a cello and a harp, compose a bar of music which was then played by a violinist, and watch Instrument Village play compositions by young composers.  While he listened to them for 10-15 minutes, I sketched a few of the musicians.

On Sunday morning, the Meet-Up Central Park Drawing Group met at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to sketch.  We started in the Greek and Roman Galleries with two 30 minute sketch sessions.  I drew 3 statues with watercolor pencil, and may still add water.

We then moved to the American painting exhibit - and I sketched a painting by Everett Shin, using watercolor pencils to add color.  Only pencils and pens are permitted in the Museum, so I surreptitiously added water with a Niji waterbrush, to paint it as we left the gallery.

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In Kate's "Artist's Journal class" we are exploring various media that we own or have never used and this week I sketched my whole repetoire of pens and the 3 watercolor triads that I use for mixing colors.  After documenting what I had, I decided to make a trip to NY Central Art Supply today to learn about nibs for dip pens and to bring some home to try.

Here are all of the sample pages done as over the last 3 days:

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Here are two EDM Challenges from several weeks ago.  One of my art goals for 2009 was to draw the EDM Challenges weekly, but I'm not as diligent as I was in years past.  I never did several of them, and seem to be late posting them more frequently. 

Here is my husband's lock for his gym locker and I think the only "coffee pot" among many in our apartment that I haven't drawn and painted previously.  This is a one mug Melitta coffee filter - which makes an acceptable cup of filtered French Roast coffee.

Now on to #250 and 251....

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This is a very busy week in our household - my husband and I do all of the cooking for family and friends on Thanksgiving (20 adults this year) and we're not getting any younger.  This year, we moved the venue to my daughter Rachel's apartment, but that meant that we were caterers - a new challenge.  But we didn't need to set up the apartment which was a wonderful help.  It was the year when all 3 of our children and their families were with us.  We have several hours of champagne with 7 hor d'oeuvres, then soup, salad, turkey, sausage stuffing, fresh baked bread, etc, etc, 

Tuesday: I bought great carrots to use for our soup and decided to sketch them while cooking. 

Wednesday:  I used fresh lime juice for a recipe and cut up all of the mushrooms for soup - and sketched and painted both of these while taking a break from cooking.

Thursday:  The day was a whirlwind, and after the guests left and the children were asleep, I sketched and painted my 2 year old grandson's stuffed flamingo.  He loves flamingos and entertains us constantly by assuming a one-legged flamingo pose and flapping his wings.  When my daughter came in the morning to pick us up with all of the food, he was hugging the flamingo and shared it briefly with me.  I would like to make this into a Christmas ornament this year for his stocking so none of us will forget this great stage.

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Yesterday my husband and I went to our grand daughter's pre-K class to talk about our ancestry.  All of our parents were born in the United States.  All of my husband's grandparents were born in Belorus and emigrated to the US from 1900-1908.  My grandparents and 5 of my great grandparents, were born here.  But my great grandmother, the only one I knew, was born in County Armagh, Ireland and moved here alone, following her fiancee, in 1887.  She was a really cute, very elderly woman when I was a child - somewhat deaf and never without her black cane.  

Here is a picture of Annie Ballance which was taken upon her arrival in New York City.  When I researched our family, I found her passenger list, which recorded 2 pieces of baggage - both of which I now own.

This is a picture of Sydney standing near the largest of her steamer trunks, which is in our apartment.  I scraped off the paper cover and stained both trunks 50 and 30 years ago - and have moved them from place to place since then.  This trunk has a wallpaper lining and glass top filled with family photos.  All of the quilts I made that are no longer in use are carefully folded inside.

I was delighted to finally paint both trunks as part of my journal page from yesterday - reflecting our visit to Syd's class.

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