Paper and Threads

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.

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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. 

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I love watching seagulls.  As I have written here before, watching them unfold their big wings, and run down the sand for take-off, makes me see how engineers could figure out flight.  Even to the point where their leg "landing wheels" get pulled up.   I don't know the various types of gulls, but these were all a little different.  I can only draw and paint them from photos, and even those are hard to obtain.  The gull next to the ketchup bottle was picking through a bowl of shells left behind on an outdoor table. 

More Gulls:  This whole two page collection of gulls were from beaches in the Hamptons, and Martha's Vineyard. 

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I love making "paste paper" and spent 1 1/2 days last week making some with a friend for an upcoming bookbinding project.  Next week we are going to make portfolios, and decided that was a good reason for me to teach her what I learned about paste paper at Center for Book Arts here in NYC..

We used corn starch paste, acrylic paints, and Strathmore series 400 drawing paper per Lynn Gall in my workshop at CBA.

These are a few samples made last Tuesday.  The polka dots sheets were created using a 10 x 10 Lego Base Sheet as a stamp to create the design. 

These 3 books which I photographed on top of the above papers are examples of how I use these papers in making books.  From left to right: decorative papers for the covers of a Coptic book, an accordion book, and a wrap around cover for a small book with "perfect" (glued) spine.  I also use them as end papers in some of my watercolor sketchbooks.

bookbinding.   

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Yesterday was a gorgeous day near New York Harbor.  We had a cool breeze while sketching the model and the rest of Manhattan was really hot.    

We did 10 one minute sketches to warm up, and I actually liked one of them more than usual. 

The warm up sketches were done on newsprint with an 8B graphite pencil.  The rest were done with a General brand Sketch and Wash pencil (soluble graphite) and then finished with a Niji water brush. 

These are the 5 and 10 minute sketches.

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These are the 20 min poses:

The flowers in Wagner Park were amazing this week - probably because of the amount of rain we've had.  I'll post them after I finish the painting. 

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