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Here is a sneak preview of my Skyward show that opens next Friday night, November 3rd, from 6-8pm at Eclectic Eye (242 S. Cooper in Memphis). I'll have more than these, but I decided to put up the first batch on my website today.
I've been doing massive amounts of computer work the last few days, which is never as much fun as making art, but I did manage most of a new, small painting for the show next week as well. I've been working to get more serious about an email list. I've always collected them on my paper mailings lists at shows, but I have a printing press I'm in love with, so I haven't been that serious about using email. However, all of the book publishing/marketing emails I've been listening to lately (I'm thinking ahead to the Mr. Darcy book while I paint for the fall show) have really emphasized the importance of an email newsletter. So I've decided to join the 21st Century and dive in, at least occasionally, when I have shows or other important news.
If you'd like to receive an occasional newsletter, please sign up here:
I've been doing massive amounts of computer work the last few days, which is never as much fun as making art, but I did manage most of a new, small painting for the show next week as well. I've been working to get more serious about an email list. I've always collected them on my paper mailings lists at shows, but I have a printing press I'm in love with, so I haven't been that serious about using email. However, all of the book publishing/marketing emails I've been listening to lately (I'm thinking ahead to the Mr. Darcy book while I paint for the fall show) have really emphasized the importance of an email newsletter. So I've decided to join the 21st Century and dive in, at least occasionally, when I have shows or other important news.
If you'd like to receive an occasional newsletter, please sign up here:
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I always seems to do self portraits in Paris. I walk a lot on my own and think, and self portraits seem to be an instinctive part of my self examination process. I did several watercolor ones while I was there, but I had the idea for this one near the end of the trip and took a few photos to help me do it in oils when I got home. My November show is called "Skyward" (a collaboration with Melissa Bridgman), and I decided it would be neat to have a figural piece or two as well as just landscapes. I've been enjoying oils on paper tremendously since I got home.
I took some photos as I painted, as I have been remembering to do lately, so here's the behind the scenes peek.
I took some photos as I painted, as I have been remembering to do lately, so here's the behind the scenes peek.
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I got home and had a frenzy of painting, but I haven't been keeping up here. Here is my favorite sky so far, a view from the place where I stay in Paris. I've also got two that are partly done but not fully finished yet below.
I'm hoping to get back and balance these two and start a couple of more I have banging around inside my skull here soon. It's been funny to have all these images I want to paint duking it out in there to see who gets out onto the paper next. It's lovely and creative feeling, and I'm grateful not to be in a place of artist block. Now I need to stop working on a few other things (like the calendar) and get back to my easel.
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I had a couple of quiet days on my own at the end of my Paris trip. Some of that, of course, was packing madly, because I acquired too many art books plus a framed print plus a little bit of breakable tea crockery, so it was more challenging than usual.
I knew I would be coming home to working hard on my fall shows, so I gave myself permission to really have a little bit of vacation --- sleeping in and lingering over tea in the beautiful apartment I stay in and going to the Musee d'Orsay to sit with my favorite pieces. I also had tea a couple of afternoons in Le Lithographe, the cafe just across from my building there. I'd been wanting to paint inside (usually I would sit out on the sidewalk to watch Paris go by) where there was a lovely tiled Art Deco piece next to the bar. I painted it small the first day, and since I'm thinking about Art Deco ornamentation a good bit at the moment (thanks to one of the art books I bought), I went back and painted a second time with more detail.
I knew I would be coming home to working hard on my fall shows, so I gave myself permission to really have a little bit of vacation --- sleeping in and lingering over tea in the beautiful apartment I stay in and going to the Musee d'Orsay to sit with my favorite pieces. I also had tea a couple of afternoons in Le Lithographe, the cafe just across from my building there. I'd been wanting to paint inside (usually I would sit out on the sidewalk to watch Paris go by) where there was a lovely tiled Art Deco piece next to the bar. I painted it small the first day, and since I'm thinking about Art Deco ornamentation a good bit at the moment (thanks to one of the art books I bought), I went back and painted a second time with more detail.
I also did a couple of more sketches in the Orsay. They move their paintings around a lot and swap things out. One of my favorite Odilon Redon pieces was gone (one of my favorite pieces period there), but this double panel was new to me this year, so I sketched it. As was the Vuillard, who painted a woman sketching with that hallmark "sketch face," as a friend of mine calls it.
One other thing I did was got myself one last cup of Angelina's hot chocolate and carried it into the Tuileries to sit and drink and (apparently) sketch. It was a lovely send off from a city I love and hope to return to next year.
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I've been taking some day trips out of Paris lately and went back to Chartres, where I hadn't been in five years, since my first time in France. It was good to be there again and to think of the changes in my life since I first had my feet on the labyrinth. It's also a lovely town, and I got a pot of tea and sketched the two very different towers after coming out of the church. I didn't paint any of the gorgeous Medieval glass, but it is an amazing part of the visit.
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My friend Jill and I went to Giverny her last day here. I hadn't been before, and it was stunning. My dad has been telling me I needed to get there, and I'm glad I did. It's always powerful to stand in the spaces artists you admire have painted in, and seeing Monet's home so beautifully intact gave me a further feeling for the man. One tremendous surprise was his collection of Japanese prints hung all over the house. The Impressionists were the first group of painters who had access to the exquisite woodblock prints of Hiroshige and his contemporaries, and it made a huge impact on their art. Getting to see the specific prints Monet lived with and was inspired by was enormous for me.
We didn't have a huge amount of time, and it got flooded with people as the morning went on, but I did have to do just one sketch of the beautiful colors he used in his home. I now want a yellow kitchen. I'm adding in some of my photos too, just to show the beauty of the place.
We didn't have a huge amount of time, and it got flooded with people as the morning went on, but I did have to do just one sketch of the beautiful colors he used in his home. I now want a yellow kitchen. I'm adding in some of my photos too, just to show the beauty of the place.
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I spent a week up north in the first apartment I ever came to here with my usual cat sitting gig. It was great to be back in that neighborhood again, and I did a bit of painting to celebrate that time. A couple of more self portraits (including a slightly meta sketch at right of the one above plus my Paris teapot and a second hand rose my friend Rene gave me that had been left in his tip box while he busked. Amazingly it perked up when I got it home and in water. I also painted the view out the window and Dusty, the resident cat.
Dusty is a pretty active cat, so I could only manage a brief kind of gesture sketch. She's got many more lovely stripes than I managed to capture, but I'm also trying not to overwork pieces here. I get too caught up in details sometimes, and drawings lose their energy. I'm trying to use my Paris sketches as a time of correction back in the other direction, even if some of them end up very impressionistic indeed.
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My self portraits last year began with one in this window, and I really wanted to do one for this year as well. It's a stunning place that I love spending time in. It's also a nice book end to the series that began last year. I don't have another one in mind, though more may appear as I go through the trip. At the moment, though, I'm back to working on the Mr. Darcy book, which feels great. I also have friends visiting, so I'll be spending a bit less time making art and a little more time on vacation this week.
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One of my favorite things to do in Paris is hang out with my friends Rene Miller and Stephen Harrison while they play. Rene is from Louisiana and plays masterful slide blues on an old metal resonator guitar, but he mixes in all kinds of other songs as well and always makes them his own. I so admire that about his performances. He's also been playing on the street here for 25 years or so and is an unflappable master of accepting all kinds of odd happenings and weaving them into the show. Stephen is a fabulous bass player (touring with various folks as well as playing with the orchestra here), and he joins Rene when he's in town. They're magic together.
This past weekend they were set up on the bridge by Hotel de Ville, and I spent chunks of both days sitting out on a park bench and listening and chatting with them and watching the people watch them. And sketching. Of course.
This past weekend they were set up on the bridge by Hotel de Ville, and I spent chunks of both days sitting out on a park bench and listening and chatting with them and watching the people watch them. And sketching. Of course.
I was using a Pentel dark, smallish brush pen. I've been wanting to work on my people, since I'm enjoying the idea of more illustration, so I did a ton of gestures sitting out there through the Sunday midday.
I was also kind of fascinated by their shadows extending towards me and did a couple of quick watercolor sketches, one with the bridge railing in it and one without.
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I got used to showing Mr. Darcy's trip this spring by drawing him doing different things. I'm not being as organized about it, but I'm also enjoying drawing myself in bits of my own trip this time. I've been looking at all kinds of paintings of women "a la toilette" in the Orsay -- by Morisot, Degas, Cassat, and many more. It was a popular theme, and I absolutely love the tiles in the bathroom here, so this morning I decided to have a go at doing my own version. I'm also still working on getting better at people, and I'm a willing, free, and available model for myself.
This evening at dinner I also wanted to remember a sweet moment from my long walk home. I stopped in a bakery I like but don't go to often enough for them to know me, and I asked for the smaller version of the pain au chocolat. The baker, bless him, seemed to think that I needed fattening up and added a mini croissant, "un petit cadeau," to my bag. That kindness made me smile for blocks, so I did a sketch when I got home.
This evening at dinner I also wanted to remember a sweet moment from my long walk home. I stopped in a bakery I like but don't go to often enough for them to know me, and I asked for the smaller version of the pain au chocolat. The baker, bless him, seemed to think that I needed fattening up and added a mini croissant, "un petit cadeau," to my bag. That kindness made me smile for blocks, so I did a sketch when I got home.
