Stalker

I am a stalker.
I am stalking Derwent.
I have been stalking them for several months.

There is a new set (ok 2) that I want but they are not available in the US yet and it takes them wayyyy too long to get over here. Its not fair and it's stupid.

Today I stalked them again and found I can pre-order on Amazon! Release is March 22! SO CLOSE!!!

I REALLY want this shade and tone set! 
I also want the tinted charcoal pan set.

Here is Pebbles stalking me.

Fireballs and Chickens

 I got a text from Notify NYC that there was a film shoot in my neighborhood and there would be a fireball!

How cool is that! I wanted to go see the fireball.  So I called Janet and extracted her from work and her apartment so we could go for a walk and check it out.

We did not see the fireball.
There was a wide time range when it could happen.

There are chickens in my neighborhood! How cool is that!

They did not want to have their pictures taken, especially the pretty one I wanted to get a good shot of.
I think these chickens are wonderful.

MYB Winter Workshop

Daya was on stage all weekend and the show was fantastic.  I went three times.
She was in 4 out of 5 shows... she got a night off from dancing Friday evening but she was volunteering backstage at the show.

She has not had a day off in a long time--- not during winte break and this whole past week she was t dance rehearsals until 8:30pm.
"
Daya danced actual classical original Balanchine choreography- they danced Diamonds! That's quite a thing to have done- dancing original Balanchine on stage right here in NYC!

I'm extremely proud of her.

She also danced a student-choreographed piece, and they did the whole third act of Coppelia- which she had 2 roles but not ever in the same show.

Basically she had to know some pretty complex and intense choreography for 4 different dances- that's a lot! And they put this show together in 8 weeks!

I got some rare Daya pictures. (I did not get a picture of her in the Diamonds costume. These are both from Coppelia.)

I'm so tremendously proud of this kid.

We took the bus home and found some important information that I guess might stand the test of time....

Artist Brain, Graphite, and 8 Years

Last night I started a drawing in the Reuters Art group.
I still want to practice faces, so I pulled a few Netflix screenshots from shows I have been watching lately.

The plan was to do 2 1 hour poses.

I ended up spending all 2 hours on one drawing, didn't finish, and went to Reuters Art again this morning (They meet at different times most days of the week) to finish up.

So this drawing is a 4 hour drawing, graphite on Strathmore 400.

I think it maybe has some issues in a couple of places but I'm not exactly sure where... I measured and re-measured and even coming back the next day measuring again didn't see anything major to fix.  So I might have to analyze it more for learning. Or maybe it's ok and I'm just stuck in my head.

I have not done a lot of Asian faces so this was good learning. The angles are different.
I did not do the clothing patterning on purpose because I didn't want this to be a 10 hour drawing!

I also had to kind of fight against my own head......drawing does that sometimes.
I do a lot of studying and I attend Ken Goshen's Patreon classes and... just learning in general.  And when you listen to someone a lot they kind of get stuck in your head. Sometimes that's a really good thing, especially if they know what they are talking about.

But sometimes even if they really know what they are talking about and they get stuck in my head and what I'm doing differs from how they do it I get stuck in the trap of thinking "I'm doing it wrong" or other non-productive thoughts like "*insert admired teacher name here*" wouldn't like it. (Which for the record 1) doesn't matter and 2) probably isn't even true. I never study with people who think their way is the only way, and they do say so.)

This is artist-brain for you.
Of course I know better but it still happens.

Anyhow.

My biggest lesson on this one was simply to draw for the pleasure of drawing.
Just drawing because I love to draw and don't worry about anything else.

And also to enjoy using my wonderful Staedtler clutch pencils, which are my very favorite, and I just got three more so now I have the full range of hardness on the H 2H 4H side of the graphite spectrum. And I LOVE them and I wouldn't have done that if not for Ken's graphite workshop, I would have stuck with my (still-beloved and favorite) HB.  Sometimes it's good to listen to people and expand.

The color caps for each pencil come with the lead packs.

I do not really understand why there is no green, or why they are not in spectrum order.

************
I went to the Japanese market after work. (I LOVE the Japanese market!)
And... after 8 years I filled my card with all the stamps, 100 of them!
You get a stamp for every $10.

So the next time I go, I will get $20 off.

8 years, $20.
I need to get something good with this $20!!

Wednesday Figure Drawing

I haven't left my apartment since... Monday? Sunday?
It's hard to remember.

I should leave my apartment more... I start feeling REALLY weird after a few days.

So I went to figure drawing... and got a seat in front instead of at one of the easels in the back.
I don't like working flat, it is uncomfortable and can cause distortion but I'll stop complaining.
The space is really tight in Simon's (very nice) room at the National Arts Club, but at least it's something.

The model was lovely and it was her first time modeling! She did great!

40 mins

20 mins

10 mins

******
It's not terribly far to get to the National Arts Club, which is on 20th and Gramercy.
I can just take the train to 23rd St.
Figure drawing ended at 9.
I was on the train by 9:15.

I don't know what the heck was possibly going on to cause so much train traffic because the train stopped in the tunnel before every station and it was just the kind of night where I just wanted to get HOME ALREADY.

I should have been home easily before 10 but I didn't get off the train until about 10:30.
And of course before I left drawing I didn't stop at the ladies' because I thought to myself... "It's not long to get home." Yeah right.

That was not fun.

Tuesday Figure Drawing

 So.... I went to drawing again with my friend Janet's group.

The company is fantastic, truly. They are great quirky people.

I don't think they light the models properly and the view is difficult sometimes and absolutely no one is picky like Simon is abut the model poses so I'm completely spoiled.

But it's still worth going to. I'm going to keep looking around for other "zoom supplements" but I'm glad to have this one.

The cats "helped" pose with their people.

The cat settled down right in front of the camera... so I just went with it.

Brooklyn Plein Air & Pointe Shoes

Today I went to Brooklyn Botanic to paint.
It was a nice quiet painting session, which was just what I wanted.

8x10 oil

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Daya needed new pointe shoes and I met her at Onstage after painting.
She needed a fitting (again) and I knew we needed as many pairs as they had of whatever she wanted that they would sell to us.

There is a big problem with pointe shoe shortages right now, and she's very picky about what she can wear. (This is normal for dancers.)

There are many, many, MANY styles and variations of pointe shoes, it's astounding, and you can't wear just anything. It has to fit properly to the shape of your foot and be the right hardness for your foot strength.

Daya's feet are super-strong and she needs the hardest shoes possible.

We ended up getting 2 pairs, which is good because she's performing next weekend with Manhattan Youth Ballet. Tights, shoes, ribbons, elastics... it was a good chunk of change. She'll maybe be ok with shoes for a couple of months.........

I thought this costume at Onstage was really pretty.
And I'm also glad that I don't have to buy costumes anymore.

Find the Hidden Cat & Other Sundries

 Can you find the third cat?

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I feel weird lately and also I kinda really failed on my February Art Goalz.

It was faces.  I wanted to do a face every day. This did not happen.
And figure drawing also wasn't happening and as a result I feel lost and drifty.
It's amazing how a change in my art routine really can knock me off.

I did some Bargue studies and a few faces in my sketchbook but I didn't work anywhere near to the quantity that I wanted to.

Last weekend I even took off from plein airing, on purpose. I was just feeling a bit internally tired.
Work has been pretty busy.  Not busy enough that I am out of balance with it, and I prefer to be busy than not, but it has still been busy and that will continue. (I'm not complaining.)

I'm just in a bit of an artistic lull.

I did start a Holbein master copy and it's going ok but even with that I'm not feeling the energy flow and I can only work in short sessions, an hour or 2 at a time.

Also in Feb I extracted my stationary bike from Daya's room and I have been dong a daily HIIT spin class.  I need to get cardio back in my life, especially since I'm in my apartment all day every day long-term. So I had to being some intense exercise back to my daily routine.  I can go DAYS without leaving my apartment now, taking out the trash doesn't count. And I haven't been going to the pool- in Jan because of covid and in Feb because work has been really busy.  I'm going to make it happen in March.

But I need that daily cardio, and my spin class is working out well.
My diet has been good as well; I spent the month recovering from Junk Food January which was awesome but definitely not sustainable.

March will continue with keeping good health balance.

And I hope my art-energy-lull subsides very soon.

Figured Out Figure Drawing MAYBE

Today I texted Janet and told her I am having an Art Crisis.
She maybe has solved it for me, as much as it can be solved.

Janet draws with The Bunker Creative, they are in New Jersey.
But they are still doing Zoom sessions, and they welcomed me tonight to their group.

Is it as good as Drawing America?
I don't know yet. Maybe nothing ever will be.
Simon is very finicky and tweaks the model pose to make it just right.
I got used to that. 

The poses are mostly shorter.
The people are WONDERFUL and the model was also WONDERFUL, so that's good.
I will definitely keep going.
But I am still sad.

Here are some drawings of Bree:

Figuring Out Figure Drawing

Simon broke my art heart.

Drawimg America zoom figure drawing sessions are officially discontinued and I am gutted.
I loved them.

I got accustomed to having them, and I also kind of got addicted to them over the last 2 years.
It really made figure drawing extremely accessible and I got so much practice in.
I loved the audio books and all the different costumes the models had.

But now figure drawing is back in-person.
Sessions cost more and I have to...... leave my apartment and go.

I want BOTH.  Zoom is never a permanent replacement for in-person live figure drawing but it's also turned out to be a really great thing on its own. Simon runs really, really good sessions with fantastic models and not all sessions are run as well.

I could not go last week because it was full.  There is a participant limit because the room is small.

So I went today.

The model who was supposed to show up didn't and there was a sub.
It's not that he wasn't a good model, he was fine as far as holding poses but I don't really like drawing men. They are never as good as women. This is kind of a thing, even Simon has said the reason they never announce the model beforehand is because no one shows up if it's a man. Women are just more fun to draw, unless there is a cool costume involved.

The guy next to me was breathing loudly through his though the whole time and.... burping.  It was gross. I'm less tolerant of being in close quarters with people.  I was never good at it before but it's on a whole new level for me now.

Figure drawing sessions usually aren't this unpleasant, but sometimes it happens.

I need to find a zoom figure drawing group to supplement the in-person stuff.

Move|NYC Performance

Daya was off from school this week but she didn't have any kind of break.
I let her take last Friday off school so she could have one day to do nothing, at least until she had dance in the evening.

Monday she had rehearsals all day with Manhattan Youth Ballet, and the rest of the week she had an intensive with Move|NYC, her dance mentoring program. They performed tonight and it was wonderful.

She has more performances in a few weeks with Manhattan Youth Ballet.

Islamic Art at The Met

 After the Disney exhibit we went and hung out in the Islamic wing, which is always a wonderful place to be. It's serene and relaxing and there are many manuscript pages.