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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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