Monday Quote & Drawings

Simon says: "Some of the worst people I know are people."

Madeline

7 mins, graphitint pencil

20 mins

20 mins

Saturday

Today I went to pick up my painting that has been in a restaurant in the East Village for... I think a couple of years now.

It was time for it to come home.
I asked Daya to come with me and she did.

We got off the train at 8th st.  We could have walked east on 8th, but I had a very strong urge to turn on Broadway and walk down Astor place.

Right at the corner of Bway and Astor, a woman with 4 very small children was sitting on some steps.  She called me over.

I don't give people cash. Partly because I don't do that and partly because I never have any.
But she said she didn't want cash, her children were hungry and she was asking if we could go get them food at McDonalds.

That I will do, so I told her ok.

Daya was very concerned about the woman. She's really sensitive to homeless etc.
She wanted to help.

Now, I don't know if the woman was homeless, I sure hope not, and a lot of people do run scams with asking people for help.  But she did seem to be having a tough time. I think she really did need help.
You don't have to be homeless to be hungry, as the people giving out sandwiches on the trains say.

Whatever, it felt right and combined with that urge I had to walk over to where she was before I saw her, doing it was the right thing.

Also, anyone wrangling 4 small kids deserves a break.
The rest is not my business.

So anyhow, we fed 5 people (of course I got mom something) for $32.

Earlier in the day Daya and I went to Costco. We got whatever we wanted and didn't worry about it. That is abundance and I told her so. It's not always about fancy material stuff.

Daya remained concerned about the woman after we left, but I told her- legit or not, our sentiment is right and the rest is not for us to know.  And I'm never going to feel conflicted about feeding children.

**********
After I got my painting, Daya asked if we could go to Roosevelt Island.
My kid asked me to do something with her! Of course I'm going to say yes!

The train there is on the west side, so we walked over to the west village.

Washington Square Park was in a very happy mood.
It was a beautiful evening and people were out enjoying themselves and being friendly.

*****
I have been to Roosevelt Island within the last year, but haven't walked around too much since I was pregnant.  There is an old insane asylum there, as well as the old smallpox hospital, which has been made into a park. The horror movie Dark Water (2005) is about Roosevelt Island.

Daya wants to live on Roosevelt Island, and she wants me to live in the same building with her there.
There has been a lot of work done on the island, it is nice residential and really nice park areas.
Definitely different from not-too-long-ago.

Until very recently Roosevelt Island was definitely NOT fancy.... now apparently the buildings have pools in them.

It is my lifelong dream to live with a pool. I would be in the water every single day.

End of July

Of course I spent the evening drawing.
Here's maria, the 1 hour pose from tonight.

******
It is the end of July.
If I can get through July, I can get through August, right?

I have fallen into a probably-not-healthy week schedule of not really leaving my apartment at all on weekdays, unless something comes up.  I'm not even going out to the store that much.

I basically only ever see in-person human beings on Saturdays and Sundays.

Today I left for the first time since Tuesday, and that was just to get a package downstairs, and I realized I haven't gotten the mail since Tuesday, either.

I know this isn't good but I'm a bit stuck in it right now.
Tuesdays are my least favorite day because I don't have anything scheduled in the evenings.

One day is basically the same as the next, one week is basically the same as the next.
My brain is fried.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm a bit depressed.

Guest Artist!

My friend Beth Lowell is teaching a pastels class for a couple of people who asked her to.
She asked me to be a guest artist! The Reuters group meets twice a month now, so I have some Thursdays open.

There are two students and they are very cool- unlike pretty much all artists I know, they are happy with everything they do!

Beth had them do a copy of this oil painting by Julian Merrow-Smith.

This is NOT my painting

This is the copy I did in pastel.
Because this is a painting by a living artist, I don't feel right posting it anywhere else but here.

Doing master copies of other artists' work is a great learning experience, but those artists must always be credited.  i personally would never sell a piece done after a currently living artist.  It is for study purposes only.

5x7 mostly Nupastel and some Senneliers on top, on Uart Dark 400.
About 2 hours.

Weds Drawings

More drawing.

Elya, 1 hour.

20 mins

Last Homework

This week we worked on toned Artagain paper with white chalk.
This is wonderful paper, by the way, one of my favorites.

Graphite is just as difficult to photograph as oil paint.
Also, I need more general's white charcoal pencils... i think the lead in mine is broken and I lost a lot of the pencil trying to sharpen it.

I need to order a whole box- I use them all the time.

Here's the final critique.

Kayla on Monday

Here are a couple of drawings of Kayla.

I suppose there are worse things than getting thru this covid year by drawing all the time.
But honestly the drawing sessions- I go three times a week now to Drawing America-- are really getting me through in a huge way.

It's weird because I feel so strained, and I haven't even been drawing well lately.
Kevin's class has been amazing but also super-intense.  It's a strange feeling to need a break and also want to keep going.


20

20

Lasst 10 mins or so

Conservatory Garden Again

I went back to Conservatory Garden with Jin.

We settled down to paint back at the statue from the other week.
Shortly afterwards, a wedding party came over.
I was standing at the side of the entrance, Jin was sitting on a bench.
They asked her to move.
She said no.

They weren't very nice about it.
The fact is- when you do stuff in public spaces there are hazards.  We were their hazards, they were our hazards.

They were not being nice to Jin, so I went over to inquire if they had a permit or not.
They did not.
So, they really could not make her move.

That makes the second Covid wedding I have attended!
It was a nice wedding but some of them were very, very pretentious people who either really were quite wealthy or were trying to act like it..

I did a painting, it's ok sort-of, I think it's too complex a scene for a 6x8 panel.
oil.

Week 5 Homework

One more class to go.
This kind of drawing requires a lot of focus and mental energy.... and that is what I have found to be challenging, because my head feels so strained.

But I'm glad I am getting these assignments done.

Second Chance Drawing

On Thursday in Leah's group I did a really bad drawing:

And then I went to drawing on Friday and the marvelous Tasha took the exact same pose!

This second one is much better.

It was like a second chance drawing!

Thursday

I have had a not-so-great drawing week.
It's a mental thing- my mind feels very strained. Drawing requires focus that my brain just can't seem to muster up energy for. My mental fatigue is pretty severe.

Work is very busy.

Daya was gone from Sunday to Weds visiting a friend which was nice and lonely at the same time.

***
Leah brought a model in for the Thursday Reuters Art session.
Here are some 1 minutes:

20 mins

20 mins, Leah's cat joined so I added her in.

This model is one Leah uses a lot and loves but oh man does she move around.  All the time. During the pose.

It's normal for models to shift (the really good ones don't move much at all) but this lady moved constantly.  She stood up during the pose, she stretched-- the end of the pose was significantly different than the start even on a 20 minute---hey look I know modeling is difficult (I did it in college), and you're never allowed to blame the model for crappy drawing, but I found her movement to be excessive.  So many times I was looking back at her for something, and she was completely out of the pose.

I'm also used to working from live models. So I know what to expect and how it goes.

This lady was cool but she can't hold a pose at all.

She was outdoors and the sun was glaring, so was difficult to see.

*****

I have been slowly transitioning to facing that my online home for the last 16 years, Wetcanvas, is really truly dead, another casualty of 2020.  It has been dying a slow and ugly death for years, due to an out-dated website.  The promised support and upgrades never happened.

Well, the company who owns the site finally "updated" it, and if this is even possible, the new site is worse than the old one.  They made the terrible decision to run a forum on Wordpress instead of vbulletin.  We lost almost all the history of the site in the process.  The new site doesn't work.  It lacks basic functionality. Everyone who hasn't already left is leaving.

I have met some amazing people on there and learned so much over the years.

It's taken me about 2 months to really face this in a concrete way because I'm so sad about it.

For the time being I'm still there, mostly just talking with fellow staff.

It's like Wetcanvas died, went to Pet Sematary, and came back all bad and wrong.

16 years is a long time to be part of a community.

Facebook and Instagram are not the same.  Nor are other art forums I have seen around.

I guess everything comes to an end at some point.