Learning to Paint: Again

Mostly I draw. But through the years I have

occasionally painted, each time learning a bit more.

 I recently studied someone's gallery painting

because I had to write a poem in response to it.

Oooh, the craving to paint without my ink lines was sparked.

This is Day #1 of a new 5.25 X 3.5 " WCbook. From a photo 

I took in Acadia National Park, 2024

Rules: 

1. No ink lines but pre-pencil design OK.

2. Subjects: WC interpretations of Anything

3. Work fast, with little judgement & deliberation

4. Make notes about what I learned

Sharing A Bit of What I've Been Up To

I miss the blog world that I was so 

involved with. So I thought I'd share 

just a little of what I've been up to. 

I still journal with sketches

 in fact, I have several journals going. 

But they are more private 

than the old drawings I used to post here.

Here is a sample.

I've been studying beginning Italian for Travelers,

as well as advanced French.

If the world will permit me, I hope to go to Europe

one more time.

I make little flashcards & study aids for the Italian.

It's a beautiful language, but it's new.

I recognize words, but I'm not memorizing them 

as quickly as I would like.

I've been playing around with my watercolors & colored pencils, 

creating postcards for friends. Valentine's Day.

Some one introduced paper weaving to my art group. 

It was fun to play with my painted papers, like a kid in a grade school art class.

Lately, I'm reading books about art & making notes in my Art Learning Journal. A friend & I have formed a mini study group, we give ourselves assignments. This reading in Affirmations for Artists sparked some good personal writing. 

With spring on the way, going sketching outdoors is moving into the forefront again. With Covid maybe out of the way I'm hoping for some new adventures out in the world.I hope your lives are getting back to normal & that adventures await you!

PS I wasn't able to leave comments on your posts today. I will try again though...

The Personal Journal: Daily Pages

During my Experimental Sketchbook Class

I kept a special journal with art notes

& anything related that came up. 

{By the way, I did not pose the shot: 

My new wooden mannequin, (who I think has arthritis)

happened to be there when I was snapping the page.}

Recently I read through my previous personal daily journal.

During the early days of stay-at-home, 

I spent a fair amount of time embellishing my personal book 

with color, borders, paste-ins, & stickers. 

I wondered if it was somehow a waste of my time. 

Looking back I see that it wasn't.

While releasing nervous energy about 

the new, unknown situation we were in,

I was allowing myself to play with color, layout, & content.

I'm now enjoying the record that I have of those days.

Here I recorded some notes from a book for young people

about artistic process: Neil Gaiman's Art Matters.

I usually record these types of art notes in a separate book,

but I liked incorporating them into the "master journal."

Currently my daily pages are fairly unadorned. 

My art energy is going to several projects 

that will be offered for public viewing. 

But they have their own journal pages where I am

working out my journey to finished products.

Colored Pencils with Rubber Stamp Printing

Accordion fold card, using a Rubber Stamp "0"

and colored pencil.

 Our Library Art Group had a presentation 

of Rubber Stamping, by one of our participants,

a retired art teacher & awesome artist.

She laid out a beautiful assortment

Stamps, inks, papers, &, what caught MY eye...

...a tin of Ticonderoga Colored Pencils! 000000H!!

I started randomly printing with an "0".

 Something about the repetition with variety, very satisfying.

Something about being minimal when I could have chosen

a lot of different materials.

It seems to be my theme these days: 
Simplification.

Leslie showed us no models, and barely gave a demo.
Therefore, every one was free to follow their own themes.
All processes & works were different from one another.

 I love my old Prismacolors, but seeing the new set of

Ticonderogas was very exciting!! A new toy!

After, I made some color charts. 

My Prismacolors remain my favorites, 

but the Ticonderoga's are fun! 

They got me to re-explore my own colors. 

Thanks to Leslie & to our monthly Art Group for 

lots of inspiration & fun!

Beth's Workshop: Things I Learned

At Beth's Workshop: (Previous post Here) 

I learned of a book: 

Expressive Drawing by Steven Aimone. 

Incorporating the freedom we had as children

with our developing adult ways of making marks

and drawing.

Beth's post about that workshop is Here.

And another post Right Here.

It really was "artistic life changing"!

I am challenged by, & I get satisfaction from 

gravitating to order & simplicity 

when confronted with many materials & possibilities.

My simple sketching practice 

with line & watercolor

was affirmed & enriched by playing in this different way.

The pages I made at Beth's (see link above)

 are now in an accordion book setting.

Ah, Order. Cohesion. Sequence, 
though I have much to learn about this.
About the principle called "Unity".

A play between unconscious impulses 

& conscious art principles & choices.

The more I study art, 

the more the conscious learning

becomes unconscious while I work.
(Does that make sense??)

I'm going back this weekend for 2 more days!

There is a spot open, if any of you want to join us!

Contact Beth using the links above to her site.

Artists' Panel Discussion

I went to an artists' panel discussion on the show called

Tidal Zone, currently at our local art center.

I took notes.

I had viewed the show previously & enjoyed it on an aesthetic level, 

but the artists describing their process, 

not just process with materials, 

but also their research, their thinking, their histories...

THAT was marvelous!

It seems to me that much of abstract art, 

& non-objective art,

is about concept & process, 

so artist explanations are important.

I became aware of how the actual works can be a record,

or result of rich & deep work.

They spoke about rules & also serendipity.

About how exciting it is to discover what will happen

as a sequence of works is formed. 

Art Learning Journal: Studying Masters

More notes from my Art Learning Journal.

From the book, Matisse in the Studio:

A catalogue of an MFA, Boston show that I missed.

There is a great value in sketching works of art,

using books or visiting museums.

I notice so many aspects 

that I miss when I look without drawing.

We public art teachers were guided to teach in the 80's-90's 

by always starting with a lesson on a famous artist, 

 & analysis of reproductions of his/her work. 

Followed by hands on art.

And we made field trips to our art museum,

where students made visual notes, 

went on searches, & answered specific questions.

The book, Teaching Drawing From Art

has many rationals for teaching drawing to young people,

& for integrating fine art into lessons.

It tells us that students need to learn 

by their own experimentation,

& by studying great & varied sources of fine art.

When I taught this way, I gave room for individual invention within a style or medium. 

It wasn't just copying, oh no. 

But do I think ALL lessons should be started with fine art? NO!

An invented scene, after I took visual notes from Matisse's paintings.

If you Google: "Matisse/ Interiors in Nice/ Images"

you'll find an amazing assortment of his paintings, 

in which he integrated objects from his extensive collections

 into complex scenes.

And oh! Note his use of color!

He was a "modernist" which meant he avoided 

the "conventions of modeling, perspective & recession".

(Though I think they are somewhat present.) 

He uses a "shifting space with push & pull 

between the elements".

He thought of his own studio as a theater.

Me, I'm also captivated by the scenes that 

were outside of Matisse's windows. 

                    

And outside windows in my own life. 

(This scene, March 5, 2015. It's similiar to today's view!)

Next for the Art Learning Journal: 

Cartooning: Philosophy & Practice by Ivan Bruneti. 

Discovering Popcorn

I tried to eat popcorn (again), but it still makes me sick.

So I drew popcorn instead. 

First, observational studies for accuracy, with lots of erasing.

(not shown here.)

Then, loose sketches. Interpretations.

Feeling the Popcornness. 

Delighting in the gesture, form, contours, miracles & science

of popcorn.

All the while, related thoughts popped onto my paper: 

Discoveries & connections, while spending a slow,

lengthy time with these 3 guys.

Turkey Tail Fungus:

Years ago, an assignment in undergradutate drawing class:

To magnify an object, to try to reproduce it

as precisely as possible. 

I remember spending hours on it.

I also made a magnified study in charcoal

of a broken peanut shell.

I can't find the drawing, 

but I loved getting to know that shell, 

with its repetitive pattern of miniature rectalinear shapes,

& the surprise discovery of skeletal fibers.

The fast sketch, my favorite mode, benefits well

from going back to slower forms of drawing.

Sketching: From Observation. From Imagination

 Drawing with the group at a local "Antique Mall."

Because we are an official group, we get to go to

many fascinating places! 

(one of us always gets permission beforehand.)

My visual challenges were about  proportion, perspective, & relationships between objects.

Some others in the group focused on individual object studies. 

I'd like to do that too, studies with more depth & detail,

but for now I'm attracted to the interplays. 

There were many "nooks" with displays by individual vendors.

With so many objects to view in any given spot, 

the items were intriguing for themselves

(an antiquer or cultural historian would have a blast!)

 as well as for their

 lines, forms, angles, placements.  

 

Recently I've started to practice a new type of drawing:

From Imagination! 

A new Journaling group at a local library, 

based on cartoonist Lynda Barry's teachings in her book, Syllabus, 

is opening new channels in my brain.

Above, The beginnings of a "Self Portrait."

In my usual way, I take notes from the book. 

But I sprinkle these with my own memory/imagination

 drawings & writing. Syllabus is really a workbook. 

I was taught at a (too young) age to draw ONLY from observation. 

I don't know if drawing from imagination was ever a strength anyway, 

but what there was got squashed. 

Barry deals with the fear adults have of drawing from memory. 

She aims to "bring drawing back into people's lives"

(from their childhoods as most kids love to draw & then stop),

instead of "to teach drawing" to adults.

Stay tuned: Sketchbook Wandering: The Cartoon!

Nourishing the Body and Soul in Winter

 Montessori education tells us to surround ourselves with all things beautiful, 

taking care with selecting our environment.

Since my move to the new studio (dining room), 

and since my increased museum attendance, 

I "curate" my shelves, making order, selecting, arranging, re-arranging.

(The book, top right, The Secret Lives of Color, 

Box of cards by a company called Retrospect.)

 Top, from the local Bright Bird Studio. Below, a shrine box by 

local artist Micaela Grasse. (I placed the little sign inside the window that says, "Good Health".) 

 Watercolor painting on my wall by local artist Ben Hall.

I love that it's a local scene, & love its abstract quality!

 Twinkle lights were up in November. 

They and Bright Birds, shiny baubles, cheer me. 

Colorful woven bowl by a local artist, 

& original illustrations by artist Melissa Sweet 

(also local though nationally known.)

   On a recent cold, gloomy, gray day I bought a sampler of glitter, 

to spark my spirit,

at the art shop on Main St. 

 

It worked, & I've used it on my latest coptic book 

which I stitched while sharing tea with a visiting friend.

She knit & I stitched in my sunny warm dining room.

And we chatted while the cold winds blew.

 Feeding my body (organic wild blueberries & organic rice cereal, 

feeding my soul, with color & art tools.

Since January 1, I read & copy passages from the book, Simple Abundance, into my morning diary, 

using the French translation. The author is all about

gratitude, appreciating life, inner happiness...

 The Library Sketchers group, which I have turned over to the group to lead now, 

still nourishes my love of drawing, 

& feeds me with inspiration & comaraderie. 

Artist Leslie gave us a presentation on paint brushes. 

She generously brought gazillions, & let us experiment with them!  

(the other page: sketching without my glasses 

at my local hair salon, looking into a big mirror.) 

 Leslie's brushes! Talk about abundance!

 Saturday morning, my body & soul get nourished at our indoor Farmer's Market. All local vendors & it has a European feel! This time of year, New Beat Farm had carrots, beets, rutabegas, and cabbage. I sketched, 

then bought a bunch of organic carrots, later made a vegetable soup.

My friend has a lemonade stand, adding hot chocolate & cider at this time of year! 

More to show in another post, but, in short, 

to be at her stand for me is like being in the film, Pollyanna, so much good feeling, color & prettiness!

Many older folks go to Florida in winter, but I love finding

sparkle, light, & color right here. All the more intense, perhaps, against the backdrop of neutral winter grays, umbers, siennas, and muted dark greens of the out of doors. 

Question: What do you surround yourself with? 

The Zen of Seeing/Drawing

I'm looking back at my earlier drawing experiences.

Above, a simple drawing from the 80's.

From the 70's, drawings from old sketchbooks. 

I had not intended at the time to show them to anyone.

 I was in a state of wonder,

observing & drawing what was in front of me, 

learning revolutionary ideas that enhanced my pleasure.

My cats provided endless opportunities for focusing on

changing forms & wondrous poses,for enjoying their "catness".

(The brown spots are from aged non-archival glue.)

I've been sketching less lately, but making a lot of notes 

in my Art Learning Journal. From books, museum visits, workshops.

 Early on, Frederick Franck was the influence that changed my life. I learned that I could savor the experience
verses be conscious of what the drawing looked like. His philosophy & methods were perhaps different than a lot of approaches to sketching & drawing, the "How To's". He stated that his drawing process was not about "sketching" to record an image, it was a deep, sensitive, spiritual, Zen experience, an empathetic response, a focused state of being in love. I suspect some Urban Sketchers integrate some of this approach. My best experiences happen when I'm free of thinking too much...But technical learning, such as perspective and proportion, also enhance my experience of drawing/seeing.

Paul Hogarth's Creative Pencil Drawing (1964) was another strong influence on my drawing, back in the late 60's, early'70's. I loved his loose "interpretations" of his reactions to nature & to man-made phenomenon. 

So: I'm reminded: 

If I'm drawing with only the end goal to show my work, or to sell my work, I can lose the "Relaxed Fluency" that Hogarth talked about, & the wonder of seeing that Franck spoke of. 

Not everyone who shows & sells loses this fluency, & the best art retains the influence of the heart & soul.

Conclusion: Studying various approaches to any discipline 

makes that discipline richer.