Drawing Class Resumes

Me and E in 2005. We lunched this weekend after TOO long of an absence. She'll be 16 next month.

Art class has resumed. I missed most of today's first class because a house came up that we had to scoot and see. We said no to the house, but I decided to show up to class even even though I was 1.5 hours late. Taking this class means a big chunk of my weekend is scheduled, which horrifies me. Altogether it's four hours of my precious weekend. How will I fit it in friends, cooking, hikes, exercise, downtime and my new romance with my husband?

To help, I bought a very expensive smart rice cooker and a second crock pot. I don't think I've eaten brown rice since I started my job. So now it's time for brown rice, and yes, I've gone mad with the slow cooker.

My dear teacher sprang it on us that we have to pay him an additional model's fee for the class. $100. He explained that part of the cost is getting better models from San Francisco, which made me laugh out loud. Isn't a nude, a nude, a nude? Apparently not. Some regulars shouted out "suburbia." Edward added, "too square." He told us about driving to San Francisco this morning and picking the red headed woman standing before us in "her birthday suit" (as my grandfather would say) at the Ferry building in San Francisco and driving down the Peninsula with her in tow. Then he announced that he had to end the class 30 minutes early because his car doesn't have any headlights. "Edward has transportation issues," another regular called out. I've seen his car, and it's a wonder he's as reliable as he is. His car makes my beater car with 138K miles on it look like a prize.

The man tickles me and I'm glad to be back in his presence.

We Need Not

Illustration by Maira Kalman

By generous, happy accident I was reintroduced to Maira Kalman. If you don't know her, really, you must.

Art at a Pediatrician's Office

Last week the happiest moment of my work day was a visit to the most beautiful doctor's office I've ever seen. Art everywhere. Fun art. The art of Sheldon Greenberg.

Not only was the art gorgeous, but wow, the doctor I was interviewing for my job, the fabulous Dr. Raquel Burgos , had style, energy, and warmth to outdo even the fab interior. Dr. Burgos told me that Sheldon's son got hit with a baseball and he did this painting of him. It's a big ole gorgeous piece (maybe 9ft x 5 ft).

More Sheldon art at this concierge doctor practice:





Pass me the paint brushes, please. And some bubble wrap too.

My Picks from Caldwell Snyder Gallery in St. Helena

Artists unknown. This gallery features artists from around the world. I might have to visit their San Francisco gallery soon.

More Art from Cindy's

Spotted in the bathroom at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen.

What kind of guesses do you have about how this was done? It looks like paper painted and then another layer of paper and paint on that layer. Type of paper? Process?

Elizabeth McKinney at Cindy's: Happy Days

One of the highlights of my weekend in Napa Valley with the cousins was a meal at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena. The menu looks simple enough, but Cindy Pawlcyn, best known for her Napa restaurant, Mustards Grill, breaks all the rules with nearly every dish she makes.

"Forget everything you've known about tamales," our waitress told us when we asked about this dish on the menu. She was right. [Big sigh] The meal was as refreshing and soul satifying as our day at Indian Springs spa.

And what is a good meal without fabulous art. Here's one artist work I fell in love with at Cindy's. I can't find anything about her on the web, but the staff told me he name is Elizabeth McKinney.

First Nude Model: Longing to See

Photo by Eliot Elisofon

I walked in the room late, and the nude woman moving on the platform made eye contact with me and flashed a warm, welcoming smile. I sat down and started to watch her as my teacher talked. We didn't draw for a long time. We just listened and watched.

It took a long time before I could see her. At first I could only see the image of her and process my own feelings about seeing her--my first experience with a nude model in an art class. She was no regular looking person; her body was startling perfect in every way, and she had a Brazilian wax. For a long time I tortured myself repeating, "Is this how people are supposed to look?"

She carried herself with the ease of biting into an apple as she bent over unclothed in a room of strangers. Yet she was shy about stomping her foot the right way in a pair of her sister's slightly too big boots for the first drawing/stomping exercise. She giggled and teetered and looked at us for support and approval like a self-conscious beginning art student making her first drawing or mark on the page.

Watching my instructor with her was a lot like my first experience at a nude beach in France with my college French teacher and his group of friends. Zero sexuality. Total comfort with the body. Ease with all kinds of body types. Of course, that's the French I'm speaking of, not me.

By the end of the night I knew her body better than my own and the only other body I get to look at in the nude on a regular basis--my husband's. I fear it's taken all these years and an art class to understand what I'm missing in front of my eyes everyday.

Motherwell-esque: "The Subject of All Art is Feeling"

Last night we started our fourth drawing class watching a Robert Motherwell video (yes, a video, not DVD) called Storming the Citadel (no YouTube clip to be found). Wonderful!


Only slightly familiar with Motherwell, this is is what I know of his work. Black as a color.



Last night I learned about the range of his work. He didn't get stuck in a style.

Back in the day when I sat in art history classes soaking up the lectures, I never imagined making my own art. Now I'm studying with a Motherwell-esque teacher who uses art history lessons of abstract expressionists as a jumping off point to make make our own work.

A recurring theme: "The subject of all art is feeling."

Last night's lesson: We started out with a pine cone, the backside of blueprints, and big charcoal. After drawing the feeling of the pine cone for 5-10 minutes (with music), we rotated to another person's "drawing" and drew on it to add to it and make it our own. We made two passes to each person's drawing. In the second round we added white charcoal; in the third, pastels. As we worked, he told us he was teaching us how to build a drawing/painting and how to layer. Ahh, I got it.

This week I'm building a vacation week before the start of my new job on Tuesday. My plans for a getaway have not gone as planned. But this morning I realized that I'm having the perfect organic vacation. It's unfolding. I'm building it layer by layer. And now I'm off to rotate to the next drawing.

Collage Inspiration: Paperwerks

Paperwerks, Abstract Collage I


Paperwerks, Scan 10001

Loving the simplicity and color balance. It works!

Does It Work?

Where to start after not posting for so long? I'm shifting gears to start a new job at the end of the month and in power mode. I've started to get serious about limiting my online time to do more of the things I want to do, and it's working. But I miss blogging, and I haven't read Design Sponge in weeks. That's a sign.

Let me catch you up on art class, which continues to be wonderful. "Does it work?" was the big take away of the second class. He showed us parts of a Rauschenberg video. Watch the bit below to hear Rauschenberg on "Does it Work?" with his famous goat.



The in-class assignment: self portrait collage using only art magazines. In case you've forgotten, this is a beginning drawing class. The best thing about the class is this guy has the ability to transport me. He plays interesting music, he tells seemingly meandering but relevant stories, he reads aloud, he challenges our ways of being and thinking.

The end result of my piece was okay, but not great. My answer to "Does it Work?" was "No."

Later that night after class, I couldn't sleep, so I got up and started over. I spent a lot of time editing--a good move. But then it seemed like I was overworking it. Too controlled. Still not working. So I randomly messed up the pieces on page and watched where they would land. I did it a few times until I felt that inner sense of, "Yes, it works."

It was the first time I felt a piece was finished and knew when to stop.

And then it was time to sleep.

Shades of Green

Sandy Ostrau, oil on canvas, Shades of Green

My knitting group hasn't met for a long time. I miss it. We're all off doing different things these days and still knitting.

Sandy has been painting and showing her work for some time now. I have one of her paintings, but I'm really thrilled for her she has a show in a gallery in San Francisco for the first time. I love how her work has become more and more abstract. Yummy colors.

Flying with a Big Chunk of Charcoal

Last night's beginning drawing class started with the inspiration of Jim Dine's charcoal wall drawings from this movie.

This class is my third attempt to find the right teacher to learn drawing. Bingo! I'm so happy I followed my sense that the right approach would make all the difference for me. He'd call his approach expressionistic; I'd call it drawing from the body--something I understand deeply.

I was both amused and surprised when he'd stop the class and say, "Woman in the green. Keep drawing and everyone watch her." And then say, "See how she's moving from her hips." Later he did it again, "See how she's moving with her whole shoulder."

Working with big charcoal, by the end of evening, we had all drawn the person sitting across from us multiple times. He'd have us stop and then erase it with a paper towel and start over. As we drew, he read from Robert Cohen's Acting One and told a few stories. There was a lot about good decisions and bad decisions. Good decisions, scare you. Good decisions....I don't remember, but all the words were just right taking me deeper into my process, emboldening me to step out farther and farther on the limb, and giving me permission to put aside my tentativeness. I drew with abandon and joy and at the same time processed the challenges I traversed this week in my marriage and understood what I needed to go forward for my second round of interviews on Monday for a job I'd like.

I fell in love with the person sitting across from me. How wonderful it is to just look at someone and see! No judgment. Absolute presence. I fell in love with her wrinkles, the circles under her eyes, and the curls at the corners of her eyes and lips. I ended up with a de Kooning-eque drawing, which both looked like a person and pleased me. I made her eyes much too large, but somehow it felt just right for my level of skill and what her face said to me. And besides, I'm not interested in drawing representational art.

I'd show you, but I showed my husband last night and it was a mistake. It's that little problem of expectations.

Encaustic & Charcoal Minimalism

Amanda Kavanaugh, Lowe's parking lot


Amanda Kavanaugh, Loneyville

Charcoal and encaustic, oh my. My heart goes pitter patter.

Thanks Painted Fish Studios for sharing Amanda's work.

Sally's Paintings

There's an amusing discussion going on over at isuwannee about how easy it might be to whip out an abstract painting. Jamie, queen of the one-line, pithy blog post, led me to Sally King Benedict.



I'll take ten, please.



One is too hard to choose.



I'll need more rooms.



With a bed in each room.

Hang the painting to the right.

I'll need to lie next to it to touch it with my eyes

for hours on end,

day after day.

Fun with Decoupage

Vanessa brought over some little boxes to paint and decoupage on Saturday. Fun to get reacquainted with this lost 70s craft.

Vanessa's: paper doll theme.





Mine

The Kindness of Blogger, Painted Fish Studios

Look what came in the mail yesterday from St. Paul.



One day I commented on this post how much I loved these stones. The next thing I knew Jen asked me for my address and said she wanted to send me some stones. Wow! And here they are:



Only a few months ago, I found Jen's blog when I made these bowls.

The stones are soft and flat. Like a meditation stone, they're a sensory pleasure--visually appealing and grounding to hold and circle my thumb across the surface.

Check out Jen's etsy shop and her blog. She serves up a daily visual delight.

A Summer of ARTnics

ARTnicing and looking so 19th century on a leisurely Saturday afternoon.



I'm becoming an expert at portable art studios transported in swirly canvas bag.

Jessa and her two little ones visited from Annapolis this week. We took them to the park for an afternoon of play and art. All this fun peaked the curiosity of three other kids in the park and the next thing you know yours truly was conducting a summer art camp, which was fine for about five minutes until one little girl started demanding more and more art supplies like an insatiable monster and then became Attila the Hun when I denied her.

"Where is your mother?" we said. And, of course, mother was no where to be found.

In one of the sweeter moments, our friend, Miss A, on the right did some face painting.


Attila gave us another shock when we moved to the playground. Here's my hubby, who I refer to as Roger these days--as in Roger Sterling in Mad Men.


Okay, hubby is no spring chicken, but we both nearly fell over when Attila yelled out from the swing set, "I want the grandpa to push me."

Collage: The point is.....Randel Plowman

Collage artist Randel Plowman in this The Artist's Life article says,

"Having a conversation with the piece is the point. You can't speak too much to it. You have to listen."





This is nice conversation:
Can you hear the pause? Feel the breeze?
The sweet sound of listening?



Oh, and there it is:
a quiet, thoughtful response.

Tulsa Time, Plowman

Encaustic Painting from Vanessa: Mt. Tam

Look what Vanessa made for me:


Encaustic painting on wood panel



She used a Tom Killion woodblock print of Mt. Tamalpais as inspiration for the painting. I found Killion's work in an article Bay Nature did on his woodprints and passed it on to her, not knowing that I might be the lucky recipient of her work. I believe this is Vanessa's third encaustic work since she started heating wax and mixing pigments.

She's thinking of setting up an etsy shop. Don't you think she should?

Collage Inspiration & Happinomics

Denise Falk Collage , spotted at Denise Sponge

I'm inspired by how this artist uses whole pieces of vintage pieces in a collage. It appeals to the part of me that wants to preserve the whole of these vintage gems.

Pam sent me this fun piece of writing, Happinomics by Clay Williams, on his experimentation with Dr. John Helliwell's theory that increased social interaction increases our happiness quotient. Perfect timing. Here's a sneak peak of some favorite parts:

"The woman sitting opposite me on the #4 Powell bus is wearing a leather bomber jacket and stylized Armani glasses. Her fingers are crossed over the wooden handle of a corduroy shoulder bag. The words "PURL" and "KNIT" are tattooed across her knuckles in the same gothic lettering that Tupac Shakur used to tattoo "OUTLAW" on his forearm. I'm about to talk to someone who is, apparently, a gangster knitter."

And later:

"Ten minutes later, the bus pulls up to my stop. At the door I turn and say, “I like your tattoos.” She removes her iPod buds and looks up at me (hazel eyes. I love hazel eyes). “Thank you,” she says, a smile dancing at the edges of her lips. As the bus pulls away from the curb, I record a happiness level of seven into my logbook.[1]"

Yeterday after a glorious Whole Body Focusing class in Mill Valley, I had the opposite experience at a Mill Valley gas station. Never in my life have I had so many people honking their horns at me and others at a gas station. I finally lost my cool after the fifth incident when the horn-honking Prius owner pulled up beside my car, rolled down her window and started to chew me out because she couldn't tell that I was pumping gas while sitting in my car. The irony of the conclusion to my body bliss day was beautiful.