CHICAGO! - Art Trip - Part 3

The evening of the first day of my trip was long, sunlit, and only in the low 80's (Chicagoans were complaining around me, but I was used to high 90's, so this felt great to me).

I walked down Michigan Ave and decided to try my first street watercolor of the Blackstone Hotel and other buildings from a park near Congress Ave. I love the red brick and green roof.

The little teeny brush that came with the Cotman watercolor field set was excruciating to work with ("scrubbing the palace floor with a toothbrush" as my Mom would say) - but I got through that. The other WC I did on this trip I finally dug out another brush I forgot I'd brought and it was such a relief!

The result of the time spent is that I can recall those moments, the sounds, the smells, the sights, as if I were still there. Not in that much detail, of course, but the quality of the recall is amazing. Maybe it's the way it all had to pass through me onto the paper.

Click the image for a larger view. The original is in a spiral bound WC paper sketch book (called an "ARt spiral" - capitalization deliberate) - about 6 by 8 inches.

Chicago! - Art Trip - Part 2

The finer tipped marker made things better. The guy on the left had a beautiful blue Hawaiian shirt on. Since he was so round, and the shirt was so long, it looked like he had short little legs. Not a dress choice I would have made in his shape... As with all the subjects, I only had a few minutes, and he walked away.

In Atlanta I saw two older gentlemen sitting side by side in blue and white railroad caps. The one on the left had mutton chops, red suspenders, and was in his 70s or 80s, I think. If you click on the image you can read the rest of that story. The guy on the right got up and walked away until boarding time, so I didn't get to finish him. And the other fellow moved in his seat and I had to quit on him, as well.

When I got to Chicago I went straight to the Art Institute, where I soaked up my favorite pieces for about two hours. Then I got light headed, and realized I hadn't had a real lunch, just snacks on the planes. So I left the museum (leaving my bag checked with them) for an early dinner break (about 4:30). I went just across Michigan Avenue to Hot Woks and Cool Sushi, and sat at an outdoor table, looking back towards the museum. After I ordered, I got out my large moleskine and sketched the scene. The wait staff were quiet and moved around me differently. They also smiled more and were sweet with me when they brought my order, more water, the bill, etc. I was grateful and amused. I kept getting the sketch back out to add more pedestrians; the sidewalk was fairly busy. It was great to work when I knew people were noticing, and still be able to tune them out. A good step on the way I wanted to go.

Here's what I ordered - I couldn't eat all of it, but it was delicious. Mandarin Orange chicken with peas, snow peas, peppers, and diced carrot, and a tuna and avocado sushi roll. You can see the scene from my sketch in the background. I love to eat with chopsticks.

Back in the Art Institute until 7:00 or so - I think I visited every portion of it that I had not already, and repeated all of the Impressionist, Post Impressionist, Symbolist, and Expressionist galleries, which are my favorites. I had visited the contemporary European and American sections before my dinner, but the pieces failed to move me this time. I wasn't in the right place. I was itching to get out and skecth more, and try a watercolor with my little Cotman kit. But that's for another post.

CHICAGO! - Art Trip - Part 1

I had a Delta flight voucher I had to use by August. Dearest suggested I go somewhere on an extended "Artist Date." I decided to do an art and sketch visit to Chicago. I had been once before, but that visit only whet my appetite. The Art Institute of Chicago's museum is one of the best in the country, and possibly the best for a painter, since so much of the collection is on display deliberately because it shows solutions to problems painters encounter in their work. Marvin Saltzman told me that last bit - I had loved what I learned last time I visited, but I had not known why so many of the pieces seemed to be teaching me as I stood before them. So I wanted another look, and I wanted to take large format shots of certain paintings so I could look at the technique later, when I needed a lesson.

But to me, the real purpose of the trip was to fix my sketching problems. For a number of reasons I don't feel comfortable sketching - so I find it hard to do. I wanted to get over that in one big push.

I armed myself with sketch books, pens, pencils, watercolors, and whatever clothes I could squeeze into the remainder of my day pack. I planned to travel light - just the pack. I took off Friday, and left early in the morning for the airport, with a return ticket for Sunday afternoon, and two nights on Marriott points out by O'Hare Airport (I couldn't afford a room closer to downtown).

I began sketching people, into my smaller moleskine, at the airport in Raleigh. One of the Urban Sketchers had mentioned how easy it was to sketch in airports, because no one is paying real attention to each other. One of my problems with sketching is relaxing and not worrying about people around me. I don't want to be observed, or interrupted. So the airport was a great place to start. The other tough part is that models, when they don't know they're modeling, tend to move around... This interrupted a number of sketches. That's terrific, because it means you can't dither over details - you work fast to capture the essence. I got so I could capture more in less time as the three days progressed - and I found I could hold more in my memory and go farther AFTER the scene changed, or the subject moved. I will certainly take advantage of this on business trips in the future (I bought a moleskine in Chicago to keep in my briefcase, for just this reason).

I eventually learned that I can't work the way I want with a pen this broad. For now, I find it easier to find my subject using a much finer (and more forgiving) line. But those are for another post. The sketches here are first attempts. The other challenge/fear I tackled was drawing people, because that's a risky subject. We all know immediately if something is wrong with a drawing of a person.

AND I deliberately focused on faces, at first, because that's where I was most afraid of failing. Where the fear is worst, there is the deepest water (and usually the most reward - I wish I could remember that all the time).

Later I will post other skecthes, as I improved and got more relaxed. Eventually I was tackling larger scenes and context, and loving it. And I got so I could sketch standing in the middle of a crowded street, holding the pad up to eye level, as if it were on an easel. While hundreds of people walked past me, not one interrupting (I was pretty focused, and looked it), I drew my favorite of the Art Institute's large bronze lions. But that's several posts away...

The last illustration here is in my fat little notebook, where I jot down ideas. I kept a tiny journal of the trip on about ten pages of it, and in this case I used my ballpoint to sketch the seats in front of me the flights out (Raleigh to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to Chicago). The person in the right hand seat was a 300+ pound Catholic priest, in black with his Roman collar unbuttoned (it was hot). He made the seat flex and creak alarmingly as he got into it - at one point I really thought it would break and seat and Padre would be lying in my lap. My favorite thing about this sketch is the way the sketch is in the sketch, and the sketch is in that sketch... And it's a fair likeness of my knee...

Click any image for a closer view.

The Young Prince

I have a folder of photos of faces I've been saving for paintings. This image began as a series of blind contours (my usual warm-up/loosen-up), which led to the shapes that ultimately became the crown, or flames, or whatever they are... The face seemed like the right one for today, so I just dove in. I enjoyed every moment of this, from capturing the features in pencil before starting with the watercolors, to the hours of color glazes that built up to the final surface. The time flew. I listened to two albums by Jimmy Eat World, back to back, four times. There were some silent spells between starting them over, when I was lost to sound. I guess I painted for about 5 hours.

This is my first attempt to paint an African face. I was drawn to the beauty of the features, and the play of the warm and cool browns. It was done all in one long afternoon session and finished in an hour or so the same evening. Watercolor on Arches hotpress, 19 x 19. Click on the image for a larger view.

Grief

This painting is the one I've been stuck on for about a month. Travel (family and work) has taken a lot of the time and energy in recent weeks. That's been good and bad... but it has definitely made it harder to paint. Even when there is time there isn't enough energy.

And this image has been in the way. I had to do this one first.

I think I'm done with this. I don't know if the painting is done, but I'm done with the painting.

When the image emerged on the paper, in a mass of lines from blind-contour drawings of paintings of totally unrelated subjects, laid over each other in every orientation (I turn the paper), I was surprised. Then I realized what it was, and what that bleak landscape in the center meant to me, and I knew the title. That led to the color scheme, and the surrounding darkness. Figuring out how to handle the head, and refining the muscles further took a while. Then the image just wouldn't finish - it always seemed to need more. Every time I thought I was done it seemed to need more the next time I looked at it. Like the emotion itself...

I had a recent visit with my Dad where he was more energetic and humorous than I've seen him in over a year. I left later than I meant to, and barely made the next family event in that busy weekend, but I couldn't tear myself away. I loved getting more of him back. I couldn't get enough. The chemo is working, but it has some harsh side effects, and it's not a cure. The enemy has been mostly shut out, but the seige continues, and the defense takes a lot out of Dad. That's what I'm grieving, I think - the partial loss.

Watercolor on Arches hotpress paper - 19 x 19. Click the image for a larger view.

Self Portrait Marblehead Kettle

I discovered a few years ago that I can usually get an additional drawing done on vacations if I set it up somewhere so I can sit for even five minutes at a time and keep making progress. This makes me happy and it fills in all sorts of little waits and odds-n-ends of time.

This trip, to Marblehead, MA and Boston, I decided to combine a little self portrait with a rendering of an object that I found in the kitchen of our rented house. I love these round kettles - but we don't own one.

I can see one significant error in the drawing (maybe you can find it, too) but I'm happy with it anyway. I enjoy looking this closely at things (only a detailed rendering gets me this far into an object's shape and lighting), and I'm particularly pleased with the handle. The photo is a good bit darker and higher in contrast than the real thing was when I sat to draw, usually with good light in the little sun porch I set up as a studio.

12 x 14 inch sketch book - rendered with an HB pencil. Click either image for a closer look.

Boston and Marblehead Sketches

I didn't get a lot of time to sketch in Boston or Marblehead - we explored and wandered so actively for the 7 days we were in MA. But my little moleskine ("Poco Uno" as it says inside the front cover = so it won't get confused with "Grande Uno") was in my back pocket a lot. The first sketch here was from Marblehead - I sat on a bench in the street near our rented house and drew this (in pen) to remember the place by. The owner of the garden store next to the bench came out to sit and see what I had drawn, and told me the best restaurants in Marblehead. We had already dined at one (The Barnacle).

The next three are rapid pencil sketches done on Memorial day in Columbus Park, near the Aquarium. I loved the Aquarium, particularly the cuttle fish, the penguins, and the four storey tank, but the crowds finally roused my claustrophobia, and I had to go outside without finishing everything. So I let the others meet me later by cell phone connection, and I wandered out into the sunshine and sketched what I could. People sit still for surprisingly short spells - it's hard to have time to catch anything. The guitar player was better than most, because he played four upbeat songs from the 60s and 70s before getting up to leave.

The last sketch is a longer study in Grande Uno, my larger moleskine, and is of the Marblehead Harbor. Local teenagers were pushing each other off the floating dock below me, and the boats had increased all week in the harbor until there were probably several hundred spread from Crocker Park, where this was drawn, all the way over to the neck.

The best thing about sketching, to me, is the way the drawings later evoke the place more powerfully than any photograph. It's not the sketch that does this - it's the remembered cumulative time and actions that created it. It puts it more firmly into my memory.

Click any image for a closer view.

I also did a longer drawing in the house - but that's for another post.