watching

sketches

So, because I'm in this limbo-before-the-breakthrough, I've decided to return to my roots. My drawing roots, that is.

I love my babies' bodies, and since they were born I've been wishing I would take the time to draw them more. But they don't sit still, and I'm cross-eyed, and I'm out of practice, and etc, etc. I have lots of excuses to stay stuck.

I have tried to draw them a few times, and I end up with a scritchy abstract jumble of lines because, seriously, they just keep moving. So I decided to cheat. I took some pictures of them in the bath, when they are most gorgeous, and did some sketches from those.

I have a great idea for a painting I'm going to do based on these sketches. You know, after the breatkthrough.

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new bones

I'm working on a new commission for a doctor friend of mine. Those doctors, they like the bones. This doctor, in particular, requested the following vertebrae:

first cervical (atlas)

6th cervical

7th thoracic

4th lumbar

I can see why he chose them... isn't it amazing how different they all are? They'll be arranged horizontally, on four separate canvases, like this:



Here is the first layer of paint:

I love yellow ochre and gray.

I have no idea what's happening next, but sometimes that's the most liberating position to be in.

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grandma jo

Ach.

I've been on the fence about whether to post this. But it feels like a gaping omission if I don't.

My lovely grams died last month, at age 92. We drove to Michigan in time to see her alive one last time, and I had the honor of doing this sketch a few hours after she passed:

The image isn't complete without this this poem that my cousin wrote, which she read at the memorial service.

My Grandma's Arms


Babies cradled, flowers tended
Arms made strong with years of stirring, kneading
Hands that spent years caring for others

Fingers and hands composed many cards and letters
Arms that prepared delicious meals
Hands that created blankets for children

Loving arms that kept us close
Many years of work and wear
Now held in her Lord's arms.



-Rachel Redman (April 30, 2010)

Grandma Jo, we love you and miss you.

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not nothing

A sketch I did in five minutes counts as making art, right?

projecting

I was just saying to Jason the other day that I really wanted to get an overhead projector and where on earth does one even start looking for one of those? The last time I saw one in person was in my 8th grade Algebra class (any other City High Pegasi want to weigh in on that? I actually have fond memories of it!). Actually now that I think of it, I 'm pretty sure my obsessive-compulsive hoarder of a boyfriend in the San Francisco days probably had one in his meticulous stacks of rubble, but I was too unnerved by the claustrophobia to put it to use at that time.

But I'm past that now.

So not a week after voicing my desire did I find one for sale at an artist's rummage sale. She herself hated to part with it, because she was moving to Europe and couldn't take it along and where on earth would she even start looking for one over there? But hey, her loss is my fortuity! Er, I mean, I know a good deal when I see one, and was only too happy to lighten her load.

Auden likes my new toy, too:





Really, the possibilities for these things are unlimited, but I knew I wanted it specifically for the latest bone pieces, which I started here. I wanted to project the contour drawings to be able to fiddle with the composition, and let me tell you, I totally dorked out on fiddling with the composition. For hours. It was magical.



They're still evolving, and I have a sneaking suspicion that very little of what you see here will remain in the final product... because this is acrylic paint and try as I do, I just don't love the quality of it the way I love oils. I think more layers are in order, but I'm on that precarious edge of wanting to push the piece forward without overworking what's fresh and fluid about it.

For the time being think I'll go project drawings of bones on some other stuff, just because I can.

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on a roll

For maybe the first time my artist self and my mama self have converged onto one point:



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an artistic interlude

I've had it in my mind to do some drawings of Auden. I keep thinking to myself, he's only going to be this little for a heartbeat... draw him, draw him now! And, well, there's laundry to do and dishes to wash and pillows to fluff. I know, it's a boring excuse.

But! I found a Friday night uninstructed figure drawing session at the University, and have gone a few times. It's good practice, especially since the models sit still, which Auden NEVER does.

Here, have a look (click on the image to get up close and personal):











Oh, and? I was accepted to a juried group show in February, in Cedarburg, WI. Hooray! I'm still an artist! I'll be doing some more little glass paintings, since their theme is "miniatures."

So while I fantasize of enormous canvases and several consecutive hours --days, even! -- of painting, 15 minute drawings and 4 x 6 inch paintings are not chopped liver.

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i still make art

I've put up some new pieces on Etsy, head on over and have a look.

Okay, here's a peek:





And wonder of wonders, I've been painting again, too. When Auden sleeps, I get him snug in the sling, leave the dirty dishes in the sink and head to the easel instead. The four-panel flower piece is still evolving, here's how it looks lately:



Frankly, only a little less cartoon-y than when I started. It's hard to keep my focus with this piece, especially since I feel as though I'm flailing around in search of the right colors and composition... it's hard not to think I was on the wrong foot from the beginning. How will it resolve? Stay tuned for the next episode: "The Secret of Underpainting," or, "Palette Knife: Friend or Foe?"

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one bridge, two views

I love it how Kyoto goes from rural:




...to urban:



in the same panorama.

I biked out on Friday afternoon to sketch the nearby rice fields after harvest, feeling rather Van Gogh-like (that's me, just another Dutch artist fascinated with Japan...), though I don't think he had to render telephone poles and power lines in the background.


If you've ever been here, you know it's just part of the quirky charm -- ramshakle corrugated tin add-ons to a hundred year old wooden house; neighborhood shrines sharing street corner space with vending machines. Farmers tilling fields right next to the Circle K.

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hair and other fibers

A couple of days ago I went to the Tetsuo Ishihara Museum of Traditional Japanese Hairstyles, in Gion. I'd read about it in the Kyoto Visitor's Guide, which cryptically provided no address or directions. I found the website linked above, and pedaled down to Shijo with a vague notion of how to find it. I was assuming that, like all other things in Gion, it would be hidden to those not in the know, so I was prepared for a bit of a treasure hunt. Turned out to be easy to find, but no less delightful in the discovering: up a narrow staircase from a darkened rear-entrance, into an equally narrow u-shaped room with display cases on either side. I'd say it hardly qualifies as a museum, but for my purposes -- sitting and sketching -- it was perfect.

The configurations of shapes and loops and ornaments ranged from sublime to outrageous, all of them great fun to draw.

Afterwards, the woman who was working behind the counter played a video for me, which showed Tetsuo Ishihara creating three of these hair sculptures on a live model. He still does the hair for many a maiko, and apparently it's somewhat contentious that he has gone as public as he has. It was fascinating to watch him work, though, with deft precision and a rakish disregard for the poor girl's scalp. I had no idea how much scaffolding goes into some of these styles, although I don't know how else they'd defy gravity so gracefully.

Then the woman explained to me the contradiction of Japanese hair being so straight and flat, and yet pliable into these kinds of dimensions. It's the same with kimono, she said, on its own it is flat and straight, just square shapes; but wrapped just so around the shoulders, draping elegantly on the arms of a woman, it transforms into a curving and sensual line. At least I think that's what she said.

That's what I love about art here -- there's always some kind of underlying philosophy, a metaphor of relationships that seems to cut right to the essense of things. It's not just a pretty hairstyle, it is a coded message; a signifier of age, of status, of position in time. I want to achieve the same meaningfulness in my art, but without appearing contrived or pretentious. This, I surmise, is a life-long process.

On the way home I stopped at yet another furuhon-ya-san (used bookstore) to gather materials for collaging. I got a couple of pocket atlases and a pile of worm-eaten maps, sensing an emerging theme...

Now it's time to conjure images and feelings from flat surfaces: off to the drawing board!

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to do

The list of things to do perpetually includes Write Emails, Make Phone Calls, Organize Things -- all of which seems to take days and weeks, and I'm not even employed. How do we get anything done? Especially in these first tender weeks of pregnancy, when it feels like someone is pulling the plug every afternoon at 1pm and then again at 5pm. And again around 8pm.

We're staying with my dad & step-mom for the next couple of weeks, and I've set up a little studio space for myself in the basement. My list of things to do now features Draw Every Day, so that I don't atrophy. Since I'm occupying dad's work room, I'm sharing space with tools and hardware and art supplies galore: racks of solvents, mediums, adhesives; cabinets of nuts and bolts and sandbelts and washers, drawers all organized and labeled (now I know where I get this from); dad's old canvases stacked neatly in the corner; archives sharing shelf space with slides reels from my childhood.

So I'm anthropomorphizing and drawing tools: here, a mama pliers and her baby.

We spent the weekend at the Lake, where the list of things to do was pitched entirely and revised to read more like Bask in the Sun, Read Lazily, Kayak out to See the Shipwreck, and Eat Constantly. I know, life is certainly rough. Here's J reading Harper's in a beach chair with a funny head-wrap:

The weather was glorious, the water a perfect 73 degrees. We caught part of the Pleidean meteor shower after dark, and later woke to a humdinger of a thunderstorm. All of this is exactly why I wanted to be home in Michigan for the summer. To do: Slow Down and Enjoy.

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