Paper and Threads

EDM Challenge #146:  My two favorite foods are good bread and ice cream and I could have both for supper and call it a wonderful meal!  This is a Skinny Cow mint and chocolate fudge ice cream cone that I sketched and painted really quickly before I ate it.

EDM Challenge #147:  Draw Something Wood

This small wooden box has inlaid black marble squares and one brass square on the top. 

EDM Challenge #148:  Draw Something Soothing

This Christmas Door Doll, that is 20 + years old, is wearing a Tara Aromatherapy Neck Wrap that was given to me by my daughter last weekend as an early Christmas present.  It gets heated in the microwave for 2 minutes and then provides at least an hour of moist heat to your neck muscles - relieving all computer strain.

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One of my Art Goals for 2007 was to sketch more figures.  These are my journal pages for November.

Gesture Drawings:  Passenger in airport terminal, an actor in a one woman play about Elizabeth Blackwell, and a ballet class member warming up.  I find it really difficult to sketch almost constantly moving figures!

Dancers:  Only one dancer sketch from a photo this month - done in the Cafe after ballet class.

Nude Figures:  from my Artists' Visual Reference photo book:

Several Faces as a prelude to ART GOALS 2008:  The first is from the front of my edition of Madame Bovary - my Book Groups' November book for discussion.  The second are two faces I did from my Cezanne Basel Sketchbooks.

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While my husband and I were preparing dinner for our 15th Annual NYC Family Thanksgiving holiday, cousins were balloon handlers for the giant Snoopy balloon in the Macy's parade.  This sketch was taken from a photo on the front page of the New York Times yesterday - showing the Kermit balloon floating down the Avenue.  We learned that it is really hard work!

Yesterday my 88 year old mother and I took the 5th Avenue bus down to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas decorations and the annual tree.  Although it won't be lit until Wednesday night, the lights are already on the tree and the entire area around the skating rink is beautifully decorated and full of visitors.  This sketch was made from a photo that I took of one of the 3 soldiers on the north border of the rink.  It was really cold and outdoor sketching just wasn't going to happen!

I love the Christmas decorations in New York City - and even don't mind the crowds.  My, mother, who hasn't been in NYC for the holidays for many years, had a wonderful time.  She's amazing and kept up beautifully!

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I'd rather sketch 10 buildings - or many figures in motion rather than sketch and paint a tree.  So this was definitely a stretch for me!  I love the gold-orange-red trees of autumn so I take many photographs on my walks.  This tree was on the sidewalk across the street from my son's house in Capitol Hill in Washington DC.  I had no time to sit outside this week and paint, so I was happy to have my recent photo.

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It was difficult for me to find something square in my apartment.  I have a kitchen timer and a square alarm clock, but I kept looking for something else.  Then I found an old 3 1/2" computer disk and disk holder - near my stash of transparent tape which is in a square red package.   In this age of CDs, DVDs, and flash drives, I haven't carried computer files on a diskette in more than 2 years, so I sketched the diskette as a ghost. 

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