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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'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.
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.
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Memphis is agog over Hamilton this week, but I ended up at Hadestown on Broadway instead. Tennessee Shakespeare Company has an annual gala fundraiser every year, and the grand prize is a raffle for a trip to Broadway. I had one one book from the old Pinocchio’s Bookstore when I was maybe in 3rd grade, but otherwise I’ve never won a raffle. Apparently I was saving it up for something big. The prize was a trip to New York, two nights there, a fancy dinner out, and one Broadway show (not something as hard to get as Hamilton). I had recently seen Sarah Ruhl’s version of Euridyce and was transfixed by her retelling, so (without Shakespeare being really on offer during the summer tourist season), I chose Hadestown, a different retelling of the Orpheus and Euridyce myth in the form of a folk opera. It was also marvelous. Not as deeply thoughtful as Ruhl’s version, which I’m still really mulling over a year later, but a wonderful take nonetheless. It paired that couple with Hades and Persephone. The music was overall good, the dancing and choreography amazing, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and would love to see it again. My favorite was Hermes, an older gentlemen who looks like he walked straight off of Beale Street. My favorite thing about the play, and what is sticking with me, is the way it walks full tilt into tragedy, lets us mourn, and picks all of us up and says we keep singing the song, telling the story, and trying again.
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I got home this week, having recently done those two small gouache still lifes, and I was ready to dive back into oils. Here was the first one, just 8x8”. But it suits the tiny cherries. I don’t tend to blow things up too much. I’ve found there’s a scale I feel comfortable painting in, both for landscapes and still lifes, and it’s not successful when I try to exceed it by too much. Process shots below. I started with a gray chalk for the drawing.
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I was awarded a show at Playhouse on the Square for this September. It’s in the most visible gallery there, and also a much smaller one than the enormous, cement-walled ramp I often get assigned. I’m so grateful for the better visibility, and now I’m scrambling a little bit (since I’ll be gone most of August) to make sure I have a solid show. I’ve been enjoying the still lifes lately, but I’ve also been away from my easel. I decided to try a couple in gouache, and I had a ball doing them. This is a good travel project for August as well, so I’m tentatively titling the show “Daily Pleasures” and pursuing this line of work for it. I’ve got a handful of larger oils already, and I think I can fill out around them. My very first gallery show was still lifes, 20 years ago in 1999, so it would be nice symmetry.
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I’ve been out a few more times with my gouaches to do plein air landscape studies. It’s been fun because I’ve been able to go on my new bike. The first one I’ve ever had. It’s got a makeshift but perfect basket on the back that will fit my stadium seat and my daypack with the art gear in it. I’ve enjoyed riding out of town to places I can paint. Getting out of town and into the countryside is so easy here in this town of 700, so I’m taking advantage of that while I’m here. I’m still struggling to find the right brushes, but mostly I’m pleased with the painting I’m doing. I’ve also included a snapshot of me working out on the trail, so you can see the small amount of gear needed for traveling with gouache. The stadium seat is optional but comfortable.
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Alongside the gouache studies, I’ve been doing some more standard (for me) journal sketches along the way. Here are some from the last several days. Two of them were bicycle trips to the bakery to have a treat. I’m a late bloomer on a number of fronts, and I got my first bike out here. I never learned to cycle as a kid, and Concrete is a perfect place to catch up. There is almost no traffic in town along with quite wide streets, and best of all, there’s a green line that runs through the center of town (to within a couple of blocks of anywhere I want to go) and also goes out of town and as far as I could care to go. I can pack up art gear and take off on my new bike, a second hand cruiser. The next image has my bike in the background and bakery tea in the foreground. I wanted to record this moment in my journal.
Here is the view a few miles out the trail from town. It’s been my regular walk here, but I can go a bit further on the bike and paint new places.
Plus another blueberry pancake sketch from Perks diner here. A totally awesome place. Flower at the grill collects heart shaped rocks like I do and has begun to make me heart shaped pancakes when I come in. <3< />iv> 
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Is there anything better to do on that holiday than go cheer your team on in person? The St. Louis Cardinals just happened to be playing an inter league series in Seattle last week, and I got to go see them in a gorgeous park on a perfect day. Such fun. I brought all my Cardinals gear out for the occasion.
I did both sketches before the game started and then really just watched the game. Especially since we were in prime foul ball territory. I was happy to see (in the second sketch) that a number of Cardinal players were across the field at the visitors’ dugout signing autographs for more than an hour. They came and went a little, but multiple players were out there for a long time. Really nice and good public relations on their part.
I did both sketches before the game started and then really just watched the game. Especially since we were in prime foul ball territory. I was happy to see (in the second sketch) that a number of Cardinal players were across the field at the visitors’ dugout signing autographs for more than an hour. They came and went a little, but multiple players were out there for a long time. Really nice and good public relations on their part.
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I’ve been working on more Gouache studies over the last week. They’re all quite small, 3x4” or so, and done on brown paper. With watercolors, I squeeze paint into palettes, wet the brush, and then just wipe it across the paint. Gouache very thin is chalky, though. It works better straight out of the tube — wet and thick. Which means I carry a zip bag of all the tubes of color with me, but it’s still considerably less to carry around than doing oils on site. I like that visually gouache has the darkness of oils, even if it doesn’t have the gloss. I think these studies will have enough depth to do oil paintings from back in the studio, though I try to always take a photo of the scene I’m painting in case I need more information. Sometimes I remember.
I feel like I’m making progress getting where I want to be, and I think this might be my project in Paris this year as well. I’ve done a lot of the watercolors I want to there, and gouache will give me a new way to see the city.
The lights are still weak in some of them. Here are two of the recent ones that have worked better. I really have to be intentional to work up to the lighter values, since I’m starting dark, which is exactly the opposite of leaving them open in watercolor. The good news is you can add them in if you forget (which I often do) to leave them from the start.
I feel like I’m making progress getting where I want to be, and I think this might be my project in Paris this year as well. I’ve done a lot of the watercolors I want to there, and gouache will give me a new way to see the city.
The lights are still weak in some of them. Here are two of the recent ones that have worked better. I really have to be intentional to work up to the lighter values, since I’m starting dark, which is exactly the opposite of leaving them open in watercolor. The good news is you can add them in if you forget (which I often do) to leave them from the start.
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One of the things I came out west hoping to do was get more comfortable with gouache. I had started doing some forest studies in Memphis in pastel because watercolor just doesn’t have enough depth and value richness, but I wasn’t happy with the greens. Also pastels are cumbersome to carry around because I need an easel to keep the piece vertical while I work, and the pastel box itself is quite heavy.
Gouache has almost the portability of watercolor, and the same ease of cleanup. I carry full tubes of paint because I like to use it wet instead of reconstituted, but it’s still much lighter than pastels. I tried two years ago to learn to use it, and again I was dissatisfied with the artificial greens I got. This year I bought a couple more mossy, forest type greens to bring out. I was also trying to work as large as I do in watercolor, and that wasn’t going well. I notice that a lot of gouache painters I admire work quite small, so I brought a number of small bits of thick, brown paper with me (Stonehenge, my go-to printmaking brand).
This was my first effort, and I was pretty delighted. I could probably stand to have more highlights in the trunk, but the painterly-ness of it feels like oils without having to carry nearly as much stuff (and solvents) around with you.
Gouache has almost the portability of watercolor, and the same ease of cleanup. I carry full tubes of paint because I like to use it wet instead of reconstituted, but it’s still much lighter than pastels. I tried two years ago to learn to use it, and again I was dissatisfied with the artificial greens I got. This year I bought a couple more mossy, forest type greens to bring out. I was also trying to work as large as I do in watercolor, and that wasn’t going well. I notice that a lot of gouache painters I admire work quite small, so I brought a number of small bits of thick, brown paper with me (Stonehenge, my go-to printmaking brand).
This was my first effort, and I was pretty delighted. I could probably stand to have more highlights in the trunk, but the painterly-ness of it feels like oils without having to carry nearly as much stuff (and solvents) around with you.
