Bugfest 2010 - Raleigh NC

Dearest, Youngest and I went to Bugfest 2010 in Raleigh today. The NC Museum of Natural Scinece puts it on every September, and it is by far their largest event. While the other two went in and braved the crowds at the exhibits, I stayed in the pedestrian way between the museums and sketched this scene. The museum is a lovely building - modern with classical sensibilities, to match the older wing it adjoins. I'm really pleased with this drawing - I'm getting the hang of using different weights of line, and have given thought lately to what I like in the sketches of others. And I discovered that a start with pencil, and then finishing with pen, provides more judgement and opportunities for leaving things out (I get to give every line a second thought).

As I was finishing this (which took a little over an hour), I was joined by two young boys. The six year old spoke to me first, and asked what I was doing. He showed me the machine gun he had made in a recycled materials booth nearby, and then watched me draw. His four year old brother draped himself with affectionate ease over my back and shoulder so he could look on as well, and chattered quietly in my ear. Several more boys, unrelated to these two, came and joined in. One said he also liked to draw. I asked him what he drew, and he said, "Faces. I could do yours." I got out my moleskine and handed him my pencil. He produced this sketch of me in about 5 minutes, and signed it, "Mike." It's the only thing in my moleskine that isn't by my hand. I like it, and I'll do it again if the opportunity arises.

It was a memorable day. I was there in the crowds for nearly two hours and it felt like twenty minutes.

Later, as we were leaving, two women came up to us and said they had also watched for a while over my shoulder, and that they liked my work. I had been unaware of everyone except the people I was memorizing to add to my "crowd," and the one guy who sat down right in front of me, blocking my entire view (I politely asked him if he could move over a few feet - he got up and left...). I really have gotten over my discomfort with drawing in public. Ever since Chicago...

Stowe Gardens and Belmont

After helping Daughter move into college, we took Youngest and spent the next day in Belmont, NC, at the Stowe Gardens and in the village for lunch and a little wandering in the heat. Here are my moleskine pages from that day. One sketch is of the sheet of water that pours out of a hole at the top of the orchid wall in the conservatory at the gardens. If you have a chance to tour Stowe, the price is reasonable, and it's a world class garden in Southern style. There are many fountains, which made it bearable even in August (before noon!).

Here is a photo I took from a different vantage point - and missing the odd bark-like top of the structure.

The sketch on the right hand page of the moleskine is of Youngest on a play structure in the Stowe park in the village of Belmont. Belmont has an unusual density of beautiful houses, gardens, and buildings for a place of its size. The sketch on the right was done in about 3 minutes, and I cheated a little and asked our son to stay still for 45 seconds or so. The garden sketch was done on a bench in the conservatory, and took about 10 minutes. Youngest sat beside me and did a detailed sketch of a banana palm leaf hanging down in front of his face.

It was a good trip, and helped transition from leaving Daughter at college...

Click image for a closer view.

Drawing from Memory

Youngest saw my "Keys to Drawing" book lying on a side table, and started reading and doing some of the exercises a few weeks ago. That was a surprise. He achieved right-brain shift on some of the first exercises, and was excited by that.

I've been looking at the book as a way to consider habits in my own drawing and sketching, to shake up my routines, and to get more of those valuable little tips that make the technical and mechanical side of drawing easier, so it can be the tool it's meant to be, and more of a pleasure, too.

Youngest got to the Pepper Challenge and needed some produce... I bought two peppers at the farmer's market this Saturday that would work.

The exercise was to look at a pepper and then walk away, wait a while and then draw it from memory. The last step is to draw the pepper again, this time from life. The instructions advise us to draw it at least life sized, and preferably larger than life size. While the book did not say to draw it from the exact same vantage point both times. we decided to set things up to do that, so we could consider the differences from memory vs. from life.

I was pretty sure I would not recall the shapes and relationships, but as we looked at the peppers I concentrated on a few critical points and proportions. That served me fairly well during the memory exercise, though shapes are oversimplified. I sense that I could get considerably better at this. Figures would be the subject worth the time (much more complex than peppers) - people don't stay still for prolonged studies in airports and restaurants...

This last drawing here is the one from life. Between 5 and 10 minutes, I think (we lost track of the time - stopped when Youngest was through). Pencil. More than 200% lifesize. I noticed when drawing from memory that I couldn't make myself draw them this large, though I intended to do so. I suspect I felt exposed for the details I would not recall, so I kept them smaller (just a little bit larger than lifesize).

Comparing all three of these images, I see that certain things strike me and I emphasize them. That's why a drawing is a record of someone's seeing. You see what matters to the viewer, where their eyes spend time, what they like, hate, wish...

Pirates or Ninjas

One of the first questions Daughter had to get settled with her assigned college room mate, when they connected on-line prior to moving in this year, was, "Pirates or Ninjas?" They both answer that question Pirates (so do I). Other friends of Daughters say Ninjas over Pirates.

Somehow this all came together in my head with Yin and Yang and I realized that I could produce an image of this question with cats, using the pirate patch for the little bit of Ninja, and the eye hole in the Ninja wrap for the little bit of Pirate...

So I made this and sent it to Daughter.

Pen and little Prismacolor on a white cicle of card stock (from that Swoozies present Summer sent me - thanks, again!)

So what's your answer?

Cicadas

This painting came to me while looking at the amazing wings of Cicadas (that middle "a" is pronounced long here in the Southeast). Actually I've been trying to do this image in some form for years now (without the insect - that seemed to be the unifying element, finally). It comes in part from looking at Paul Klee paintings of houses and roofs and lollipop tree shapes, and it comes from stacks and piles of houses in coastal villages in France and Italy (though these don't look very much like Southern Europe).

Anyway, this was fun to paint. My favorite thing might have been drawing the cars...

Watercolor on 140 lb. Arches hot press - 19 x 19 inches. Some green lightfast ink outlines.

"Ugly" Tomato

My chief pleasure every week is the Saturday morning walk in our village of Hillsborough followed by the visit to the Eno River Farmers Market. I'm wearing the market's t-shirt right now. We know more and more of the farmers/vendors by name, like Marsha who sells cut flowers (we always get enough for our wall sconces and a large vase upstairs), and Rachel the fellow homeschooler who sells fresh eggs, jams, lemon curd, and the best meringues I know. We get butter beans, zephyr squash, fresh greens, eggs in mixed colored dozens, French bread or ice box rolls, Carolina Gold potatoes, cucumbers, blueberries and strawberries, when each is in season, origami dragons, caterpillars that turned into Painted Lady butterflies a few weeks later and which hung around our flower beds after release. We discuss how favorite vegetables or fruits are doing, and how many more weeks we might be able to get a particular thing before it's time in the seasonal round is done for another year and we have to wait for it to show up again.

But the best thing is being with my Dearest for the walking and talking, and then sharing all the colors and sounds of the market with her. There is almost always some kind of live music, and that adds to the festive atmosphere. It's a little country fair, with just the right amount of new and old each week. And that could be said of the conversation, as well, as we discuss the week past, and the weeks coming up.

Several weekends ago I bought my first big yellow-orange "ugly" tomato from Marsha, our cut-flower friend. Gladiolas, zinnias, hydrangea, celosia, Queen Anne's lace, rudbeckia, and a big fat irregular tomato. It made two killer sandwiches, but before I ate it I enshrined it in both my moleskine, with pen and ink, and attempted to capture it in watercolor in another sketch pad. Like all sketches, they pin down the memories for me, making them far easier to reach again later - but these recollections have taste and fragrance, too. It was a hot afternoon and looking at these images I can smell the tomato and feel the long slow moments and hear the silence in the house when I worked and reworked the watercolors until I wore the paper out in several places. I can feel the weight of the big beautiful thing in my hand.

Sketching continues...

We have this amazing bean out on our deck. This is just the top 6 feet or so. It starts on the ground below the deck, and climbs about 10 feet up to the bottom of this sketch. It has, since this drawing, climbed higher, reached out five feet in all directions looking for something else to climb, succumbed to gravity and put down long tendrils that reach the deck rail and start back up again.

I understand where the Jack and the Beanstalk stories come from. This beast is almost as fast as kudzu.

When I sketched this, which took about 30 minutes, I noticed at completion that the long tendrils had changed shape and moved. I'm not sure I would have noticed that (how fast they grow and change) if I had not been so focused and had a plain and accurate measure of previous location.

Hyacinth bean - large moleskine - fine black marker. If plants were track stars, this would be a sprinter.