Filed under: Fleeting thoughts..., painting, printmaking, Sewing | Tags: Cy Twombly, fabric, painting, pouch, sewing, watercolor
Yay! Spring is here! Get out the lightweight mittens! Get out the waterproof, yet non-bulky, knee-high boots! Get out the gauzy, cotton scarves!
Just kidding…
It’s in the mid 20’s and I’m bundled up like an Eskimo. Right now, I’m wearing a down coat in the house. My feet feel cold.
Beyond the perpetual climate woes in the Northeast (did I mention that Boston broke its snowfall record this year? Yay/Boo!), I sprained my knee recently, which is beyond annoying. I’m not a good patient, as I avoid seeing the doctor, do internet research, and hope for the best. I have a perfect excuse for laying on the couch all day eating bon-bons with my leg elevated, and yet that seems like a tedious way to spend the day. Instead, I hobble around trying to do stuff, wondering WHY my leg doesn’t feel any better. It’s kind of sad that I’m not even 50, and I’ve already started moaning about my aches and pains. Would you like to discuss the pros/cons between three different types of knee brace? No? Do you think that if I wore all three at once, it would heal faster?
In spite of my aching leg, I’ve managed to play around a bit with sewing, printmaking, and painting. I made a little pouch for my SIL:
It’s cute, right?
Here is one of the annoying things about photography that I struggle with…COLOR CORRECTION. Here is the same pouch in direct sunlight:
Looks pretty different, right? AAAARGH. I hate dealing with trying to reproduce accurate colors. It wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t listing things on Etsy. But because I am, I’m constantly struggling to get accurate color. It’s truly maddening. Well, it’s not as bad as cooking and grocery shopping, but a close second.
I took a 6 hr printmaking class on reduction printing. It was fun, even though I made some serious disaster prints. We just used those cheap styrofoam plates to print with. Here is a tutorial on this kind of printing. I was sort of content with this print:
You can do this kind of printing at home without a press, so give it a try! Do not accidentally lean your elbow on your styrofoam plate because you will:
a. get ink on your elbow
b. make an indentation in your plate which will affect your print.
Unless, of course, you’re into elbow prints. Who am I to judge?
I was also mucking around with watercolors too. In grad school, I took a VERY ANAL RETENTIVE watercolor course. We were doing Beaux Arts watercolors like this:
I know. WHY was I learning this in architecture school, as it’s soooo stodgy and traditional? I wanted to learn how to do this as it was an actual SKILL. Have I used that skill since then? No, but whatever. ANYWAY…I brought this up because this is my only experience with watercolor. Very rigid. So, this week, I started to just play with watercolors…generally making a mess.
I kind of liked doing these! Just blobs of color. Look at the cool effects you get with watercolor:
Neat, right?
I have basically spent the majority of my life trying to be precise and perfect in what I do (except for cooking and cleaning). Now, I’ve realized that this is total B.S., and it’s better to be messy. Notice that my fish print is completely anal retentive, YET AGAIN. Okay, so I fell of the wagon a bit. Clearly, I am still struggling to stop being that way, but I am working on it.
There is a reason that I love Cy Twombly’s work:
THE MAN
I love his work because it is SO free. That may not be the academic interpretation of what he does, but it’s mine. I love how visceral and messy his work is. LOVE IT. As a recovering perfectionist, I yearn for this…
Sigh! (Cy!)
Filed under: Drawing, Fleeting thoughts... | Tags: art, Cambridge Art Association, Claybord, Cy Twombly, drawing, Visual Arts
So, this past week has seen the opening of two, group shows that I am participating in. The first show is “Community of Artists” at the Danforth Museum, in Framingham. The other show is the “11th National Prize Show” at the Cambridge Art Association, in Cambridge. I have one drawing in each show. Here is my drawing in Cambridge:
Can you see my wee drawing? Here it is again:
I’m happy with how this turned out. It would look better with ALL of the other drawings in the series, but then it wouldn’t really be a group show, now would it? You should also take note that I took this photo with my messed up camera. Luckily, the people at the camera shop were able to remove the maple syrup and saliva that my 4 year old graciously smeared all over the lens. I somehow felt that if I told them exactly what I thought was on the lens, this might help in their cleanup operation. I believe that this makes me a “helicopter customer” as well as being a “helicopter parent.” Two words: micro. manage.
I want to show some of the other works that I saw. I only have photos from the Cambridge show, as my camera was still out of order when I visited the Danforth. Here’s an interesting sculpture:
I can’t seem to get into her website, but I like the little house. I think that it spoke to my inner architect. I’d like to see a room of these dilapidated houses. I used to always dream about having a little cabin (with no doorbell, on the other side of our front lawn, mind you), where I could escape. This little house made me think of that. I’m going to also say that the Cambridge Art Association should reconsider it’s choice in flooring material. It hurts my eyes. Just sayin’.
I think that this is speaking to my inner architect again. I like it. I don’t know why. Something about it feels kind of dated, but I like the space that’s created…especially in the right hand side. I keep wanting to crop it into a square…with the lighter side becoming just a slim rectangle next to the darker side. Maybe that’s just me. If we were in architecture school, and a critic felt the same way…(s)he would likely get a hacksaw and start cutting the canvas to show you how much better it would look. Actually, because this series of paintings is based upon airports, this symmetry and landscape orientation makes more sense to me conceptually. (not that it didn’t make sense before…)
Yes, I finally have some amazing artwork by my son to show you. Ok…this is the point where anyone seriously interested in art can basically sign off. Now, begins my “Refrigerator Front Gallery”. Here is his latest creation, co-created with Grandma:
Don’t you LOVE it???? Or, is this the kind of scribble that only a mama could love? Should I mention that the house is on fire? Should I be worried? As long as my son does not know how to use a match, I’ll try not to worry. Maybe we should get rid of our “strike anywhere” matches? Hmm. And another:
I imagine this as sort of a Cy Twombly hopped up on froot loops.
So, I keep experimenting with different drawing substrates. (is that what it’s called, or am I slipping back into architecture?). This week, I experimented with Ampersand’s Claybord. Here is my experiment:
Now, all was going well until I tried to make DARK marks. Then, it was like trying to draw with a candle on Teflon. The soft pencil just slid across the surface, and didn’t really work. Here’s a closeup of the shadow:
See how scratchy it is? I almost feel that the only way to work on this board is to keep the pencil very light, and think of it almost as a silverpoint drawing. I know that the two people out there (yes, you’re one of them) who read this blog never respond, BUT:
Have you ever used Claybord with pencil? Did you like it????? (Bueller?)
If it wasn’t 9am and trash day, I would probably hear crickets about now…
slightly wonky 