NYC Urban Sketchers Portrait Party

Today was the annual NYC Urban Sketchers Portrait party.

It takes place at the High School for Art and Design.

Everyone who signs up is divided into groups of 12.

One person didn't show for our group so we were 11.

Paper is provided- 9x12 watercolor paper.

Then we take turns sketching each other.

We have 10 minutes for each portrait.

At the end we have a drawing of everyone in the group except ourself, and each group arranges all the portraits in a grid.

There were probably about 5 or 6 groups.

Sone of the work was pretty good.

These are my 10.  I worked in graphite for a few, and for most of them just a black Prismacolor pencil.

I gave them away.

Here is the grid and a few pictures of other groups I liked.

Thee is some pretty good high school work on the walls.

I wonder if this school might be better than LaGuardia for visual arts.

New Wave Pier & More Pencils

Today was a quiet day, I had no particular plans and the weather was good, so I went out painting.

I'm trying to find some new spots- today I went over to New Wave Pier which is all the way East, right by the UN building.

8x10 oil, about 2 hours

This is the strangest statue...

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After painting I went for a good walk over to Blick on 20th and 6th.

I need more tiny Princeton brushes (I always need them) and I wanted a set of those Chromaflow colored pencils.

I don't really understand why the set of 24 was $26.08 but the set of 36 is $46.58.

So 24 pencils comes out to 1.17 per pencil, but if you get 36 of them it's 1.29.

That's at Blick.

There's an Amazon listing at $26.58 for 24 and ... $54.53 for 36!

This is bizarre pricing and it doesn't make any dang sense to me.

I honestly don't need or want more than 24 of these pencils.

They are quite nice and I like them, they are fine for general sketchbook stuff, travel, and mainly for non-serious relaxing.  There is a good range of colors in the tin.  I'd like a light blue but whatever. It's not like I don't already have too many pencils.

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Daya is at a sleepover tonight so I have the apartment to myself plus the cats.

__PRESENT

Taco Tuesday

 Jackie asked if I wanted to meet up for Taco Tuesday.

That's a no-brainer YES.

I'm still feeling really crappy.  

In fact, I'm just slogging through life in general and it's a hard walk.

I'm doing all the things I know to do to keep my energy up but they aren't really doing much.

But tacos always make a Tuesday better!

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Dru sent me a video.....

This woman is batshit-crazier than I am.

I actually did watch the whole thing to see if there was a point other than how batshit nuts she is.

There mostly is not.

It did make me want to get a small 24 set of Derwent Chromaflow pencils, which I absolutely do NOT need at all whatsoever... I'll think on it.

__PRESENT

Derwent Stalking, Ended

The Unruly Chives mess caused me a bit of a stubby pencil problem.... I need a refill on one of my Derwent Coloursoft pencils.  I have had my 72 tin FOREVER and I rarely use it but I have been lately.
(I believe in having all the art supplies.)

I went over to Blick to pick up a few open stock pencils... and they have all things Derwent EXCEPT Coloursofts. What a bummer.  So I had to do an online order and.... well I went ahead and ordered my Derwent Shade and Tone set that I have been stalking.  Its in-stock at Blick online.

So I can stop stalking it now.
Fingers crossed Blick actually has it and isn't just saying they do.

Unruly Chives

I have been feeling weird lately, I don't know why.  Can't figure it out. I don't know if it's me or just the energy of the world in general but I feel strange, fatigued, and uninspired. There's nothing wrong or anything concerning going on, I just feel really weird and blah. And I don't feel like painting.

I'm sure this funky haze will pass eventually.  I decided to just let it be and be where I am and not worry about it, even though it has been going on for several weeks now. 

But in the absence of painting- both plein air and studio work, I decided to just do some sketchbook work instead.  Small pages that don't require a lot of time, thinking, or commitment but still keep me doing something.  Normally I don't show sketchbook work, but today, wow I messed up and I should have known better and I'm very annoyed with myself.

I started a new book and all I'm doing in it are little plant paintings in watercolor and colored pencil.  Just something small and nice to do. And a couple of days ago I did a little drawing of my crazy chive plant.  I called it Unruly Chives.

Today I felt like taking out my oil pastels and I did a page facing my Unruly Chives, which was a huge mistake.  How could I forget that oil pastels- if you go all the way to the edges of the page- mess everything else up on other pages?

It messed up my (very nice) page of Eastshade Bloomsac, and I was Not Happy abut that.  I salvaged it as best as I could.  I'll probably end up re-doing it on another page. 

I will have to re-do this page. :(

The new unruly chives also messed up the other unruly chives so I just have to leave it and say that's what happens when something is unruly. I want this book to be nice and neat so it bugs me.

Seriously though, how could I forget that about oil pastel?

It's ok as long as it is taped off... as it, like chives, is definitely unruly.

Morgan

Here is a portrait of my friends' cat who passed away.

He was still a kitten; they only had him for a few months when he became really sick with FIP.

Mostly, this is lethal in young cats and it was in this case.

9x12 pencil on Strathmore toned Grey

Drawing Ring Wraiths and Yet Another Commission Update

 Abigail posed as a Ring Wraith from The Lord of the Rings tonight.

1 hour

20 Mins

7 mins

And the 1 min poses, which I liked tonight.

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I got this text about 20 minutes before drawing:

The parents like the painting.
So I guess it was a successful commission after all.

This was such a difficult situation because the one person whose opinion really does matter didn't like it, but he was the ONLY one. It left me in a place of not knowing what to do, that's just an impossible situation, but Simon had said show it to the parents.... and he was right.

I told Simon that he is my new Artistic Life Advisor.

This is also why I think I'm not going to do babies anymore-- I mean, I would really need the money to do it. There is the technical success of the painting, and then there is peoples' weird perceptions and sometimes there is just no way to navigate around that. 
Babies are too risky. They are technically and perceptually THE WORST.

Now watch- next year I'll get like 5 more baby requests.

I would much rather do cats. Or any pets.
OMG. The money is decent but is it worth it?

Solstice Sundries

Today is the Winter Solstice.
It is my last day of work for the year, but I have wrapped everything up so it is slow.

I went to pick up my Pizza Rat friend.

He is MINE and I love him so much!

Then I did my yearly tradition of going to light candles at St Patricks.

I lit one for me and one for Daya.

It's pretty in there but the whole half back is still blocked off.

On the way home I was switching trains and an ancient J train pulled in... which is very weird because I'm nowhere near the J line... and a couple of seconds later the rest of the garbage train appeared. That made a lot more sense.

Here is the garbage train, posted for no other reason than it happened.

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Drawing tonight- model was the lovely Katie in an AMAZING dress.

Simon said do Memling do I did.

7 mins

20 mins

And the 1 hour, colored pencil, Memling-inspired.

I don't know why I am using such S L O W mediums like colored pencil in such relatively short poses- 1 hour is not enough time for colored pencil but it's what I had out to work with.

COMMISSION UPDATE AGAIN:

My manager received the painting yesterday and today we had a quick call (work, but the painting came up). He likes seeing it in person but is still lukewarm about it because it isn't a smiley happy baby... and he seems surprised that it has gotten really good response on social media.

So I guess he still doesn't like it, he's honest but nice about it.  And that's ok.
I wish he loved it but it is what it is.