Daya in Charcoal

I have been in the mood to draw.

When she was younger, Daya used to get so mad at me every time I started a new painting and it wasn't of her! Well- I have been meaning to do another portrait of her for a long time now.

This one went a little more slowly than the last one- over 6 hours.
But it was nice to sit at my easel all day.

The lighting in my ref was weird, top-down, I probably shouldn't have used it.

I love the simplicity of basic materials.
9x12

Set-up Tweaks and a Llama

Thanksgiving yesterday was nice, we were at Jackie's and had a lovely time as always.

Today I put a tripod mount on my 5x7 cigar gouache box.... and put it on the wonderful adorable mini tripod that just arrived.... isn't this fabulous?  It is the perfect height for me to sit on the floor and paint!  Much more comfortable.

Crinkly cat toy for size reference:

In the afternoon we went to see some friends from the dance studio.
Great food, great company and silly games like Llama lineup..... the girls thought they were too old for it.... until the suction-cup things came out of the box.

Here is Daya being a llama.

Aux Trois Crayons

Wetcanvas, the dinosaur site that it is, is still cranking along with fits and hiccups.
The annual portrait swap is still happening, though sadly not the huge event it used to be.

I haven't participated in several years but I thought it would be a nice thing to do.

And I'm in the mood to draw.
I need so much practice and review of anatomy.

So here is my swap partner this year, a nice man named Michael.  I used the trois crayons approach, meaning "three crayons (pencils)": black, white, and an earth red (sanguine).

I used black charcoal, white charcoal, and an earth red pastel pencil.
Maybe for the next one I'll use some nice conte.

There is a lot of allure in the power of simple tools.
Simple basics can do so much.

This portrait took about 3-4 hours.  I'd like to practice and get that time reduced even further.

A few years ago something like this might have taken me around 8 hours.
The black and white portrait swap I did of Clive many years ago took me about 12 hours if I recall correctly (I could search up the old blog post but am too lazy), so I'm getting the time down which is a good thing.

Gouache and The NYC Transit Museum

I wanted to get both myself and Daya out on Sunday.
Daya wanted go to the NYC Transit Museum in Brooklyn, so I said ok.
Which was a really fantastic idea because -- what a cool place to paint!

There are things there that Daya likes to do, like lift the wheelbarrow full of rocks.

Daya also spent quite a lot of time trying to jump the turnstile without making it click.
This kid takes the train every day yet she wanted to go play in turnstiles!

As it turned out- due to cold and rain and a birthday party, the transit museum was very crowded with kids.  I didn't mind but Daya got tired of it, especially since she couldn't do her favorite thing- drive the MTA bus.

I asked her if we will have to come back so she can drive the bus and she said yes-- so I'll have to bring paint again.  Maybe we should go on a nice-weather day when it isn't so crowded with parents needing to get the kids out and about.

Daya looking all Brooklyn.

I decided to paint in this old train car from 1933.
Daya got bored and went home!

Part of the reason for my bringing paint was to test tweaks in my setup.
Instead of using dry paint in pans, I switched to wet paint with a pencil tin case as a palette.
It worked well but the white paint slides down so I need to lay it out on the bottom next time.

IND R-4 “City Car”. 1932-1970s. Gouache in sketchbook.
About an hour and a half.

                           

Pre X-Ray Ballet

Daya went back to the dance doctors at Harkness.
She is still having hip pain, so they did some x-rays.

It turns out she has bumps on her hip bones- not spurs, but they are rounded where they should be straight- and it can cause pinching in the muscle.

This is apparently very common in growing dancers and athletes, particularly girls, and there might be a puberty hormone component.

She'll likely just have to live with it, but years from now if it's really bad they can surgically file down the bones, which  would put her in recovery for several months.  And she's not done growing!! So there is nothing to do until she is fully grown anyhow, except more physical therapy.

She can rock those hospital gowns though.

In the evening I went to the $100 art fair down in the Village
It was ok, there were some nice pieces and some very underwhelming pieces.

I did see a few people from Urban Sketchers, so that was nice.
And I got some free swag from Blick.

Finally!

Last night I found my new multifocal RGP lens waiting!
(My new right eye lens wasn't there, I'm hoping it is just arriving separately??)

RGP lenses are tiny.
They are custom-made.
They don't tear.
You can see them in the case.
They take half a second to insert and remove.
You can't put them on inside out.
They give better vision.
It's plasma-coated!

If you accidentally drop them on a hard surface, they bounce which is really terrible and makes them extremely hard to find.

This lens is SO MUCH BETTER than any of the soft ones.
It does work.

I'm having minor trouble with more halos and adjusting to the zones, but they are working the way I need them to.  I can see up close and my distance vision is fine.

I haven't had a hard lens in my left eye since June 30- 4 1/2 months.
And I forgot to ask my dr if I need to break them in again.... does 4 1/2 months erase 30 years of wearing these things?  I can feel it so maybe I should take it easy for the first week and not wear it for 18 hours immediately.....

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This week is a total whirlwind after a crazy weekend.
Work is crazy, school PA stuff is crazy, but I really don't mind.
It's good to be occupied.

Paul Taylor Dance

The Paul Taylor Dance Company offered complimentary tickets to LaGuardia dance students for their shows in Lincoln Center.

Nov 17 was the last performance and we went.  As it turned out, we had 6th row orchestra seats, smack in the center of the theater!

It was really cool.

14

Daya is 14!
I was at school helping with auditions in the morning and she met me after.
When the kids swipe their IDs to enter the building on their birthday, they get blasted with the happy birthday song!

Daya wanted to shop for leotards for her birthday so we first went to Onstage.

I loved these water bottles.

Then we went over to Yumiko which is apparently the must-have leotard brand in the dance world.
They are very expensive. Very boutique.
Daya got two.
Two leotards there cost $165.........
She was in heaven.

They have three stores in the whole world, lucky Daya to have one right here in NYC.

Then we went to dinner.
Our favorite place changed management and got a very upscale renovation.

It's very nice but we both miss the old place. (and the old prices.)

Friday Painting & Stuffs

Friday morning I went to the eye dr AGAIN for RGP multifocal lens measurements.
I'm hoping for the best, they are more expensive and while my right eye needs a boost as well, I'm only going multifocal in my left eye. 

I have been wearing the +2.50/HIGH +2.50 lens even though I have no distance vision!!
The original rx is getting sent back.
And I'm going back on Tuesday to see if another soft lens rx will work.

I know it seems like a lot and it is, especially as I'm getting the hard lens, but I'm not really paying for these dr appointments and I'd like to get it right.  I want a backup, I want options, mostly I want a resolution and don't want to settle for something incorrect.  This is trial and error and I want correct information and a good solution.

In the afternoon I went out painting in Central Park.  Autumn colors are still good.
6x8 oil

*******

Afterwards I went over to LaGuardia to see the student-curated art show.
There is some really, really good work there and some stuff I thought was just ok.

The use of photography in painting has really made a big difference in the images the students are working with. (and people in general.)

When I was in high school I don't recall ever painting a photograph. We just didn't do that.
Photography at that time was not digital and not accessible like it is today.
It was all working from life or imagination.  So the images themselves were selected differently.

It's interesting to see what the kids are working with.  Some of them are really exceptional.

Janet with Pastels in Gouache

The Reuters East Coast art group met up tonight.
I'm trying a new setup with my gouache cigar box kit, which worked very well.

This is Janet.

She was doing a pastel painting with a beautiful box of Unisons in front of her and the lights of Times Square behind her.  So I painted her and she didn't know it until afterwards.

This took about an hour and a half and is in my Moleskine watercolor sketchbook.

Mystery Solved

I looked and looked and looked and looked some more over DAYS and I just saw it tonight.

The lenses ARE different!!

My RX:  -0.25/ HIGH +2.50
My order: +2.50 /HIGH +2.50

The nice person at 1800 contacts said:

what does that first number mean? the -0.25

Briton

 at 22:28, Nov 11:

That would be the corrective power of the lenses. The negative sign means you are near sighted, but only just. The +2.50 you received are for farsighted people.

Well, I'm definitely not farsighted!

NO WONDER all my distance is blurry.
But that first pair.... I could not see up close!

I have an RGP fitting on Friday, and I'm going to ask about this.

Soft lenses are confusing.

I'm getting an exchange on these lenses.

Multifocal Jellyfish

So, something is weird with these jellyfish contact lenses.

My eye dr sent me home with a prescription, a contact in my eye, and three extras.
I wore all the contacts for the rest of the week to get used to them.  None of them did much for my close-up vision, I still needed reading glasses.

Then on Friday my order arrived.
And..... I'm so baffled.....

New lens inserted........ now my close-up vision is GREAT!!

But my distance vision is all blurry.

So blurry that while I could see the Sargent show in paper-grain detail (so wonderful), I had to take the lens out afterwards because the rest of the environment was too blurry.

What the heck?

It is the same lens, I checked.  I don't understand how I could go 4 days straight in one lens batch and they were all the same, and have immediately different results with my order.

My dr did say I would have some compromised distance vision in these jellyfish lenses, and I'm still waiting for an appointment for an RGP fitting.

From my eye dr:

From 1800 Contacts:

The only difference is the lot # and the expiration date!

Sargent & Yumiko

There is an incredible show of Sargent charcoal portraits up at the Morgan library, and i finally got a chance to go.
It was, of course, astounding.
I spent a long time at the exhibit, seeing them up close was amazing.
The personalities of his subjects is really intense, far more so in person than any photograph.

I photographed the whole show and did not buy the book.











  
















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While I went to the Sargent show, Daya was at home competing in the Ultimate Couch Surfing Championships.

There is almost nothing that could interrupt that.
However, when I was walking up Madison Ave I passed a dancewear shop called On Stage...leotard heaven for dancers.... I called Daya, and she immediately got up off the couch, got dressed, got on the train, and met me there.

Daya is obsessed with leotards.  It is truly bizarre.

The timing was good, she arrived right when I was done at the Sargent show.
Daya got one new leotard at an excellent price.

There is a brand of leotards called Yumiko that is very big in the designer dance world.
Daya wants some for her birthday and is obsessed with them.  She has been looking at them online.

Then she mentioned they have a flagship store here in NYC, so we went.
She tried on leotards and basked in Yumiko vibes.  It is very nice in there.  Excellent design, very Japanese.

We did not buy anything.

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AND THEN..... Daya made us dinner!

On her own!

Salmon tacos with avocado, cheese,  tomatoes, and fresh spinach.

It was perfect.