Paper and Threads

Cathy (Kate) Johnson was the Skool teacher this week and our first homework assignment was to draw birds - or other shapes - from nature.  We see many birds in the Café in Central Park, but they move very rapidly, too rapidly to see their coloration.  The lady at the next table was feeding them breadcrumbs last weekend and I was able to take several photos and use them to both identify the birds and paint them.  Now I see and recognize house sparrows everywhere in the City.

Our second homework assignment was to draw trees, creating depth in the field and varying our greens.  She has a wonderful YouTube video showing how she mixes greens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRj2XHS4Olk. 

I haven't ever had green on my palette and always mix them.  But I still learned lots.  Landscapes are my least favorite subject to paint and I was glad that I had to do this one if I wanted to follow our Semester 2 class lessons!

Last Friday I met my friends at Penn Station and took the train to Morristown where 4 of them had a major Art Quilt exhibit named Semper Tedium.  Mark Lipinski reviewed the exhibit and posted many photos on his blog - see this link  https://theslowstitchingmovement.wordpress.com/.  On the way home on the train I sketched Benedicte.

Posted by Shirley at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is week 3 of Sketchbook Skool.  I loved seeing Brenda Swenson's sketchbooks and looked forward to our homework - 3 drawings using Continuous Line Contours and then a contour drawing of 3 objects with a watersoluble pen followed by painting with watercolors.  I loved how her Tombow marker, in sepia, just dissolved into her painting.

We were supposed to draw one object, then two objects, and 3 objects.  I'm not very good at following directions, so I drew the first one with a regular pen and the last two with Tombow markers because I couldn't wait to try it. 

My assessment:  I can't really do continuous line contour drawings as well as I draw normally.  Figuring out how to maintain a continuous line was tedious - and in the second drawing you can see that I totally missed the real shape of the travel mug and did did a simple drawing in my usual style. 

One Object - Drawn with a Pigma Micron Pen: 

Two Objects - drawn with a black Tombow marker:

3 objects  - drawn with a Burnt Sienna Tombow marker and then painted:  This is the best of my continuous line drawings - and my double lines were washed away when I painted it.

The next day I tried to do the homework again and you will quickly see that I draw more confidently and accurately in my usual style. The smaller painted drawings were done out of frustration with the continuous line contours.  I did a quick pencil sketch, added pen, and then painted it in the same amount of time that it took me to go slow and do the continuous line contour drawing.

 One Object - Warm Up

Three Objects:

I did my homework in the Conservatory Water Café in Central Park, sitting on the patio with my husband while he did the NY Times crossword puzzles.  After the above two pages, I returned to my usual drawing and painting method and sketched the "bar" area of the Café.  Who drinks beer and wine at 10AM??

Posted by Shirley at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We finished our week with Koosje Koene in Sketchbook Skool and I did most, but not all of my homework.  Today I'm posting another selfie from a mirror, and one from a photo.  The first ones from a mirror and photo were in my last post.

We also were supposed to do two continuous line contour drawings from a mirror and here are those 2.

I didn't do #7 - which is a selfie from my imagination.  Since all of these could have been from my imagination, since the resemblance is questionable, I declared myself done with my homework.

Here is a picture of my daughter and I for comparison....

I think I will persist with these selfie drawings and paintings.  I was so inspired by see Koosje's Selfie sketchbook and seeing how creative she was - both with changes in facial expressions and props.  And as she says, "you always have a model" - and just need to think of it as play!  And I hope I will slowly get better at "seeing."

Posted by Shirley at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My husband and I love to go to the Conservatory Water early in the morning for coffee and some quiet time in Central Park.  This is the Conservatory Water, which is on the East side of the Park just north of 72nd St.  We call it the "Toy Boat Pond" because there are privately owned and rented remote control boats sailing the pond.

There is a patio with tables, chairs, and umbrellas, and a full Snack Bar and we sit with our coffee while my husband does the NY Times crossword puzzle and I sketch. 

This morning we even had soft live music from a keyboard and bass.

I worked on my homework for Sketchbook Skool - this week Koosje Koene is the teacher and the focus is "Selfies."  I took a photo from the beach this week and sketched my self-portrait in graphite from the photo. 

Yesterday I did my first self-portrait of this class - sitting in front of a mirror.  I look sad, forlorn, and worried - probably because I was waiting for the results of medical tests (which were fine).  I didn't intend to post it, but my dear friend, a wonderful art historian, said "I think if your self-portraits show those emotions, it's a testament to your skills and honesty as an artist.  So there!"  What a good friend!  So here it is -  

I also did a quick sketch of tourists who were eating at the table next to ours. 

Posted by Shirley at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We finally came back to New York City yesterday, after a wonderful weekend with our family at the beach.  The beach was sunny and cool with wonderful breezes and NYC was humid and in the 90s.

The first class of Sketchbook Skool Semester 2 was downloaded on July 4th and our whole family was housebound most of the day by torrential rains.  This is my homework assignment #2, which Danny Gregory calls "Fast and Slow."  You choose a complex object to draw and quickly paint the main shapes.  Then you study the object and slowly make a pen drawing - with all of the complexities - over the painted shapes. 

I wanted to paint a hydrangea bloom because they were blooming all around the house, so I quickly painted the cup shape with blue, the leaf shapes with a medium green, and the hydrangea bloom wet-in-wet by first brushing the area with clear water and then dropping in alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue.

I was actually pleased with the painting of the big shapes, so when I slowly drew the cup, leaves, and hydrangea petals, I didn't deviate much at all from the painted shapes.  I did however need to darken the leaves and add the dots in the center of each petal (Signo white pen).  I then painted the background. 

We always take 2 mile early morning walks on the beach and one morning the sea gulls continued to sit in a line as I slowly walked up with my camera.  I've read that the brown speckled birds are the young Herring gulls - and there was a great assortment in this line-up. I loved painting all of the colorations 

If anyone would like to paint these gulls from a hi-res photo, just leave me a request in the comments and I'll email you a copy.   Your email address is automatically seen only by me when you leave a comment, so it will be on its way to you quickly.

Posted by Shirley at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)