Paper and Threads

My main goal is to develop better drawing and painting skills on paper and with dye-painting and surface design on fabric.  At the beginning of each year, I like to define new projects which will help me progress and then remain open to new opportunities.

1.  Take Classes:

Studying Under the Masters 3:  I really enjoy this online class and registered for it during 2015, even though I was saving the content for Winter 2016.   In the weekly videos I learn more about specific artists I know and meet artists I don't know.  And then I stretch my painting skills by copying a painting of the Master and subsequently using those techniques in an original painting!  Since I convert my copies of masterworks from oil to watercolor for each artist studied, I also experiment and learn an enormous amount in the process.  This is the last time this class series will be offered by Jeanne Oliver and the artists for this series include Horace Pippin, Joan Miro, Marie Laurencin, John Singer Sargent, Gustav Klimt, and Alisa Burke.

Sketchbook Skool Semester 5:  I think Danny and Koosje have created a wonderful model for art education and a committed community of artists, new and old.  I'm already registered for Semester 5 which is called "Expressing."  And here's hoping there is a 6th Semester in 2016!

Craftsy:  I just signed up for "Sketching the City in Pen, Ink, and Watercolor" by Shari Blaukopf.    

Battery Park City Conservancy "Still Lifes and Figure Drawing" with Marla Lipkin a new 9 session class being offered this year locally in NYC from Feb. through March (9 sessions).  

Fashion Institute of Technology  (FIT):  Registration for Spring isn't until the end of January, but I intend to continue taking classes there as long as their Senior Learner program is in existence. 

2.  Maintain a Community of Artist Friends: 

It is impossible to attend all of the art activities scheduled in New York City, so my goal is to attend a minimum of one activity/week - Meetup, Urban Sketchers, Battery Park City (May-Oct), Society of Illustrators, and to add other museum and gallery visits with my friends into those days.  I will also continue to post new entries to my blog twice each week to continue my interaction with and inspiration from artists online.   

3.  Bookbinding:

Continue to make my own sketchbooks - for daily drawings and for travel.

Create a tutorial for my pencil-pen pocket for sketchbooks.

Create another batch of paste paper for my stash.

4.  Special Project: I also like to have one separate project each year.  Several winters ago I sketched/elephants for a whole month using every medium I had.  Another year I studied different methods for making books and made a different type of book each month for 8 months.   This year I am trying to figure out how I can use some of the figure drawings I've accumulated during the last 5 years and transform them into an artist book.  I already transferred images to fabric using a different method for each Quilt Journal Page (8.5 X 11") I created.  Last year I made a small book of the Figures I drew in the Toulouse-Lautrec Café Society sessions at MoMA. 

Here are the first 6 of the Quilt Journal Pages I made in 2012 using hand-dyed fabrics.  I transferred drawings I made of a pregnant model at figure drawing in order to create this Mother and Child series in fabric. 

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A Review of Art Experiences and Learning During 2015: A Progress Report

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I am participating in Jeanne Oliver's second Studying Under the Masters online course.  Contemporary artists select a master artist and become their apprentice, researching their life, their art, their materials and methods.  They then copy one of their paintings to learn more about their style and use what they learn in a painting of their own.  Mary Blair (1911-1978) was an early 20th Century illustrator who worked for Disney and or was a freelance illustrator who was commissioned by Disney among others.  Parents the world over, will remember her Disneyland "Small World" exhibit.  

I copied one of her gouache paintings and posted it recently. 

http://www.paperandthreads.com/2015/04/_i_am_slowly_making.php

It took me awhile to finish Part 2 - my painting inspired by the work and style of Mary Blair.  My main goal was to again use gouache for the painting to get more experience with this medium, using bold colors, crisp edges and black outlines.  I chose to work from a photo that I took on New Year's Eve.

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I am slowly making my way through the 2nd Studying Under the Masters online class by Jeanne Oliver, and I'm enjoying it as much as I did the first one.  Master Artist #5 (out of 6) is Mary Blair and I had never heard of her before. 

http://jeanneoliver.ning.com/groups/group/show?id=6550528%3AGroup%3A134645&xg_source=msg_mes_group 

In this class, an apprentice selects a master who they would like to study, presents lots of information from their research and then, in the ancient art tradition, copies the Master.  In Part 2 they do an original painting using techniques learned when copying the Master.  Cori Dantini selected Mary Blair because she was one of the only woman illustrators in the early part of the 20th Century and created the images of Peter Pan, Cinderella, and the Small World exhibit for Walt Disney among many other famous works. 

Mary Blair did her concept paintings in gouache and Cori Dantini was anxious to experiment with gouache, when she normally paints with watercolors.

I selected a different painting to copy - and here is Mary Blair on the left and my copy on the right. It is the first time I have ever used gouache for an entire painting and I'll now experiment more when I decide on the topic for my Mary Blair-inspired original.  I used 2 Winsor-Newton triads of primary colors - one cool and one warm, plus white, black, and brown.

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I am slowly completing Jeanne Oliver's Studying Under the Masters, Part 2.  In this online class, contemporary artists study under a Master by learning as much as possible about them, their work, and their lives.  They choose one artwork to copy and then try to incorporate some of the skills and techniques learned into one art work of their own.  Each apprentice shares all of their research on video and demonstrates, in detail, their painting process.  I took Part 1 (9 Master Artists) in the Winter of 2013. and already enrolled in the final Part 3 class which begins in May.  All of my paintings are done from oils done by the Master and converted by me to watercolor.  I have a blog category with my copy and original for each Master in Part 1 and Part 2.

http://www.paperandthreads.com/studying_under_the_masters/

British Artist Robin Fingher chose Australian Artist Brett Whitely as her Master and I chose one of his ink drawings to copy because we are just beginning to do ink drawings with ink washes in my FIT Drawing Class.  I used my new flexible nib by Brause and struggled with some beginner issues with blobs - one close to one eye!!

These are the Master Drawing on the left (called Vanessa) and my copy on the right.

For my original drawing, inspired by Whiteley, I chose to recreate one of my figure drawings from the Toulouse-Lautrec sessions at MoMA. 

It was great fun combining ink lines with ink washes (as opposed to cross-hatching) and I did two drawings using the same technique at my drawing class this week. 

This was a still life created by our professor with 3 mannequin arms, one foot.

And this was one I put together for the second half of our class.

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