Laurelines

In Washington with pencil and brush

I'm closing off the month of November's sketches with some postcards from my trip to Washington. The Joan of Arc exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery dramatically shows the extent to which people project their wishes, needs, fantasies, and sometimes their own inner monsters onto celebrated figures. Joan of Arc has been revered, reviled, revised, resuscitated, repeatedly, over the centuries since her death.  She has been imagined as the androgynous, pious, heroic figure of the 1837 sculpture by Marie d'Orléans, daughter of King Louis-Philippe:

And as the fey and frail Joan of the Alphonse Mucha poster advertising the American actress Maud Adams as Saint Joan in a 1909 play :

The exhibit featured as well a few titillating Joans with scarcely a stitch on, but these, dear readers, I must leave to your imagination.

We had a quick lunch afterwards at the  Corcoran's charming Café des Artistes, where I spied and sketched a juxtaposition of female figures:

We took birthday girl C and two of her friends to Neyla's in Georgetown for dinner, where we shared a table's worth of delicious Lebanese and Mediterranean mezzas! A lovely evening.

Waiting at National airport today, I managed to do sketch number 30 for November, the last of one for each day of the month. Whew, and not a second too soon. December will be the last month of the Twelve Themed Sketchbook year. I will revisit each of the subjects I've pursued so far, making a couple or three sketches on each topic, 31 sketches in all, one for each day of the month. Can't believe the year is almost over.

One (good) thing after another!

Starting November 16th in our immediate family, it's one long succession of special days until January 4th. There's our wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving, C's birthday, mother-in-law's birthday, Christmas, New Year's, my birthday.
We're still feeling the after-effects of Thanksgiving in the kitchen.  I made my annual curry turkey soup today with homemade turkey stock, peas, leftover meat, some butternut squash purée and a few lashings of cream. Yum, though I say it who shouldn't.

Tomorrow is C's birthday and my husband and I are flying to DC to spend it with her. Today I tidied up her room after the Thanksgiving visit and sketched a little corner of that blue and yellow haven of hers.

At the Corcoran Gallery of Art, there's an exhibit of paintings, sculpture, illustrated books and manuscripts,  textiles and popular art related to Joan of Arc, so you know I'll be there tomorrow, sketching away!

I'm constantly thinking about my big art plan for 2007. I'll post the final version on December 31st, as I did last year. I'll be using mediums I haven't used much this year, like oil pastels, conté crayons, and, of course, I'll be painting in acrylics or oils, too. Conté forces you to work quickly and loosely, which I like. Here's a very quick recent sketch I made at a café, using a fat conté pencil.  Next time you come here, C will be officially a year older and I'll have some Joan of Arc sketches to show you! A bientôt!

Not the whole story

It is a harsh truth that she who cooks for and is a hostess to 20-plus people cannot simultaneously sketch the goings-on. Therefore, these drawings might mislead you into thinking that our Thanksgiving was serene and nearly depopulated. It was not those things. We had 12 children ranging in age from 2 to 27, a hard-of-hearing grandmother, three sets of parents from as many states, a Golden retriever psychotic with happiness at all the new people/smells, a cat with an attitude---and a truly festive time! Here, then, are pre-and post-Thanksgiving meal sketches, ending up with daughter C, just back from the gym, trying to book a train ticket back to DC and college.  

 

I hope all of you other Thanksgiving revelers fared as well! Added later: here's a link to a drawing of, and a post about, my daughter C from a year ago, just for fun. Click on thumbnails to see larger images!

Sleepy Sunday

We had a dinner party here last night and it was so much fun. A and E,  whom I'd last seen in Paris, were here, as well as several other lovely, close friends--the kind of friends with whom you can really just be at home, at ease, fully yourself.
P brought us some charming little tea candles from her recent trip to Ireland and I lit them in the early morning, in my studio---then I sketched them, what else?

We stayed up late and so today some members of the household have been napping.  Click on napping husband sketch to see larger image.

On a separate front, I resurrected this bronze figure I'd got at a flea market years ago to sketch it. It's not the fountain at the Place de la Concorde, but you deal with what you have, right?
Who or what this is meant to be, I don't know--- some sort of Valkyrie who's slain a tiny dragon? If you know who this might be, do, please let me know!

At the National Portrait Gallery

I made a quick trip to DC to see my daughter C, who goes to college there. While she was in Russian class, I went to the newly renovated National Portrait Gallery.
I stopped in front of a portrait of the suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton by Anna Elizabeth Klumpke and felt compelled to sketch this formidable woman with the odd coiffure.

Next, I was drawn to the stunning composition of this oil painting called the 'Stevenson Memorial' by Abbott Handerson Thayer.

Also on exhibit were the winners of the Boochever 2006 Portrait Competition, among which was this giant head hanging from the ceiling. I figure it was 8 or so feet high and 10 feet long.  The oil on polyester resin piece is by Nina Levy, and is called, aptly enough, 'Large Head.'

Before I left, I sketched another art supplies vignette from my studio. This is my container of odd pens and brushes. I was playing around with masking liquid (ha!) which I've only recently started to use. I couldn't help myself--- which is kind of too bad, since the ellipses leave something to be desired. But you, dear readers, must learn to take the bad with the good.

They're calling my name

Those paints and brushes...can't you hear them? I learned to paint with oil paints, in college art classes and after. My daughter C still gets teary when she smells oils and turpentine, she says. That smell is an express train back to her early childhood, when the world was intact and easier than it later became.
A few years ago, I switched to acrylics. My studio is right next to our bedroom and I didn't want to strain the patience (or health) of my then- new husband with turps, solvents, oily rags, too close for comfort.
For the past year and something, I've been concentrating on drawing and playing with watercolors. As this year's art plan nears completion, I'm turning, in my mind, to paint and board, to solider surfaces and brushier, thicker pigments. I can't go there yet. November and December come first.

Playing the blues

Paris is the City of Light and full of color, of course. Since I've been back, though, I've been bowled over by the brash, saturated colors around me here. Today, I've been playing with blues.
First, I painted Mission figs, similar to ones I bought at the market on rue Cler a month ago.

Then I painted a view from my studio, replete with blue and its opposite, orange.

I'll be doing a kind of visual inventory of home this month. Pearl cat has already appeared. Here's Abby, our excitable golden retriever, in a rare quiet moment or two.

Slices of life, the weekend

I'm in the middle of all sorts of things and, after the strict focus of Paris, am feeling a little scattered. One of the things that's occupying me is coming up with an art plan for 2007. The desire to return to painting and color study looks like it will be a major factor. On the practical side, there's all the reconnecting to family and friends, hearth and home, after a month away, with the holidays looming like a giant billboard in my consciousness.
I'll be posting sketches in batches this month. Here are a few from the weekend.

Kitty sleeping in heated circular bed, bought for her comfort after vet unnecessarily amputated her tail. Won't be going back to him anymore.

I woke up at 2am Saturday morning, thinking it had snowed. The full moon cast tiny snow drifts on the level surfaces of stone wall and gravel path outside our window, and spotlit the white blossoms of a Stewartia shrub.

Something tells me, Toto, we aren't in Paris anymore. Saturday morning at Foster's café.

And a plateful of gourds.

Bringing Paris home

It's been quite an adjustment, this coming down to earth! I'll be integrating the experience of October in Paris into my life here and my art for a long, long time.
Here are two cases in point. Unpacking, I found a box of truffles from Ladurée that I'd thought were sealed, but they were only wrapped in folded waxed paper. What a shame! I had to keep them for myself, instead of give them to the person I'd planned--- I wouldn't be seeing her for a few days and you KNOW what a bore stale truffles are. I'm very noble and selfless, as you can tell.

Yesterday, looking for a chest of drawers for my daughter's room, I found a lamp that made me laugh out loud. It's now MY little piece of figural sculpture, reminding me of the cherubs on Pont Alexander III and the whole company of fantastic creatures adorning the fountains of Paris. I've gone from the City of Light to A Room with a Lamp, in one day. This, too, is life.

One of things that struck me on my return home was how COLORFUL the world here is! All the leaves have turned and are so vivid and bright and the sky is so gloriously blue. I ran around in my pajamas in the garden this morning, cutting leafy twigs and a few flowers and stuck them in a jar.

Now it IS November and it will be a full month of family celebrations and trying to catch up on unfinished art and other projects. This is the eleventh month of my Themed Sketchbook year and I can't think of a tidy subject to work on. I've decided, therefore, my theme will be November Sketches. Just that---sketches dealing with my life this month. In December I will do 3 or sketches for each theme I've worked on this year. It'll be fun to compare those with the earlier ones, I think.

I'll never forget the enthusiasm with which you followed my Paris in October sketches. Thank you so very much--- and don't forget that life's quieter phases are worthwhile, too. I'm trying to remember this myself.