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I did the Memphis Maker Market, coordinated by Muddy’s, this month. They are the most well organized, hospitable show I do, and there’s always a goodie bag for participants. In addition to a couple of hot drink coupons to get you through the cold day, there was a gray paper sketchbook with a white and a dark charcoal pencil. Bought, beautifully, from our local independent art store The Art Center. I’ve parked it on my coffee table and added a larger graphite crayon to go with the smaller pencils. It’s been really fun to have an easy to grab sketching opportunity at hand for the evening. If I’m settling in to read, I try to do one quick sketch first, especially if Mr. Darcy is posing cooperatively. I don’t often work on toned paper, and having the white to add as a highlight has been really fun to play with.
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I had such a good time being back at the Rodin Museum the other day that I returned today. It’s my last couple of days here, and I’m spending them in my favorite museums. I started off at the Orsay and then went over to the Rodin for tea in the garden with my lunch and more sketching. This place always fires me up. I did the top one in my big watercolor sketchbook. I felt like getting out a real brush and really playing. The rest are in my small 5.5” book with the water brush. I sketched my tea because I liked the cute little teapot.
I keep going in and out of art and stationery stores here. Paris is one big Levenger store. I found a Faber Castell watercolor marker, and I wanted to try it since I’ve liked their brush markers so much. So at the right is a gray colored pencil, a green marker, and watercolor on top. I’m really enjoying colored pencil with watercolor. It’s got a broader stroke and more texture than just the basic (but easy and never-needs-sharpening) mechanical pencil that’s been my go to for a while. I think I may be converted.
I also tried the watercolor marker with more water, so you can’t really see the lines anymore. This one was with my “fat pen,” a broad felt tip pen that doesn’t really move with the watercolor, unlike my fountain pen inks.
I also tried the watercolor marker with more water, so you can’t really see the lines anymore. This one was with my “fat pen,” a broad felt tip pen that doesn’t really move with the watercolor, unlike my fountain pen inks.
Last was the gray pencil again with watercolor. It’s a fun place to try a bunch of new things, and I really love drawing Rodin’s statues.
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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.
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.
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I got some sticks of water soluble graphite on the advice of Ruth, who works at our marvelous local art store the Art Center. I’ve loved my tin of it, which I use with a brush, but I hadn’t tried the sticks. I love having an art store with local artists working who know and use the stock. I especially love not having to order and wait for days if I get a new project in my head. I had woken up with several new prints dancing around in there and went to buy the blocks so I could start right away. I’m working on them now, but in the meantime, here are the graphite sketches I’ve been doing. After all the packaging and marketing and reprinting of the holiday season, it’s good to get to do spontaneous art again. I’m so grateful for everyone who buys real art for presents. I absolutely couldn’t do what I do without you. But I’m also grateful to be past the push and with a little winter time to play with new ideas.
Speaking of presents, I got an email from Antiques Warehouse (a big, neighborhood antique mall that I love) that they were open on Christmas Eve. I went over there just for fun on my quiet holiday and found the mirror above. I’d hoped for one on a stand that I could use for self portraits, but this one was $8, nice looking, big enough to really see, and lightweight to move around in my various work spaces. A total win. I got it and the Royal Doulton teacup (bottom right) for my gifts to myself, and I’m enjoying both of them. I feel some more self portraits coming. I’ve missed doing figures lately.
Speaking of presents, I got an email from Antiques Warehouse (a big, neighborhood antique mall that I love) that they were open on Christmas Eve. I went over there just for fun on my quiet holiday and found the mirror above. I’d hoped for one on a stand that I could use for self portraits, but this one was $8, nice looking, big enough to really see, and lightweight to move around in my various work spaces. A total win. I got it and the Royal Doulton teacup (bottom right) for my gifts to myself, and I’m enjoying both of them. I feel some more self portraits coming. I’ve missed doing figures lately.
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After the SCBWI (kidlit group) conference in Nashville back in September, I got seriously back to work on the Mr. Darcy picture book. I've changed it a lot. It's no longer his Odyssey across the country but the story of his getting a home as a rescue dog. I also got excited about board books and created a counting book based on a walk we had this past summer where we saw one deer, two snails, etc.
The protocol for submitting a children's book is to make dummy books (handsewn with many rough sketches and a few color pieces to show what finished art would look like) and send them off in the mail. Art editors don't want a fully finished book because they'd like to collaborate a little and feel as though there is space to make changes. I took a moonshot today and submitted both dummies to Candlewick, my dream press. They were at the conference, so I was allowed to do that (as an attendee) without first finding an agent.
Above is an out take, one of the rough sketches in pencil and water soluble graphite. Below are the two dummy books about to get packed up to go. Fingers crossed. This is a whole new, highly competitive world, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The protocol for submitting a children's book is to make dummy books (handsewn with many rough sketches and a few color pieces to show what finished art would look like) and send them off in the mail. Art editors don't want a fully finished book because they'd like to collaborate a little and feel as though there is space to make changes. I took a moonshot today and submitted both dummies to Candlewick, my dream press. They were at the conference, so I was allowed to do that (as an attendee) without first finding an agent.
Above is an out take, one of the rough sketches in pencil and water soluble graphite. Below are the two dummy books about to get packed up to go. Fingers crossed. This is a whole new, highly competitive world, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
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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.
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.
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This is why I come to Paris. I see art and get excited about the possibility of working in new ways. I’ve been out playing around with the combination of watercolor, graphite, and ink ever since seeing the Impressionists in London exhibition. It’s not a purely Parisian inspiration. I’ve been following the work of Norwood Creech at home, and she mixes charcoal and watercolor and various paints on canvas. I also had a period some years ago of working with charcoal and gesso, which was great fun. Remembering that, I’m looking forward to getting back home and trying all this a little bigger. I’m so glad I brought a 9x12” pad this time. That’s larger than I usually work in watercolor, but I’ve been trying to up my size game this summer (which is helpful if I decide to pursue more illustration work), and the mixed media works nicely at that scale.
Two of these are water soluble graphite (done with a brush) plus ink, and the two colored ones also add watercolor to the mix. More to come...
Two of these are water soluble graphite (done with a brush) plus ink, and the two colored ones also add watercolor to the mix. More to come...
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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.
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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.
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).
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One of my favorite things to do in Paris is to go out on the weekends and hear my friends play music. Rene is an American who has been making a living in Paris as a musician about 24 years, and Stephen is from the north of England, here about as long. They both play with multiple people, but I love Stephen's marvelous bass playing added to Rene's wide mix of songs, and it made me happy they were playing together this weekend.
And not only together, but at my very favorite market, the Marche d'Aligre. Funky and off the beaten track. I scored a table at the cafe just behind them on the corner, had mint tea, and settled in to paint. (Above.)
And not only together, but at my very favorite market, the Marche d'Aligre. Funky and off the beaten track. I scored a table at the cafe just behind them on the corner, had mint tea, and settled in to paint. (Above.)
The next day they were at the Bastille market, a much bigger and bustling place. My favorite soap maker (I get the fig and raspberry scents) goes there, so I got soap and also hung out to sketch. Sadly, after doing a couple of sketches of Rene I was pleased with in the spring, I am back to making him look like a muppet. He's very nice about it, though. And I am pleased with that recent print of him and Dede, so hopefully I can do some more in that vein while I'm here.
