What to Do? Sketch!

What to do when you go to a meeting

& no one else shows up?

You could

1. Get angry

2. Feel disappointed

3. Sketch! And feel lucky that you're getting

some bonus sketching time

while waiting to see if anyone comes.

4. Oh, and be glad that you have your

traveling sketch kit with you.

The Skeletal Views of Winter

Out the living room window on a cloudy, post-snowfall day. 

In summer hummingbirds frequented the azalea bush.

They & the blossoms are gone,

but skeletal scenes of winter are very much here!

Stage 1 of the sketch. The minimalism of winter!

Sketchbook Wandering, close to home...

In and Out of Lines

My tiny holiday Zumba Girls have changed to Winter Girls.

When I'm watercoloring their fashions, I'm reminded of

my hours of coloring in childhood. 

Later coloring books were shunned by everyone I knew

as being detrimental to creativity. 

Now they are tremendously popular with adults,

& are sold as meditative activities. 

Are coloring books good or bad or neither?

My Prismacolors have replaced Crayolas.

Making this chart also felt like childhood coloring days.

I've been thinking about staying in lines, or not,

sharp edges verses soft, tight verses loose. 

Punching out colored penciled stars from my swatches creates sharp, 

manufactured edges and shapes.

Is this good for creativity, or bad, or neither?

What are your thoughts?

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!

Mini Zumba Greetings

I failed to send Christmas cards this year. 

But I have promised myself that I will send winter cards.

I did make up some mini-cards to give to a few local folks,

some of them being fellow Zumba enthusiasts.

 

 And a card for my Zumba teacher. 

I have enormous gratitude for her. 

This dance & her exercise classes have enriched

my life & my health tremendously!!!

Sketching While Waiting

One of my favorite rewards of sketching:

At the grocery store I had fun instead of impatience

while waiting for J to shop. 

I remembered to bring my new 7 X 9" book 

(previous post) & my Extra Fine LAMY pen!!

PS. For those of you on the coast of Maine:

Artist & Craftsman in Portland 

now carries LAMY fountain pens!

And Molly over there is an expert!

Sketchbooks. End of 2018: Bring in the New, Continue the Old

 I have a new, larger sketchbook!! Paper Blanks, 7 X 9"!!

I use these for journal writing, but I got an extra one on sale

so I turned it into a sketchbook.

LAMY AL STAR fountain pens. I have "a few."

In the Wyeth Center at the Farnsworth Art Museum. 

The annual model train village, "Share the Wonder."

Sketching the mini buildings & cars is a fun way 

to work with linear perspective.

On the left: I sketched a line drawing that Jamie Wyeth

did when he was very young. Part of a series featuring

a Christmas wreath as a "character" in a medieval Christmas.

NC Wyeth's large painting: "The Morris House: Port Clyde". 

Can't do it justice with a quick sketch 

as the colors are so beautiful!!!

But sketching gave me the opportunity 

to scrutinize it more closely, & to gaze longer.

The Wyeth Center is only open a couple of more days.

I went to say good bye to the NC Wyeth paintings upstairs.

When they are back on display sometime, you have to come to Maine to see them in person!

And to see the Maine coast on which they are based!

I've been sketching in my usual 4 X 6" 

Pentallic Traveler Sketchbook.

It also doubles as my Art Learning Journal. 

Both live sketches & notes from books, 

museums, etc. go in there.

 Earlier in the month I went to the Farnsworth 

with an artist friend who wore an adorable felted hat

that she'd found at a thrift store. She sketched 

the gold dragon in the Chinese Zodiac exhibition.

She made a lot of people happy with that hat!

 Waiting in the small town post office line before Christmas.

A relatively small line in a relatively small town.

We enjoyed good natured conversations while waiting.

And for me, sketching made it go very fast.

At the Belfast Saturday Indoor Farmer's Market.

It is my Saturday morning ritual to go there. 

The vendors are not just farmers.

They are artisans, artists & musicians too.

They are local.

 LL Bean, the flagship store is like a theme park. 

There are these real stuffed animals on display.

While waiting for J to try on clothes, I sketched 

"The Three Headless Men of LL Bean." (my title.)

 Trip to Boston in November. QUICK sketches! 

It was my very fist visit to

The Granary Burying Ground. Boston's 3rd oldest cemetary

where many notable men 

from the American Revolution are buried.

 I guess the live people interested me 

more than the dead ones, though it was impressive.

 A quick stop to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. "Animal-Shaped Vessels from the Ancient World."

Subway Sketching, 

The Red Line from Cambridge back to Boston.

 Thanks for browsing through my sketches.

I wish you the happy pursuit of your passions

& pastimes in 2019.

Tis the Season for Color

 

I love playing with bright colors at this time of year.

I made a chain of 70 Origami birds for 

a friend's 70th birthday which she hung in her window.

My new "Art Bin" box.

I bought it at a local art shop 

It has replaced my old broken paintbox.

I transferred my half pans & made a new color chart. 

See what it can do. More painted collages.

Some are for gifts, some for a new show.

And then, there is the contrast of the winter outdoors.

Cold, dark & muted colors.

It is soft & beautiful & restful.

An advent calendar with over-the-top glitter!!

I bought it at a local bookstore.

Merry & bright, somber & dark. 
They are opposed, but they complement each other nicely. 

Farnsworth. Bell Ringers And A Crankie

Festive Holiday doings during the Farnsworth Art Museum's

seasonal Share the Wonder events.

First, a concert by the Penobscot Ringers,a handbell ensemble. 

It was music of the angels & had

a number of us in the audience crying for the beauty of it all!

Such beauty in the midst of some real ugliness in the world.

 After the concert, a lecture by Annie Bailey,

creator of a rotating storytelling mural for the Museum's 

front window. It tells about Maine heroine,

Abbie Burgess, a 16 year old who tended 

The Matinicus Rock Light & took care of her family

during a raging storm in 1856.

Her father, the lighthouse keeper, had gone to the mainland

for supplies, but could not get back for 4 weeks!

Bailey said she chose Abbie as a symbol

of focus of in a time of chaos.  

Something that is needed in these times too.     

(This photo of 1 scene doesn't show the mural's true size

& the window picked up reflections. But...)

The scroll's height is 4 ft. & one full rotation is 60 ft. 

The scroll, called a "Crankie", moves between 2 spools 

by way of a bicycle chain mechanism created by Andrew White. 

Bailey collaborated with a number of people 

to make this project work, & she has studied the Crankies 

of the 19th century.

There was, as with all original projects, 

trial & failure before final successes.

(I'm hoping the mural will stay up beyond its Jan. close date.) 

Indiana's Love Sculpture at the Farnsworth

I naturally chose the Farnsworth Art Museum when

The Sketch Group asked me to organize an excursion.

Pencil only allowed. We sat on stools lent by the museum.

I've always loved Robert Indiana's Love Sculpture.

But sitting down to draw it made it so much more interesting!

When Indiana got tired of the frenzy of the NY art scene,

he retreated to Maine, to an island near Rockland.

So the museum has a strong connection 

to Indiana & his art. 

It's a dream subject for drawing with a focus on 

 proportion, value & negative space, 

& the beauty of letters, words & type. 

The meaning seems simple, but for Indiana it

was an expression of more complex ideas.

Eventually the LOVE image became a burden to Indiana.

"A mix between graphic design & high art,"

 said graphic artist Milton Glaser. 

But it was criticized because of its commercial appeal. 

Indiana didn't obtain a copyright, 

hence, many people have plagerized & altered it. 

Unfortunate. 

But, his authentic versions are all over the world,

including Rockland, Philadelphia, Washington DC, &, Indiana.