Gouache and Team Acro

I finally had a chance to finish up the painting I started at competition last Sunday.

About 3/4 of it was done on-location at the Nexstar competition in New Jersey.  At home I added the figures and a few touch-ups.

The setup was challenging and I had to think it through.  Luckily I brought my Inktense pencils, and used those and a water brush in the auditorium to do a full underpainting.  Then, back in the waiting area, I went over it in gouache.

This is Team Acro on stage.  There are 8 people in the dance but 6 worked better compositionally,

No one is a specific person anyhow.

Goodbye Stores

Oh so sad....... the nearest Kohls to me is closing!
What will I do?

Where will I get..... everything?

Seriously, I LOVED Kohls.  Daya and I have gone there together since it opened about 10 years ago.
We have a lot of nice memories shopping there though the years.

This comes right after the closing of Jerry's, one of my other Very Loved Places.

They are liquidating the store, everything is being sold, and despite my sadness at the store closing, the mannequins are pretty funny all together.  It is a Butt Farm.  If I had a spacious studio I would have gotten one!

Fiorello H. Laguardia High School Of Music & Art and Performing Arts

Daya got into the dance program at Laguardia!!!

The whole name of the school is probably the longest of all NYC schools:
Fiorello H. Laguardia High School Of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

And it is an AWESOME place to be.  (Even though everyone hates the principal.)

She has wanted this since 5th grade.
So back then I told her if she really wants it, she'll have to work very, very hard over years for it-- and she did it!

I don't know how many dance kids got in this year, but last year I believe it was around 80.

Actually WE did it, as there is no way she could do it without some very serious mom-support, and I have done this support on my own for the most part.  But it was enough, and this will be an AMAZING 4 years.

She is glowing!!

It is probably time for the ridiculous Laguardia Tree to come down; it has seen better days and has been up since November.  I'm sure Daya is the onliest kid ever in NYC to have a Laguardia Tree.

*****
Daya also received an offer to the Specialized High School of Math, Science, and Engineering from her SHSAT score of 530.  This is pretty awesome, especially considering I didn't put her in a SHSAT test prep course (because of dance scheduling) and she did minimal prep from a couple of books.

It is one of the 8 specialized academic high schools in NYC (LaG is the ninth but doesn't use the SHSAT), and she would be there if she hadn't gotten Laguardia.  She put this one down as her second choice, Stuyvesant was first.  To be honest neither of us cared too much about SHSAT results, but I wanted her to take it to open up options.  If I had test-prepped her I'm sure she could have gone to Stuyvesant.  Everyone who gets in there has test-prepped for at least a year, but more often 2 years before taking the SHSAT.****

But HSMSE is a really amazing school and I just could not be more proud of her.

Her regular high school offer was an engineering program at an engineering high school.

I still expect Daya to continue being a total math geek at Laguardia.

****That's why there was a lawsuit about specialized high school admissions, because the student populations are becoming less and less diverse.  Everyone test-preps their kids for these schools, Satuirday classes 2 years before the test are very common.  The specialized high schools only look at the SHSAT score, which is very narrow criteria.

Nexstar

Here are some pictures from Competition this weekend.
We were in NJ and had to stay overnight.
Daya competed 4 dances this year.

The studio KILLED it at competition- every single dance placed, they are going to Nationals again, and they got the studio award for professionalism which almost no one gets.

I am so proud!!

(I did start a painting of the stage but need to finish it up at home)

Gouache and Editorial

I recently discovered that a group of journalists meet twice a month to paint.
In the office.
2 floors down from my desk.
And all the supplies are there already!
NICE supplies, too!

This has been going on since 2016.....!
I'm not in editorial so that's probably why I had no idea.

So of course I have to join them.
And as it turned out the lady who heads up the whole thing was in my January class at Art Students League!
Small world.

It is in an instructed class but people also work on whatever they want.  For my first time there, I painted the class.

Next time I'll work in oil.

*******

HIGH SCHOOL RESULTS ARE STILL NOT IN AND THEY ARE VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY LATE.

Everyone is basically going nuts.

The deadline for private school deposits was yesterday, which put a lot of people in a bad place.

Students are stressing.

Parents are stressing.

Daya is stressing.

I'm not stressing but I'm so done with this waiting.

The letters were originally supposed to come out on March 4th but there was a lawsuit with admissions criteria to 8 of the specialized high schools (LaGuardia was not included) so there was a delay. But the lawsuit was in February and was resolved on-time and the results should have been ready right after...they were calculated months ago.

This morning I got notification results will come sometime next week...but no one knows the day.

The DOE probably still doesn't know the day.

No communication***, delays, mis-management.

But next week we will finally see the end of this terrible waiting.

*** look at that, a 2019 update stuck at the top of a 2018 article.

Forever 21 Again

I moved from the dungeon on the third floor to my nice new happy desk on 21.

That voice which yelled TEMPORARY when I first went to 3 was correct and it put me at great ease the whole time I was down there.

NOPE.

When I started here 13 years ago, I sat on 21.  Now 11 years later I'm back!  And I'm very glad to be back.  I'm very happy with my new desk and I'm glad to be back on this floor. The change overall is good and I needed it.

Although I don't have a window seat anymore, I'm not too far from the window and there is good air and good light here.

I did get a grow light for my plants so they can be happy, too.

My new light has a timer feature, so I read the instruction manual to figure it out..... and look at the plant on the cover!  A stapeliad!! A Stapelia Gigantea MY FAVORITE PLANT which also happens to be on my desk.... they are not very common house plants as far as I am aware so what a fun synchronicity that was.

I could probably keep an African Violet pretty happy here now, maybe I should get one.

Gouache and Mirrors

Here is a mirror perspective gouache painting I did at the studio.
It took a little over an hour and made my head all twisty.

Bathroom Refresh

On Monday when I got home from work I asked Daya if she wanted to go get paint and paint the bathroom.
Immediately.

She said yes so that's what we did.

Although it might seem spontaneous, I have been wanting to re-paint my bathroom for over a year and I just had ENOUGH and couldn't live with it for one more day.

Daya did about half the work and we both like it very much.

Hands

On Saturday I went to draw hands with Urban Sketchers NYC.
My friend Jin has a fountain pen which is nice and fast- a good one... it is a Moonman M2 and is around $20.
So, if you need a good fountain pen for drawing, that's a good one... I of course got one and I like it very much.

We all met in the atrium of the IBM building, and I need to go back there, what a great place to paint!

It was nice seeing some people I met at the portrait party again.  We all drew each others' hands for 4 hours.

Apparently there is a recurring doll meetup n the atrium.

Gouache and Friday Rehearsal

I ran out of time on this one!
Another step in my learning.....

Gouache & Puffers & T-Rex

My amazing friend Drusilla invented the BEST WORD EVER today: 

Pufferfishish.

So instead of painting the dance studio at dance, I painted puffers in my sketchbook.

I did a little experimenting with materials combinations.

Near the end of class, one of the other moms came over to chat. She works at the Museum of Natural History, and today her new exhibit opened.  So for the party, she wore a T-Rex inner ear.  It is larger than life, and she thinks it is too big but I think it is the coolest thing ever.

She was so nice to let me try it on!

So then I was explaining how pufferfishish came about, and how Dru and I like weird animals and we call them our pets, she pulled up a video of peacock spiders doing the most ridiculous mating dance.

I love these wonderfully weird encounters. 

Gouache and Audition

Yesterday Daya had an audition at Manhattan Youth ballet for their summer program.

She has muscles.

I painted while waiting, about an hour and 15 mins.
The time went by so fast.

Afterward, a woman came up to me and said she had been watching the whole time- she couldn't believe I just pulled a whole art studio out of my bag like it was nothing (it is no big deal), and she loved my painting and just thought the whole thing was so cool.

Maybe one day she will start painting, too.

Ten Years.

I have had this travel watercolor set for 10 YEARS.

Only today did I discover that bottom tray slides out.

Gouache and Moleskine

I got a new Moleskine sketchbook, the watercolor one. 
James Gurney uses these.
It's different from my gray drawing paper, and I like it.

I would like to fill or mostly-fill the book this month.

Friday Night

Saturday

Gouache and Snow

Mini-snowstorm.
Not really even a snowstorm, just a little snow.

Me at Three

Three #1
A photo album page I found at my aunt's house, I was probably around 3.

I suppose some things have not changed much.

Three #2
As I posted earlier, i have had to say goodbye to my beautiful home on the 15th floor where I have been for 10 years.

I am now on the third floor.

The first day back from vacation was my first day on the third floor, and I kid you not, as I walked in the door to work I heard the word TEMPORARY very strongly in my head, like my guides were really telling me don't freak out.

So I did not freak out. I thought, TEMPORARY.

That third floor desk and me?  NOPE.
The third floor and me?  NOPE.

This is not going to work, not at all.
My new desk is a box that is less than half the size of my old desk.
The floor is a dungeon- and also, toxic.

I had to get facilities to remove the spotlight above my desk that was shining right into my eyes.
But the air down there is really bad, there is no ventilation and all the fragrances everyone wears hang heavy in the air.  I am suffocating at my desk, even with my fan on. So I have been working on the third floor not at my desk because I can't breathe, and working from home.

There are only 5 of us including my manager.  Two people on my team never work at their desks because there is literally not enough physical room, so they are in the video studio all day.  My manager is all over everywhere.  The other person..... well, he's either not alive or a zen master, my manager votes for not alive.

As a good faith measure I have ordered an air purifier to show I'm at least making an effort but I want to go to the 21st floor.  I would technically still be with my (wider) team up there, and I'm not tied to the video studio like the rest of my (immediate) team is.  We should be on 21 but aren't because of the video studio. (That's also why we stayed on 15 for so long.)  My manager is being very cool about the whole thing and has already inquired about a desk on 21 for me.

Because I cannot stay on 3.  No freaking way.

Saturday Night Sketching at the Met

Daya had a summer audition today, and afterward I sent her home and met my friend Jin at the Met for some Saturday night sketching.

We stopped first at the Temple of Dendur.

My sketchbook/gouache set really does travel anywhere.  I am starting to think, though, that I should be working on white watercolor paper instead of grey drawing paper.

I also did 2 sculpture sketches which are not shown here.

The grey paper is perhaps better for drawing, and I used my graphitint pencils.

Tomorrow I'll pick up a moleskine watercolor sketchbook.

Charleston

We got back from Charleston Friday. I had not been in about 10 years.

Daya and I were ready to leave by Wednesday, but only because we missed the freedom of home and the cats.

The weather was terrible for the most part, but I got 2 paintings done plus one sketch on the airplane.

My aunt and I get along but as it goes with family, one has to have a certain tolerance.
Those things I needed to leave are still there.  The emotional hyper-sensitivity over nothing, the heavy oppressive old-generation religion.... I'm done with those.

Short visits are ok.  I went on the condition that there would be nothing to do with my mother (who is 5 minutes away), and she respected that.  My aunt makes good cocktails and knows how to laugh.  She gave me pictures, which I have never had.  I got the rain lamp working again.

I don't mind going back at some point but I have a three day maximum.
It is good to be home.


Airplane sketch

6x8 oil

6x8 oil

New Life Skill

I have acquired a new Life Skill.

I now know the ordering/paying process at Katz's.
Although it is famous, and a NYC legend since 1888, I have never been in there.

Since I don't eat meat, and that is what they do, this makes sense.

But I am flying to Charleston and my aunt wants a pound of corned beef because apparently it is hit or miss down there. So if I'm going to bring corned beef, it will be the best corned beef that I know about, since I won't know personally.

So, Katz's.  Might as well bring the most famous corned beef.

The place is crowded by people (like me) who don't know how to go through the order process.
It is complex enough that there are even articles and youtube videos on how to do it.

You get a ticket first thing.  Then you find a line at the counter, there are several, and you just have to figure it out.  Then you tell them what you want and they will offer you a sample.  (I politely declined).

They cut the meat right there, pack it up or make a sandwich, and hand-write the price on your ticket.  Then you go back up front to pay but if you are using a card you have to go all the way back to another unspecified counter where they use a calculator to do the tax by hand.

That's for an order to go, I don't know how to sit down and eat, that process is different.

They have TONS of people working there, it is a well-oiled assembly line process that looks very chaotic but works well, mostly because they have so many people working there.

It has always been family run, and the current owner is 27 years old.

Daya finds it baffling that there are so many airline restrictions on liquids but a pound of meat is ok.

I hope my aunt likes this very expensive pound of meat that I think smells terrible.

My cats, however, went insane like I have never seen them when I brought it home.