Paper and Threads

Kongo:  Power and Majesty

This exhibit just opened at the Met and the sculptures are very powerful.  I was attracted to the Mothers and Child and the one I chose to sketch was one of 4 created by the Master of Kasadi. 

http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/kongo 

And the New York Times Review for information:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/arts/design/review-kongo-power-and-majesty-at-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art.html?_r=1 

The Glittering World of the Yazzi Family:  The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York has a fantastic special exhibit of Navajo Jewelry created by the Yazzi Family.  I don't especially like silver and turquoise Indian jewelry, but Turquoise and Gold or Coral is gorgeous. 

http://nmai.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/item/?id=890 

Posted by Shirley at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I LOVE the Picasso Sculpture exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art and went with an out-of-town friend last week.  As I wandered through the 11 galleries, I chose random sculptures to draw - ones that really spoke to me.  He used many different mediums and before the exhibit ends in January I will probably draw/paint many more.

I sketched them in the museum and took a picture so I could paint them later.  They are not drawn to scale.  The Head of a Warrior is the largest of this group. 

XXXX 

Posted by Shirley at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When I was in the gardens in Wagner Park last week, I tried to paint loosely and without a preliminary simple pencil drawing.  I found it very difficult to paint the yellow flowers, and at the end I sketched one with my pen and then added watercolor just to remember the actual shape and color.  I definitely need to work on these using only a brush and paint. 

My homework after my FIT class was to paint an organic still life using 3 colors: Payne's Gray, a yellow (New Gamboge), and a red (Scarlet Lake).  I lightly blocked out the plant and sculpture and then tried to paint it loosely and with different mixtures to vary the greens.

In class last week we had 4 big animal skulls to draw, all placed on dark backgrounds.  My problems were many fold:

1.  I am so used to working small that my preliminary drawings were too small regardless of where I started drawing.

2.  I found it very difficult to simplify the skulls.  They are so complicated structurally, and I wanted to capture the different depths, angles, and holes.  Without those structural details they were just big blobs. 

The skull of the right, repeated slightly bigger: 

I'm hoping that I can work toward bigger drawings, and much looser painting.  This week our homework is to draw "a flower" and we examined many paintings of Georgia O'Keefe for inspiration.  I have a few beautiful, fresh sunflowers that I bought today, just waiting for me to paint one! 

Posted by Shirley at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

 September 16th, we had a model with the largest head of curly gray hair, and I've enjoyed drawing her at various figure drawing venues previously.  This time she used a big pink ball in some of her poses. 

These are 3 of the 10 one minute poses that were fun.

I put all of her 5 minute poses on one sheet of watercolor paper and used a Sketch and Wash pencil and my water brush to add gray tones.

I only had time for one 10 minute pose before I needed to leave. 

On September 23rd, I sketched the model on the right, middle, and left - and then squeezed in two more 10 minute sketches among the first 3.  The drawings were again done with a soluble graphite pencil and then shaded with a waterbrush.  Working out this composition was fun! 

Posted by Shirley at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In 2003 I began to think about retirement activities and bought a student grade set of watercolors, and then played with paints, brushes, and paper over the next 2 years.  I read several watercolor books including Cathy (Kate) Johnson's beginning watercolor painting book.  It was great fun learning on my own and when I partially retired in 2005 I started to draw and paint in a sketchbook almost daily, graduating to Winsor-Newton artist grade tube watercolor paints and better paper.  I've now been retired 6 years and still play with watercolors trying to learn as much as I can by "doing." 

This semester there were still openings for Seniors in the one watercolor section that exists each semester at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and I just completed my second class ever.  We are using Strathmore 400 series 140 lb watercolor paper (18 X 24") and I'm still using my Winsor-Newton paints. 

In the first class, we painted a still life with mixtures of only 2 paints: burnt sienna and ultramarine blue, using quarter sheets and a 3/4" wide flat brush.   

Class 1 

For homework we set up our own still life and did two 11 X 14" paintings, still using the same paper, brush, and colors. 

Homework 1

Homework 2 

Last night was class 2 and we worked on 1/2 sheets using the 3/4" flat brush and a triad of colors, to explore the virtues of Payne's Gray.  We could choose our own yellow and red, and I chose New Gamboge and Scarlet Lake as my other two colors.   

Class 2

This is a very well structured class, and our exercises are designed to have us paint very loosely.   It is great fun!  I also like working with some restriction on color, even though I always use a very limited palette of primary colors - because I love mixing colors! 

Posted by Shirley at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)