Figure Drawing: We were rained out for another week in Battery Park City, but managed to go to another site yesterday to draw. These are 5, 10, and 20 minute poses using a GENERAL Sketch and Wash pencil and a NIJI large waterbrush to spread the graphite for shading.
After seeing this exhibit presented on a PBS NYC show, I wanted to see it. TC Cannon grew up in the 1950s, and translated his native culture to the world in which he was growing up. He was an artist, a poet, and a musician, and all of these aspects of his work are presented in the exhibit, including him singing a song from Bob Dylan. He died of a car crash at age 31, but he made an enormous contributon to Native American Art in his short life. My friend and I both loved the exhibit which will close on September 16th,.
https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/item?id=968
This is a woodblock print he did of his paternal Grandmother, when she was pregnant with T.C,'s father. I love drawings of pregnant women, so it wasn't difficult for me to select the art I wanted to copy in my sketchbook to remember this exhibit.
A wonderful website with an extensive essay about TC Cannon, and lots of art from the exhibit, is at this site.
https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/art-revolution-tc-cannon
I'm working with a very enthusiastic and talented bookbinding student each month, and our projects for August were:
1. Make lots of sheets of paste paper.
2. Use the paste paper to cover binders board while constructing a 10 X 14 inch portfolio.
This is another sheet of paste paper that I made with a 10 X 10" Lego base plate and corn starch paste with black acrylic paint.
Inside: These paste papers were made with an adhesive spreader as a comb.
I made one portfolio previously using the instructions in Alisa Golden's book Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures, and Forms. The instructions were easy to follow again, 6 years later!
Last month I spent several hours with a friend, looking at the Exhibit in the Drawing Gallery, and surveying one gallery of small terracotta sculptures from 600 BC Cypress.
Rembrandt Van Rijn: There was one wall of Rembrant drawings and etchings in the 2nd floor Gallery of Drawings. These were two among many figures in an etching entitled The Hundred Guilder Print.
Cypress Sculptures: We walked through this section and loved the many cases of small terracotta sculptures from ancient Cypress. These were several that I really liked. Visiting the Met and sketching from the many permanent exhibits is my very favorite way to practice drawing. The paint was added later, although the guards never seem to comment if I use watercolor pencils and a waterbrush.
I sketched and photographed these flowers at Wagner Park more than a week ago. They weren't painted until we were at the beach again last week.
