Mt Vernon and Georgetown, DC

Its been a busy week. Judi and Robin from WetCanvas came to DC to meet me and we have spent four days together. Wonderful to meet them both and its been an art extravaganza and even though we all religiously carried our sketchbooks everywhere we went, we didn't do any drawing at all!

Thursday we went to the National Gallery. In the East Wing (Contemporary Art) there was a lovely exhibition of Rousseau paintings and a superb exhibition of Sheelers work - not an artist I knew before. We also managed the lower floor of the West Wing (Classical Art) which included a wonderful exhibition of drawings including da Vinci, Raphael, Picasso, Duhrer and many others. Wonderful bronzes too by Degas (including The Little Dancer and many of horses too) and Rodin.

Friday we went back to the National Gallery to see the Bellini, Titian and Giorgone exhibition. I was particularly taken by the painting of fabrics in those work and Titian in particular impressed me. After a fabulous lunch in the Sculpture garden (photos last post) we went to the National Portrait Gallery which also includes a section of very contemporary art - mostly sculpture and installation work. There were a number of pieces that I liked there (forgot to write down who or what, DOH!). Also two Hoppers - one of my favourite artists. We had a great evening in Adams Morgan with another couple of old friends who joined us and had a great evening that ended in an Ethiopian restaurant.
Yesterday we took the boat trip to Mt Vernon. Early start but worth it. A peaceful and scenic hour and half ride down the Potomac to Mt Vernon which is in an idyllic setting overlooking the river. The architecture is lovely with white washed walls and red shingle rooves set in beautiful countryside.


I fell in love with the garden which even at the end of the growing season is a riot of colour with black-eye susans, sea holly, cannas, marigolds and lots of busy lizzies. Great use of box hedges.


I found this little (about three foot) beach as we waited for the boat back to DC - teeny waves lapped at the river edge and a stack of driftwood, wonderfully worn and textured laying in the sand.



We spent the evening in Georgetown which is a delighful DC suburb, very busy with restaurants and shops. The architecture is very reminiscent of England and I always feel at home here.

Textures and Reflections

Reflections

The view from our hotel is limited but infinte as we look straight out at another builidng but in that buildings windows are others reflected.

Portrait from Iowa

I finally got an photo of this to post on here. I'm not entirely happy with it but can't figure out why its not quite right. I might play with it some more. If you comment please note that her adoring Grandmother looks at my blog! :-) The photo has come out much darker than the drawing.

Finding time here in Iowa to think more about art and trying to gather thoughts and make lists of directions I want to move in. I've been taken by an interest in architecture and particularly urban architecture which might make you laugh after my comment a couple of posts back about not wanting to be able to see my neighbours and a leaning towards a hermit like existance! Also as I think I said before, still life of seemingly unrelated objects.

Hoping to get out and do some plein aire sketching here - hope I can find some of the legendary barns of Iowa. Or maybe I will just do corn fields! Would also like to spend a day down on the Mighty Mississippi painting.

The next stage

I've had trouble getting to the internet to post the next stage of our journey. NO art work this week as I was totally uninspired by anything - oh except the second portrait for the wetcanvas class but I forgot to photo that to put on here. Doh!



So we had four days at the Lake of the Ozarks, central Missouri. Great lazy time with family. A great deal too much alcohol and food but lots of fresh air, swimming in the lake, boating and paddling.


Wonderful sunsets too.


Bit too crowded to by idyllic - I think I must be turning into a hermit as the thought of even being able to see my neighbours fills me with horror. Maybe thats too many years of big city living!

Driving back to Kansas City we crossed the Missouri river.


Monday we left to come to Iowa for a couple of weeks - a couple of photos of Iowa countryside - just realised I got photos with not an ear of corn in sight! Miracles do happen!



Am hoping to get out and do some painting while we are here but I can't say I find it very inspiring here either. Hope I can find some pretty barns somewhere.

And just to alleviate any fears that I have been overworking myself .........

On the move

Its been too long! We left Mexico City a week ago tomorrow. Wednesday was filled with tearful goodbyes. We had a wonderful two years there and it was sad to leave.

We flew out to Dallas and I managed a couple of sketches - one of fellow travellers on the plane from Mexico City to Dallas/Fort Worth

and one of our plane before we embarked on the last leg to Denver.


From Denver we trekked up to the property up on the Wyoming border near Fort Collins. Incredibly peaceful and isolated and very beautiful.

The only thing missing was water! Still there were lots of trees, mainly pine but also wonderful whispering aspens in the breeze. Think we would have to plant some of those on our little piece of land if we decided to settle there.

We headed north and then skimmed the Wyoming border and into Nebraska and across the whole empty width of Nebraska. Lots of flat nothing!

Occaisional mesas and rocky outcroppings but nothing much else.


Near the Iowa border the trees started to multiply as we ran alongside the Platte river. Once into Iowa we turned south and headed down Missouri to Kansas City and Smithville.

Sketch of Jean's Flower shop that Karen owns in this sleepy mid-western town. The countryside here is wonderful, gently rolling hills and pretty trees, oak, pine, aspens, willows and poplars. More peace and quiet - a great contrast to the hustle and bustle of Mexico City.


I've also managed to work on the class from WC using Derwent Drawing Pencils and here is my version of the image we were given to draw for the class. (Sorry lousy photo)

Windows, Windows, more Windows

Sketched this from my living room window as I watched the moving guys pack up all our worldly possessions!

More Composition

Drawing has been limited due to being in the middle of packing to move. Did manage to get this composition thumbnail done that I think has distinct possibilities. Michael said it needs a window or frame to break up the large wall, which is interesting as I had one there and took it out!

I have my supplies packed for leave and to last me till we get to our new home. Basic palette of watercolours, brushes, paper, pastels, graphitints, CPs, pencils, watercolour and drawing moleskines. Hope this will keep me going! Hoping to do a lot of little sketches over the next month - mostly landscapes across the US - Colorado, Missouri, Iowa ending in DC. Having said that isn't there something about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain

One of the gladdest moments of human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of home, man feels once more happy. Sir Richard Burton

Compositional Corners

Beginning to get the hang of Michael's composition tricks. These are two of my more successful compositional thumbnails.

"A wonderful harmony arises from joining together the seemingly unconnected."
Heraclitus

This quote struck a particular chord with me - especially at the moment when working on this composition class and trying to find interesting objects to group together. Personally I want to get away from the traditional still life and use objects that strike off each other or that are seemingly unconnected but maybe through form or structure create a balance.

Hat, Guitar, Chair and Cat

Todays quartet for the scavenger hunt. Graphitint pencils and Faber Castell sepia pen. I really like the way the graphitints work - the colours are very subtle used by themselves but add the water and they spring to life!

Trying to work more on composition. The idea of making interesting shapes in corners and having them reflected diagonally is so hard! I am really struggling with the concepts that Michael is trying to drum into us. Along with that he introduced negative space into the equation, need to do some research into that. This is definitely a walking exercise, two steps forward and several back!

'The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.' - Benjamin Mays

Composition and Learning

We are very lucky to have Michael Newberry teaching a class on composition on the Drawing and Sketching Forum on WetCanvas! It is such a treat to have someone of his caliber to give us the benefit of his amazing talent. Composition is something I struggle with so I am hoping to learn a great deal from Michael. Looking at this sketch makes me see I have a lot to learn!!!

I go through phases of learning - times when it I just want to soak up everything and make my artwork more dynamic. This is one of those times.

'Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow.' Mahatma Gandhi

'I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it." - Pablo Picasso

'What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing' - Aristotle

Beads and Sunglasses

Two of the list for the July scavenger hunt on Wetcanvas.

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making
exciting discoveries. A. A. Milne

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. Arthur Koestler

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. Pablo Picasso

Karen's Dad

My boss asked me to do a portrait of her dad. Ordinarily I insist on taking my own reference shots but he died a long time ago, so that was out of the question. She picked a wedding photo of hers! This is the result - I'm pleased with it - I hope she is too. I'm still practicing getting my photography right so please bear with me!

I had a lightbulb moment yesterday - I was thinking about abstracts - which I love and it struck me that I love abstracts like Rothko that have lots of colour - it may only be one colour but its definitely colour. Yet I love black and white photography and detailed realism in black and white. So it occurred to me that maybe I need to limit my detailed work to graphite and paint abstracts - that fills me with terror as I have no idea where to start with an abstract. Maybe I'll just gaze in wonder at other people's abstracts and go on painting and drawing realism in monochrome.

Quotes

My boss is leaving this week, its that time of year when we are all moving around in my little world. So the other two girls in the software section and I decided we would buy him a book on Mexico - coffee table type of book. We found a fabulous one, full of everything that makes Mexico the bright and lively country that it is. Yolanda said she wanted to think about what she wanted to write in it. I wanted a quote. In my search for quotes I came across this fabulous one from The Conundrum of the Workshops by Kipling.

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

And also this

"A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles."
- Tim Cahill

I am blessed to have wonderful friends, many who I have met on this artistic journey. I hope you all know who you are! Thank you for being with me on my journey!

Which medium?

"The dilemma every artist confronts, again and again, is when to stick with familiar tools and materials and when to reach out and embrace those that offer new possibilities......." Art and Fear

I want to try everything - according to Art and Fear I am in the young artist phase and its as I become more sure of myself that I will settle to fewer mediums. In the meanwhile I go on buying more and different mediums in the hope one will speak to me loud enough to tell me this is the one!

I love graphite, but I also find it rather easy so feel that I wont reach with it because it is not such a struggle. Whereas oils are a daily challenge, from mixing the paint to applying it. Its a battle of wills and I often wonder who will win it - me or the paint. Maybe watercolour will be a happy medium for me!

What have you done today?

I look into the window of my mind
Reflections of the fears I know I’ve left behind
I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I’m on my way
Can’t stop me now and you can do the same
What have you done today to make you feel proud
Its never to late to try
What have you done today to make you feel proud
You could be so many people
If you make that prayer for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud
Still so many answers I don’t know
There are so many answers
Realise that to question is how we grow
So I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I’m on my way
Can’t stop me now
You can do the same
What have you done today to make you feel proud
Its never too late to try
What have you done today to make you feel proud
You could be so many people
If you make that prayer for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud
Yeah
We need a change yeah
Do it today yeah
I can feel my spirit rising
Change yeah
We need a change yeah
Do it today yeah
'Cause I can see a clear horizon
What have you done today to make you feel proud
Just make that prayer for freedom

From Proud by Heather Small

My motivation song - I have listened to this almost daily for the last 5 or 6 years.

Not another Portrait!!!

I really don't intend to become a portrait artist. But it seems its all I do right now. I have a painting on my easel and cannot finish it because the portraits keep getting in the way! Having said that if I could ever master portraits in colour I would be very happy. For some reason the colour defeats me completely. I have bought more tubes of paint looking for an elusive skin tone - yellows and reds and greens and violets and a dozen more colours in between. Every portrait I like I ask what the recipe is for the skin and go and buy the colours suggested but it must be the way I mix because I never end up with anything remotely like the colour I wanted to emulate!

Does anyone have a good skin tone recipe?

Smoked Salmon Sandwich and Mango Frappucino

Wonderful colour of Mango Frappucino and the pink of salmon rolled mixed with the green of lettuce - I've scarcely done it credit!

Setting goals - I am trying to set myself some achievable goals together with Robin. The infamous body of work still sits there wanting consideration and now we are also trying to decide on whether we will apply for competition/shows/art groups and if so which ones. Seeing others with a measure of success is both encouraging and at the same time rather depressing. You begin to wonder what it is your own work lacks that you haven't been recognised. Of course you have to put it out there in the first place and suffer the possibility of rejection. I had planned a couple of competitions this year but seem to have let those goals slip so Next Year - there is no turning back! Confidence is my biggest hurdle - I need to work on that!

Delivered this yesterday.

Portrait - a step further

Need to do more work on darkening the skin tones in comparison with the uniform - even though he has very pale skin I think it could do with some more tonal values. In the photo I used for this he was wearing a tank top/vest and I really didn't like the way it looked so I took another photo I had of him to get the uniform right.

Went out this morning before my other half was awake to do some sketching. Wonderful morning, cool but not unbearably, sunlight filtering through the leaves, no traffic, a few people taking some exercise round the park, perfect for sketching without disruptions. All the restaurants were setting up for breakfast. Mexico is playing Iran today in the World Cup so they are taking advantage of the possible extra business by setting up large screen TVs. Great moments was the elderly Jewish man, dressed in dark trousers, white shirt, tie, trainers and yamulka and doing his speed walking round the park. Also an elderly lady selling bunches of violets. I have fallen in love with palm trees. I love the shape of the fronds and the way they catch the light on one side on the leaves and what shows in the light is the dark spaces between and on the other side of the frond its the leaves that are defined by the shadows - wonderful Ying-Yang thing!

The best of this weeks sketches

The best of this weeks sketches.

Sketching and portrait

Steadily plodding away at this. I can see myself tweaking it forever and a day. Strange how you think something is a good photo for drawing only to discover its absolutely abysmal!

The sketching is definitely becoming addictive. You can find me roaming the halls at work with sketchbook clutched tightly and on breaks snatching 10 minutes to put something down on paper. I can't leave it at the 10 minute stage though. I have to carry on tweaking it after. A bad habit? I need to allow myself to do something unfinished - something to be learned!

Drawing Magic

A little bit further with this. Its beginning to appear out of the page which is something that always amazes me. It reminds a little of doing photography and when you slip the exposed paper into the developing fluid and then like magic the image starts to appear. First soft greys and then the tonal values build.

I've been thinking more about the comments I posted yesterday on painting a body of work on the same subject. I can see how that makes sense. Leading from that the more you paint something the better you are going to be at painting it - practice makes ....... no perfection is not what I want to say. Practice makes better! To quote Art and Fear

"Believing that artwork should be perfect, you gradually become convinced that you cannot make such work (You are correct.) Sooner or later, since you cannot do what you are trying to do, you quit."

"So when you ask "Why doesn't it come easily for me?" the answer is "Because making art is hard!" "

Oh and it can be SO hard!

Teensy weensy sketch book

Sketches from this week. I'm finding sketching in small format quite hard. Instinct for sketching is to be loose and this definitely isn't. Thinking of working in pen next week - something about ink is freeing in some way - if you make a mistake you can't do anything about it. I've ordered watercolour moleskines too.

New problem to overcome - I will be at least two months without my art making stuff so need to think how to take a small amount with me. We are going to be travelling for at least three weeks (Texas, Colorado, Missouri and Iowa and then DC), and then a month there before our stuff will arrive and I would like to have some art making things with me to sketch and possibly do some watercolours. Looking at boxes that will hold a reasonable amount of stuff without taking up huge amounts of space or weighing a lot. More research time!
I've been reading about how to get representation. What is recommended - build a body of work - that doesn't mean lots of things on lots of different subjects but one subject, in many different ways. They go on to say to do 12 in the same format of the same subject. Eg id you paint flowers they should be one sort of flower and only one colour of that one sort of flower. Interesting thought, but is it true?

"I'm not an artist - I'm a phony
I have nothing worth saying
I'm not sure what I am doing
Other people are better than I am
I'm only a [student/physicist/mother/whatever]
I've never had a real exhibit
No one likes my work
No one understands my work
I'm no good"

"The first few brushstrokes to the blank canvas satisfy the requirements of many possible paintings, while the last few fit only that painting - they could go nowhere else. The develpment of an imagined piece into an actual piece is a progression of decreasing possiblities, as each step in execution reduces future options by converting one - and only one - possibility into reality. ........The irony here is that the piece you make is always one step removed from what you imagined, or what else you can imagine....."

From Art and Fear

This is so true. I am constantly fighting the negative thoughts and long to be one of those artists who have faith in themselves and their ability - and yes, there are some!

As to the second quote - I find this all the time. It used to frustrate me extremely that what I had in my head never appeared on paper/canvas. SO now I try very hard not to even try to imagine a finished result but rather to only have a concept - that way allowing it to appear organically - and then try to fool myself that what appears is what I really wanted!

Struggling with a still life, but at least I have it now on the canvas and ready to paint at the weekend. Evenings I'm doin this portrait - the last of my Marines. Really not happy with the eye and might have to redo that

Trying to be more focused. Robin is keeping on the straight and narrow and wont let me stray from art. Bless you Robin! Stocking up with supplies to take with us - paper of various kinds, watercolour, drawing and looking for some coloured ground too. My moleskine sketchpads arrived yesterday so now no excuse as to sketching. Have also ordered the watercolour version.

My quote for today
"Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the the paint of not working." Stephen DeStaebler

I'm reading Art and Fear again. A little a day. I must get the Artist's Way again (lent someone my copy and they kept it and funnily enough then wrote to tell me how they had borrowed this amazing book from someone and that I really should get a copy!

Food for thought - using contrasting colour.