Paper and Threads

We were back at the beach with our family this weekend, and on my early AM walk with my husband I found an Atlantic Deep Sea Scallop Shell, my 4th in 9 years!  And my husband almost stepped on it as we walked.  They are large and beautiful, deep orange red in color and very flat.  This is a happy me!

I collect shells as we take our 2 mile morning walks - and most are the common midatlantic shell varieties.  My grandchildren  all learned how to identify them, and I stash the really good ones on a shelf in my daughter's garage.  On Friday my grand daughter Sydney and I bought a large jar to save some of these shells and she placed each of them perfectly.

My newly found scallop shell went on the very top less than 24 hours later!!.  These are my two sketchbook pages for the weekend - the scallop shell and one of the planters around the pool. 

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Tuesday was the final weekly Monotype Workshop at MoMA - all associated with their wonderful Degas Exhibit.  This was my 3rd visit to the workshop, and I wanted to draw more dancers. I scanned a drawing I did of my ballet teacher, resized it, and printed out several copies to take with me.  When I arrived at the workshop I cut out the image and manipulated it several times to make 3 prints and 2 ghosts.  Here is my original drawing - resized - and the cut-out which became coated with the Akua printmaking ink. 

I inked the printing plate and used my cut-out to trace the image in the ink.  Then I used Q-tips to remove more ink and complete the drawing.  This is the first monotype off the printing press.  

There was still enough ink on the plate to make a good ghost print, and I hope that I can rework the ghost  with ink marks, pastels, paint, or color pencils the way Degas did with his ghost prints. 

Three Dancers:  I pressed the dancer cut-out on the inked plate 3 times and used the vague imprints to add additional marks in the ink.  I also got a great ghost print after this monotype was printed.

For my final monotype I put my cut-out, which was now full of ink, on my plate and used a huge brush and additional ink to brush ink on the plate - with brushstrokes beginning on the cut-out and going to the edges of the plate.  I then carefully removed the cut-out and put the plate through the printing press.

The Museum of Modern Art is a wonderful resource for artists and this collection of workshops were very well attended.  Thank you MoMA. 

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We returned from the beach with our friends and sketched in Central Park and then in Lower Manhattan at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.  This sketch of Belvedere Castle was made from the lawn at the Turtle Pond.  We had sun alternating with gray rain clouds, but there were only sprinkles during the time we were there. The National Weather Service uses it to measure wind and rainfall in Manhattan.

We ended a walk through Battery Park City and Battery Park at the Old Custom House and it was my second visit to the exhibit called Unbound:  Narrative Art in the Plains  I was attracted to another piece of art by Lauren Good Day Giago, the only woman painter commissioned for this exhibit among nearly a dozen men.  These were two of the images created as a memory to here Grandfather. 

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We are almost at the end of our beach vacation with our friends, but will return with our family later this month.  And I continue to collect shells on our beach walks, and also sketched a beach scene and our bedroom for a little variety.

The item on the bottom right is an operculum, which moon snails use as a latch door over the opening in the shell.  The are almost translucent and have a beautiful structure.

I challenged myself to draw/paint a broken moon snail, but the internal structure is hard to paint to show the depth.

This was the view from the deck at the Café where we have coffee after our beach walk.

And after our beach walk, and during the heavy rain and wind, I sketched the bedroom we stay in at the beach.  It is primarily a happy memory page for me and a perspective challenge. 

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We are at the beach on our 8th annual vacation with dear friends.  I pick up shells on our morning beach walk, but rarely see any that I haven't found and sketched previously over the years.  But that makes these trips more memorable!

I made a new case for my sunglasses using strip-piecing and old scraps from my fabric stash.  The analogous hot colors make me smile!

I love watching the seagulls and managed to get a photo of one right as it was beginning to take off in flight. 

We drove down to the beach on Sunday morning, but it was raining and likely to do so all day.  So we went for coffee at Citarellas and enjoyed the time talking to local residents.

All of these sketchbook pages were photographed, not scanned, accounting for the pale blue background colors.

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