Category: Museum Sketching - Martha Kelly Art

Rainy Day in Paris

8/19/2019

The weekend was rainy, and I had a lovely time anyway. I went to the market to buy my favorite tomatoes, and then I had tea in my favorite cafe right next to it, which has a totally fun Art Deco mural inside. Just as I was finishing up, the heavens really opened, so I settled back in and did a second, quicker drawing.

With the worst of the rain past, I walked through sprinkles to get to the Musee d’Orsay and spent most of the afternoon there. I looked more than I sketched, but I did do this quick one of one of Pompon’s animals. I was totally charmed by this wading bird. Home for wine, supper, and a good book after. I had the leftovers from my yellow curry (see last blog post), so it was an excellent day.

The Frick

7/31/2019

I got to spend parts of two days in the Frick last week in New York, thanks to my membership at WAMA and its North American Reciprocal agreement with scores of museums. The Frick is marvelous. It's a stunning, yet manageably sized, collection in a beautiful home, and the central courtyard garden reminded me of the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston. The Frick has multiple Vermeers, a Van Eyck, Rembrandts, a stunning Constable (he's one of my favorites), a pair of Holbein portraits that I love, and a series of larger than life Whistler portraits that really grabbed me. I found a second hand book on Whistler in Venice a year or so ago, and I like him more and more. There was also an exquisite small collection of his lithographs and etchings.

It was much quieter than the Metropolitan, and with the modest size of the collection, I could see everything and still have time to sketch. I went back my last day, just walked up Central Park with my backpack and went straight from there to the airport. A perfect last day. This is my collection of two days' worth of sketches there. You can see that I had a ball with the Whistlers. I also sketched the garden a couple of times, both in my small sketchbook and in my larger watercolor one.

New York Sketches

7/29/2019

I've finished scanning in my New York sketches, so here is another batch. I spent almost all Saturday in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it was so overwhelming (and with so many people in some areas and so few benches in another) that I only did these two tiny sketches. I had a ball, though. So much amazing art, even with half the European galleries closed. I spent time with the Dutch, with El Greco (where I met a lovely woman at his self portrait and talked landscapes, art, and trees), with the Americans of Sargent and Whistler, 19th Century landscapes, and so many other lovely paintings. It was a blast. I sketched more in the Frick and will put up a whole post of those.

Other sketches were one more from the Walter Kerr theater that I forgot I had last post and from dinner at Becco with my friend Jennifer. This last one is a larger watercolor sketchbook (8" square instead of my normal, purse-sized 5.5"). I did one sketch out on the sidewalk and a little more as dinner progressed. I always like to draw a pretty dessert.

Dixon

6/1/2019

Memphis Urban Sketchers met at Dixon today, since our show is still up there. It was a perfect morning for painting outside, and I'd been meaning to get back out with my gouache and see how I could do outside, after those magnolia studies went well a few days ago. I'm working much smaller in gouache than I did a couple of years ago when I tried it the first time. I need some smaller brushes for it -- my regular watercolor brushes are too soft for the stiffer paint. But I had fun playing and feel like I'm on the track to somewhere.

I couldn't resist Ceres (at right). I always seem to paint her when I go there, but it's a much different image than my usual, more clear, watercolors.

After doing two in gouache, there wasn't much time, so I did one fast, small watercolor just to have the day in my journal as well. I was missing line and wanted to play with my green ink a little too. The two gouaches are on freestanding Kraft brown paper. It's always fun to sketch Elizabeth in her nifty sketching hat.

Spring Sketching

4/15/2019

The weather has been delicious for getting out and sketching lately. Memphis Urban Sketchers met at Elmwood, the historic cemetery in Memphis, which is one of my favorite places to go. I love the enormous magnolias paired with the angels and upright monuments. And then the Memphis Urban Sketchers exhibition started at Dixon, so for a third time, I have art in that beautiful museum. I went to check it out and see the large show of the usually in storage permanent collection there (they have much more than they can show regularly and still have traveling exhibit space). Of course I had to sketch While I was there. I’m always drawn to Ceres. I just can’t resist her graceful curves. And the tulips are fabulous right now.

National Civil Rights Museum

2/12/2019

My friend Melanie was visiting from France, and a huge part of Memphis history is the civil rights movement. The National Civil Rights Museum is a powerful and beautifully designed trip through that period. Last time I went through it had been redone, and I just digested it. This time I found myself wanting to sketch and bear a little witness to the brave people it celebrates. I worked in fountain pen with a brush pen that had a very light gray wash in it.

I think I need to go back again. I was still pretty overwhelmed at the whole experience and didn’t manage to sketch in the old Lorraine Motel section, the last part of the museum. I’d like to go on a quiet day when I wouldn’t be in the way and focus on that sometime.

American Print Exhibition

8/25/2018

A marvelous small gallery in Paris specializing in works on paper (always a fast way to my heart) has a marvelous exhibition of up American mid century prints. They had a fabulous selection. I’m a huge fan of Jim Dine, and I loved the pair of enormous etchings (enormous for etchings, anyway — there were plenty of even larger prints in the show), both from the same plate, with a number of extra brushes added in between printings. I love the way you simply draw into a plate and can change it so radically like that. For the prints I do, once you cut something away, it’s just gone. This is like magic to me. The other thing I totally loved about the Dine pieces is that he had two also enormous prints of his bathrobe that he titled self portraits. I have a profound relationship with my own favorite bathrobes (both winter and summer), and this was genius to me.

My 20th century art knowledge is considerably less than what I know about various other, earlier periods of art history, so I was unacquainted with Rauschenberg’s “Stoned Moon” series, done in the 60’s and based on the Apollo missions. I was blown away and will have to do more research into them. Rauschenberg, Dine, and Jasper Johns were all painters who got into printmaking by collaborating with print shops that could offer their expertise and large equipment and assistants to help these artists. I felt the same relief on learning that tibit that I felt when I learned that those exquisite floating world Japanese printmakers largely worked in watercolor and then had professionals to both carve and print for them. I feel like my work is clunky next to some of the professional printmakers out there, but doing it all by hand myself is satisfying. It may not be as perfect, but it is fully mine.

I saw other, more contemporary printmakers that I would like to learn more about, including Al Taylor, whose “Hanging Puddles” charmed me. I did a small study of it, and I also did one of Wayne Thiebaud’s exquisite sugared aquatint “Candied Apples.” The sugar technique adds a gorgeous texture in person. I’ve loved Thiebaud since college, and it was fun to see a couple of his prints in person.

These were all I managed to sketch on my first visit, but I think I may well have to go and see this show a second time before leaving Paris. I walked home feeling inspired to make more art, which is always the sign of an excellent show for me.

Mixed Media

8/17/2018

I wrote my last post on the Impressionists in London exhibition as a general take on it. But I saved one crucial piece to talk about by itself. In a smaller side room, portraits the artists did of each other, was a fairly unassuming mixed media drawing (above) by William Orpen of a group of artists (Rodin, second from the left, being the main reconigizable one). I was totally enchanted with it. I love the misty, deftly light watercolor in the background, the mix of line and tone in the figures, and the quick ink lines that go over the graphite and lighter ink wash. I’ve been playing with my brush pens again lately, filled with Sumi ink in two different strengths, but I hadn’t thought to mix them with both watercolor and graphite. I also recently unearthed my water soluble graphite I found and had enjoyed a couple of years ago, but it’s easy for me to get enamoured of a new medium or technique and let older ones go. This spring and summer I was working in direct watercolor or with fountain pen and watercolor (a longtime favorite). This one piece got me wanting to work more in mixed media.

I was so inspired I did two pieces before I even got home. I started with one page in my smallest journal of the abstract sculpture by the Solferino metro station. This was what I had hoped. I kept the watercolor to a light wash and then mixed graphite and ink (the heavier tree branches) for the foreground. It was uncharacteristic restraint for me, and I was excited.

A few blocks later I stopped again and did this second piece in my bigger journal. The restraint didn’t go so well, and I ended up with much more watercolor than I had intended. It’s so hard for me not to cover the page in color. But I do like the depth of layering ink on top, and it’s hard to see here, but the graphite has a sparkly quality that also adds a richness. One place I was happy with the restraint was in the buildings on the right. They’re just sketched in with gray watercolor, no drawing of any kind first (all that direct watercolor practice was really good for me), and I was pleased with the contrast to the more full foreground. I’m not unhappy with this one, but it wasn’t what I was shooting for exactly. As can so easily happen.

Then that night I went back to self portraits. I used just the pencil and soluble graphite and the ink for the first one (no paint), but the next morning I did one where I laid in the initial “drawing” in just the flesh toned watercolor and then finished with graphite on top. No drawing, all brushwork, and I managed not to overwork it. It’s different than anything I’ve done, but I was really pleased with the outcome. Stay tuned for more watercolor and graphite mixes.

Impressionists in London

8/16/2018

There’s a flat out marvelous exhibition of the Impressionists in London at the Petit Palais. My friend (Memphis urban sketcher and now a denizen of Paris) has a dual membership and kindly took me — and then left me to make my way at the glacial speed I travel through museums. Double kindness.

I loved the show not only for the art but also for the history. It centers around the end of the Franco Prussian war when Paris was first under siege and then in the hands of rebels for a while. Needless to say, no one much buys art under dire, wartime circumstances, so a number of French artists (and citizens) headed for London for a while, and a few stayed permanently. It was good to read how the early arrivals assisted later comers, introducing them to patrons and getting them teaching jobs. There is such press about how cutthroat the art world is, and likely there are aspects of that in the high market places, but I have found such a supportive and warm environment in Memphis with people sharing opportunities and rooting each other on. It felt good to learn about this group.

There were a number of gorgeous things in the show. There was one small room of three exquisite Whistler nocturnes, and there were many truly lovely works on paper (which I’m always excited to see), both watercolors and prints. I did a copy of one understated portrait etching by Legros with the lightest and most delicate of horizontal lines, just a bit varied, as the background. He also left the shirt almost completely white, except for a few lines, bringing all the attention to the face. The grey of the patterned background played nicely against the open space and against the strong detail of the features.

But what truly gobsmacked me was the five Monet renditions of the Houses of Parliament gathered together for this show. Usually they are scattered across continents. Monet did them all from the same vantage point, the window of his room in the Savoy Hotel. As an artist, that is a stroke of both luck and genius, to be able to set up and paint from the ease of your room. He had been unsuccessful when he first went (as a refugee from the war), and two decades later, he wanted to return and show London what he could do. I loved that as well.

I always look forward to spending time with Monet’s five versions of Rouen Cathedral at the Orsay, and seeing these together was a similar experience. I tried to sketch them, but my small and dirty travel watercolor palette didn’t handle the pinks and yellows well. It was still a good exercise for me to sit and study them and truly see the variations and differences. Even when a drawing doens’t turn out as you had hoped (which is often, even for professionals), you learn a lot from the doing of it.

Here is the Legros etching. I spent three hours in there and longed to do more drawing, but I was kind of tapped out and hungry, so I settled for two sketches (or six, depending on how you count them).

Museum sketching

8/8/2018

It’s been crazy hot in Paris lately. 98 degrees yesterday, so I decided to go hang out in the Orsay, since they have air conditioning. I did a lot of looking and some sketching and even a little knitting over my lunch break. It’s good to have a pass and be able to go in and out and appreciate a bit at a time. I got there early and really enjoyed the Impressionists before all the crowds got there. Then I headed for some quieter parts of the museum.

I knitted for a while underneath this St. George and the dragon statue and decided to sketch it after I’d looked at it for a while.

I really fell in love with this tiny Vuillard oil study, but I didn’t manage to do the colors justice. There’s a depth and a layering you can get in oils that just aren’t possible in watercolor. I enjoyed looking deeply at it, though, so even if the sketch isn’t right, it was a helpful aid to my seeing more about the original painting.