Laurelines

So much to tell you!

Sunday was so busy that I can only tell you about parts of it or we'd be here forever, you and I.
It was a worldwide sketchcrawl day. The brief was to sketch the inside of your house.  This was all I had time to finish before the next thing happened.

I'd been asking my friend Moreton if she'd let me sketch her, so when she called yesterday morning to ask if it was a good time for her to drop by, I said yes!

Here she's writing an article on latest food trends while I sketch away.

Then it was time for Ippy and me to go to figure drawing group. So glad she'd found one, as the ones I used to participate in had all disbanded.

Here is Ippy driving us to the group.

Finally, here's a sketch from our drawing session. I used an 8b pencil on large newsprint. I forgot I prefer to use large graphite sticks for this kind of drawing. Next time, I'll remember. This model got himself into such uncomfortable poses, it was hard for me to draw him.  He looked like Saint Sebastian, or some other agonized figure.  For that reason, I left the circular mark around his head---my initial laying-down-the-shape marks---a kind of halo for his pains. In this pose, he also reminded me of the portrait by David, the Death of Marat.  His was a most lugubrious nature, that model. (Click on image for larger version.)

Ippy and I went to see another of our friend's paintings and new studio. I wish I'd brought my camera along so I could share images of his fabulous paintings with you.  Next time I will.

And so, dear diary, I went to bed early last night.

Careening toward the weekend

Thursday, I went to Ippy's for our weekly drawing session. She cut some mahonia branches from her garden and placed them in a vase of water.  She drew with charcoal on newsprint. I used pencil and wash on hot press watercolor paper.
While I waited for my cobalt turquoise background wash to dry, I quickly and loosely sketched Ippy drawing.   

Here's my pencil and wash  mahonia sketch. I've dripped some and splattered on this, just for fun. I should have made the background wash darker.  The splatters would have had more reason for being if I had.

The charcoal drawing  below is IPPY'S drawing from last week.  Our styles couldn't be more different.  Like me, though, she has several different styles she's developed. If you click on her  name above, you can see some of her other work.

Today,  I played around with my Kremer paints and a much warmer palette than yesterday. Kremer paints are very opaque, granulating and intensely pigmented.  They are tricky and delightful, all at once.

Memory made

From drawing one daughter in real time on Sunday, I've drawn another from an old photo today. It is a miracle. Like having my seven year old C back again, only seen in the colors and textures of memory. Marly noticed this phenomenon in the faces below. This way of layering and splattering is something I'll continue to develop, though I don't want it to devolve into a gimmick and it so easily could.
Here's Another small girl, the mother of my Ukrainian friend. Someone else's memory, graciously shared--- and then, at least in part, made mine.

Rainy Sunday

On a cold and rainy Sunday, it was heavenly to draw my daughter K, just back from an almost three week trip to India for the international public health agency she works for. She becomes the latest face in the 101 Faces Project. K can't sit for me as often as my daughter C, but she also appeared here and here. You have to click on those 2005 thumbnails to see  the complete sketches.

Yesterday morning,  I sketched a vase of tulips in the kitchen.  The flowers had seen better days, but the configuration of stem and fallen petals reminded me of one of those carnival rides in which the seats are on long spokes that go up and down way too fast. In a parallel, Scandinavian universe, Nina has recently posted a sketch of aged tulips. Hers look positively perky compared to mine!

Face time

With today's faces, I'm beginning to loosen up and play with my mediums a tiny bit more. This is one of the things I'd hoped for with this project. I have much farther to go with loosening up the way I envision it and with pushing shapes, marks, and paint. But this is a start. I also have been wanting to figure out a way to combine my love for drawing with my love for painterly effects. Here I've had fun flicking masking fluid from a loaded brush onto the paper. This kind of thing is not new, but I've never done it with watercolor before and it sure is fun! We'll see how all of this plays out as 2007 runs its course.

This face reminds me a little of Jim Dine's self portraits. The bald head and the full frontal pose account for the similarity, I think.

This little girl is another of the family members of my dear friend from the Ukraine. I think it may have been her grandmother, but I hope she will see this and correct or confirm.

Wish you were here

Hyacinths are among the earliest flowers I remember. My father brought them to my mother when I was a tiny girl. They made the windowsill a springtime place on cold January days, like the one we're (finally) having today.
They are among the most fragrant of flowers and the pot I placed in my studio this morning filled up that small space with their warm, sweet smell.   And with memories.

Sometimes it flows

and sometimes it doesn't. The past couple of days it hasn't. Whereas the first two faces went pretty quickly and were really fun to do, several recent efforts are littering the studio floor. I barely eked out two acceptable ones and this after many frustrated hours.
I've fallen into a trap I knew I might fall into---the compulsion to make a likeness, to make it perfect. I don't want to do that--it defeats the purpose of the 101 Faces project. But I knew I would fall into it from time to time. I'll just have to accept it when it happens and try to work through it. Besides, some days you're off, no matter what you're trying to do. It passes. And I DID manage to get a decent likeness in the top drawing, something I didn't especially try for n the black and white drawing.

A smattering of sketches, a heap of gratitude

It's been a wonderful couple of days--I can say that now, though I was worried and frustrated for some of it. First, my husband is now safely home after a non-urgent operation today to correct his deviated septum. Still, it was 8 hours in the hospital and you know that's not fun. While I waited, I sketched the lovely fellow waiters in the Surgical Waiting Room. If they noticed me sketching, they didn't let on. So I'm grateful to them. I'm also grateful to Danny Gregory, whose wonderfully inspiring book, Everyday Matters,  put me back on the drawing path a couple of years ago and encouraged me to draw everywhere, at any time. And I do.

(Click on sketches for larger images.)
Though the young woman at left below looks to be in dire straits, she was actually only leaning against a wall, sleeping, with a puffy jacket wrapped around her shoulders.

I'm grateful that I've started a 101 Faces project, because, though I always pay attention to faces when I sketch, I'm paying more attention now---and I think it shows in these sketches, do you?
I'm grateful that my friend Ippy and I are drawing together this year. My first effort of our project, a sketch of branches she'd gathered, is pretty tame, but I know I'll gather momentum and robustness as we go.

And I'm most of all grateful that the surgery my husband had went well. You never know. Here he is from a couple of nights ago, watching the news on television.

I'll post more faces for the 101 Faces project this weekend.
And on the Old World/New World sketchbook front, I've  arranged to spend a week sketching in Charleston, SC in February and a week in San Antonio, TX in March. I'll spend a sketching week in Quebec in early June. 2007 is moving right along!

About face

Faces, that is. I think I'm really going to enjoy and benefit from my 101 Faces project this year. I'm not doing a portrait series, but more an exploration of the face as a vehicle for emotion and meaning, and/or as an incarnation of light, texture and  form. Here are my first two faces of the series and I look forward to gaining a higher degree of playfulness and inventiveness with materials as I go along! The first is a  colored pencil sketch of a Botticelli self portrait and the second is  a pencil and watercolor sketch of a relative of a dear friend of mine. She and her relative are Urkrainian.

These and all the pieces in this series are/will be roughly 6" x 7", 1/16th of a 22" x 30" sheet of Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolor paper. This size will work well for a large grouping. I'm really excited about this project! Many of the pieces will be done from life, but I'm using all sources at my disposal!
I've mentioned my messy studio, so thought I'd sketch it in its current tidy state. This is exactly the kind of drawing I wouldn't have attempted before last year's month-long study of interiors! The twelve months of sketching various topics helped in many ways. Not that this is perfect or a masterwork, but I had fun doing it.

She's* feeling better...

...if the evidence on the kitchen floor this morning is any indication:

It was so mild at 8am that I sat outside in my pajamas and painted a chair bedecked with last night's raindrops : 

Later, my husband and I had breakfast, double latte and a BLT, at Foster's cafe, where I drew some of my fellow diners. Click on image for larger version:

I haven't started my 101 Faces project yet, but will establish a separate gallery by that name in the lefthand column of this page to hold the images. I'm still in the throes of getting my workspace organized and it is STILL a mess. It should be ready in a couple of days.

To answer a couple of recent questions: I draw mostly with an 8b pencil, because that soft lead gives my lines lots of fluidity and life, I think.

The friend who makes my sketchbook is Josh and here's his new, still-under-construction website.  He says you are welcome to visit and contact him.

*She is my daughter C, whose tale of woe appeared in the post below.