Hudson

This week is spring break, and I thought it might be nice to get away for an overnight.
Daya likes thrift shops, and Hudson has that, so we went.

The weather was not good, it rained Thursday and was very cold on Friday.
I did not bring any paint!

Hudson is cool, but it isn't the same without Drusilla.
Daya doesn't like my company, so there wasn't a lot of good conversation.
Also we had a fight.
I don't think I want to travel with Daya again for a while, not until she is ready to be friendly to me in general.

We went to the old cemetery, which is pretty fantastic.
I like the civil war veteran section.

A Hudson kind of thing to find around the cemetery:

Sadie was absent for her show.

Flower Kraut is still there.

So is Vasilow's but we didn't go.

Alpaca shop.

Park Bench at Second Show.

Daya got some shirts and I got a pair of cool earrings.

Hotel Room at The Wick, it was nice.

Bathtub not great but passable.

Le Garmin breakfast, I broke my no starch rule with their eggs benedict with potatoes.

We went to Antique Warehouse, which Daya loved.

She got a few shirts which she is very, very happy with.

I found an iPhone from the 1800s.

And also this old iPad.

Old easel.

Cat and mouse game.

Carousel horse.

Another one.

I like this painting, but mostly the paintings there were utter crap, rubbish, or both.

Taxidermy peacock.

Daya was upset to find something she recognized from her childhood in an antique market-

an ipod mini:

I bought this awesome tea towel at Tradewinds.

I also got quite a lot of tea at Verdigris.

3-31

Hey, March is just about over!
A good way to end the month is to draw, so that's what I did.

Here is the 1 hour pose which actually is a 45 minute pose.  I dont know why we always call it an hour.
The model was in Sweden and her cat came to say hi so I included her.

45 min pose

Conte pencil on Mi Tientes

20 minute pose, panpastels on black artagain.

Sunday Drawing

Today is a rainy day, not so nice to go out.

But I did go to drawing. I normally don't on Sundays since I try to get out.

It was a good session.

1 mins

7 mins, graphite

20 mins charcoal, paper not ideal

45 mins, panpastel & charcoal on black Mi Tientes.

St Brigid at St Pat's

Number 8, 9 x 12 pastel on Mi Tientes

This one took over 4 1/2 hours.

****************

I am really liking PanPastels for these.

I did tweak my custom St Pat's PanPastel Palette, I think it worked out ok except I kind of want a non-tinted yellow ochre in there, so I might tweak it again. Have to figure out what to remove.
I think the earth red should be a yellow ochre.

And I did use the purple today! 

It's a bit odd I am in the cathedral so much and doing this series, I really am not a fan of the Catholic church, but I think the beauty of the building goes beyond religion.

Lighting changes, which did not affect me today:

No Spotlight

The lovely colors on the walls came from... actually I'm not sure if lights inside the cathedral but could have also been the sunlight. I was in the front near the entrance.

Spotlight

In-Transit

Which is better:
This illegal Dalmatian or the cereal socks?

5th Ave and 53rd:

Here is a Ronald McDonald Satanist with hot dog socks:

It seems I missed something about Cool Sock Day... I don't have any cool socks that are not the fuzzy around-the-house kind.  

Nightmare

I had a bad dream.

I dreamed I was in a painting-demo-workshop thing (???) and my friend Hua was painting.
The subject was a figure which had intricate rose tattoos on the arms.
It was a large difficult painting.

Anyhow she stepped aside and I was supposed to resume the painting..... I couldn't move the palette which was way too low, and I had to do the whole thing with......

.....a fan brush!!!

It was just awful.

*******
NOTE: I think fan brushes are the absolute cutest brushes, they are my favorite shape-wise but I almost never use them for actual painting. 

This lack of using them has not prevented me from acquiring several over the years.

PanPastel Wednesday

 I mixed things up in drawing tonight!

We are still on the Girl with A Pearl Earring theme.
Simon hates the book so far! It's pretty hilarious. (Simon, not the book.)

We have one more week of it.

Brush tip of the day: I showed my lovely clean conditioned organized brushes to the group.
Simon said you can use Woolite to clean them!
Some recessed cavern in my brain MAYBE vaguely recalls hearing this in college, but it is so forgotten I may as well have never known it, if I ever knew it.
I used my old standby The Masters brush cleaner from Generals, which is a magic substance.

20 mins, charcoal and panpastel on grey toned strathmore:

1 hour, panpastel and charcoal on black mitientes:

Deep-Conditioned!

I have thoroughly cleaned, deep-conditioned, and organized the entire Brush Farm. It took 2 days.


My beautiful clean conditioned brushes make me so happy! :)

Washington Square Park Part 1

I did go to Washington Square Park today, and Andrew the Pianist was there.

My pack wasn't actually that bad to carry- either I got stronger (unlikely) or I somehow packed less stuff (also unlikely, I only take what I need) but it was not a big deal which I am glad of.

My Yellowstone Box is an absolute joy to paint on.

My large tripod is also an absolute joy.

I started painting at around 11am and ended today's session at 3pm.
The park got suuuuper-crowded, Andrew left at 2:30, and I was just done for the day.

I sliced my hand open with my palette knife and I also got a stupid sunburn on part of my right forearm...time to add sunscreen to my gear.

Here is the park just before 11am, when it isn't so crowded yet:

Day 1...
I know this painting has a ton of errors and is very rough.

It is 11x14 oil.

**********

Notes from today:

Since Andrew is REALLY worth listening to, I did not wear earphones.

I talked to a lot of people.

I met another Pratt grad from Illustration but I didn't want to tell him how old I am when he asked!

Many, many people cane over to give compliments and say hi.

I met a lovely lady who went to Cooper Union back in the day.

An older man asked if he could watch, I said yes, people sometimes ask that and it's not a big deal but he was literally over my shoulder and it just felt really intense... he said "You are too young to have such a shaky arm."

My arm does shake sometimes, I usually need to stabilize. It's not as bad in-studio.

But mahl sticks are a thing, for a reason!
I guess that's normal, I looked it up, but now I wonder if something is wrong with me!

But I also did feel really nervy with him watching so close and intently...I told him so and he was very respectful and left.
Usually people don't get up so close!

It is unnerving to be scrutinized so closely, you can feel specifically watched, it's palpable.

I struggled SO MUCH with that stupid red NYU building.

Maybe it was because I added a little galkyd gel to the paint.... I don't use mediums normally when I paint plein air, I always regret it when I do.... but honestly buildings give me a lot of grief and.... honestly, my buildings kind of suck.

**********

There is a local painter I admire HUGELY, his name is Thor Wickstrom, he does these insane plein air paintings with crazy buildings and writing and....he's a wizard.  And all I could think was Thor would just knock this out like it was nothing.

So it occurred to me to see if maybe he would be willing to let me go out and paint with him one day.
I am of course willing to pay for his wisdom and time.... AND HE SAID YES AND HE WON'T EVEN CHARGE ME!

I'm totally willing to pay though...but wow!

One day I will pay forward this generosity of teaching!

21.8

I am going to paint in Washington Square Park tomorrow.

I hope Andrew the Pianist is there, he's the guy who literally schleps a piano around the West Village, even into the subway on the platform sometimes. (Insta: @andrewtheartist)

I would LOVE to paint him.

For a change, I'm bringing my large setup to paint 11x14.

It's heavy, I don't take it out as much as I would like.

It might be a good idea to use one of those small canvas-enclosed carts with it, I might have to look into that.  Something like this. Right now I'm hands-free with a hiking backpack and I have a thing about being hands-free.

(I don't know the weight on my normal smaller setup, I'll weigh it next time I pack, but it's not a big deal for me to carry around.)

This one really can be.
Tonight I packed it up...... it weighs 21.8 lbs.
Heavy.

But not as heavy as Andrew's piano.

Large Plein Air Gear with Cat