photographing friend

This is my friend Tejasinha. I took a bunch of photos of him at the beginning of the summer and we thought it would be fun to do it again for the fall.



Late in the photo shoot he invited me into the picture frame for a double photo. I took something like 50 pics tonight. We had a good time. Can you tell?

An Evening at Lamb Abbey

This is a drawing I did of Gabriel Egan. He played violin last night at Lamb Abbey Art Society, opening for Moose Jackson Danger Angel and the Rogue Birds, which he also played in. Afterwards I went to the Savoy, the last late night show from Sci-Fi July, and saw Dr. Strangelove.



And this is a photo of the Rogue Birds. I took a bunch of photos, but this was the only one that came out readable. Interesting, if not very, um, illustrative of the people in the band...

Aunt Rose

One of the painting sketches I've been doing of relatives on my mom's side of the family. In this case my Aunt Rose, from a photobooth photo of her when she was about nine years old.

a good night's work

Thanks to Amy for asking if I wanted to go out to draw and Gina for the new pencils and sketchbook. I LOVE TO DRAW PEOPLE SO MUCH! What a gas.

Edited 1/7/09: Oh, yeah, I did these drawings at the Langdon Street Cafe, of high school students and their mentors performing poetry and music wonderfully together.

niece and nephew

Here are portraits of my niece and nephew, at my brother and sister-in-law's house at Thanksgiving. Happy December everybody!

almost last day of "Mild to Extra-Spicy"

Here's my first portrait of the day - Tara.



And a group portrait of my hosts at Fort Can Gallery/May Day Studio. (They are much less cartoon-y in person.) From left to right: Brian Zeigler, Tara Jensen and Kelly McMahon.



This is a portrait of Linda, Brian's wife. We both liked the way it came out. It almost looks like her. Pretty close.



Last but not least, Megan. It was a great day. There were a couple people who couldn't make it, but a bunch of people came to the reception who I hadn't expected, and then some friends who came by took me out for dinner afterwards. May Day Studio also had a good day, meeting new people and making plans for the future. Curtis Savard took some excellent photographs of the event which I'm looking forward to posting soon.

More about my future plans for art making, soon.

portrait Friday

I drew four portraits today, and anticipate drawing another four or five tomorrow. Andrew above.
 

I got to draw another portrait yesterday

And here she is. I had five people scheduled but only one was able to make it. I've rescheduled with two, one I've contacted and one I still need to call back. After getting off the phone with one of the rescheduled I felt so tired. As if the marathon I had anticipated all week (five portraits in five hours) had actually taken place. Anyway, next Saturday, the last of the exhibit, will be pretty busy with three portraits and a double portrait early in the day possible, and a reception in the afternoon. It's almost over and I feel like I'm just getting started.

gallery time/portraiture

I spent the day at Fort Can Gallery & Studios, drawing people and enjoying being immersed in art making. Last Saturday I drew four portraits: Karen (above), Cora, Gladys & Duffy. I hadn't arranged to draw Duffy ahead of time, but it worked out well, as the person I had planned on drawing didn't show. Today I had three subjects: Sarah, Rhoda and Harrison. Sarah brought her sweet dog, who I didn't know how to fit in the drawing. Rhoda was a gas and I started two drawings before I settled on one that I liked well enough to finish. I did Harrison in crayon and it came out OK, except his mouth looked like someone else. Thursday morning I started painting and drawing on the walls of the gallery. That's where the image from the "kinda spicy" post came from. After a week of feeling shy about having this gallery space, I found I needed to splash some color around. Once I got started I didn't want to stop, although I only had about an hour. But I got far enough that I came straight over after work on Thursday night, and worked through past midnight. I had a blast. Brian Ziegler, one of the studio renters, was there most of the evening and was very supportive and helpful. I haven't worked on one art object for more than an hour or two in years and years. I just love being able to do it. The only problem I was having was a certain stiffness in one of the figures (of the kissing couple). I found hundreds of kissing couples to study online, sketched a couple for reference, and went back Friday morning to loosen things up a bit. It worked like a charm and I'm pretty happy with the result. I may work on the painting more...I'm not sure. But since it's on the wall, and it will have to be painted over, I may stop where it is now and move back to more portable media. We'll see how it goes. I still have one wall I haven't done anything with yet, except write the words "I don't know", "I don't know, either" (which I erased) and then on the other end of the wall "is it too much?". Before any of these statements I wrote the question "Why" on the opposite wall. I love writing & drawing on walls. I've been doing it since I was maybe three or four years old, when my Dad repainted the upstairs hallway and I couldn't resist applying my crayons to the freshly painted surfaces. Oh, I love making art. I really do.

more portraits!

These are three friends who lived in my town about ten years ago.






I'll be posting more portraits soon.

portrait gallery

I just scanned a bunch of portraits.


 
This is a sketch of faculty member Corrine Mattuck, probably in 1984.


I used caran d'ache crayons a lot in school - still love them. This is of a guy named Jon who was only around for a semester or two. All I can remember about him is he liked to drive his little red sports car really fast.
 

Minimalism was a happy result of hours and hours of gesture drawing during life drawing classes. This is of a fellow student, Karen Andress, who was taking her turn upon the occasional neccesity of standing in for a no-show model. 


I love the kinetic energy in this one. Gina, 1985


I wasn't even 18 yet! Ah, if I could go back and give myself a hug I would. Self portrait Nov. 20, 1983.


Lee Henry. So pretty.


I'll post more soon. This is fun.

still almost spring, but closer

I visited with my friend Amy this afternoon. She's also an artist and we were both drawing while we sipped tea and visited with another friend of Amy's who was new to me. I'm pleased with this drawing. First, because Amy's beauty comes across, although she's a lot more interesting looking in person. Also, with a minimum of effort I got a good resemblance, although I really wanted to capture more of her animation than her repose. This was the fourth or fifth page of drawing I worked on in the couple hours we spent together, so the effortlessness took some effort to get to, but so what? Once again I got to see that the effort to get to that effortless looking place is completely worth it.

P.S. New profile and sidebar photographs courtesy Andrew Kline of After Image Photography

musician Dan Walker

I went down to the Langdon Street Cafe tonight and drew Dan Walker, who played solo guitar and sang original songs and a few covers. He bills himself as an Americana Roots Music man out of New Hamshire. Pretty good. Damn hard to draw, though. I was feeling quite pissy after an hour and a half of not very satisfying drawing. As I was leaving I ran into Dan as he was coming back inside and told him I liked his playing. I told him I'd done some drawings but wasn't going to show him, because they were crap. But he said some 75 year old characaturist made him look like a woman, and as long as I hadn't done that, they were probably ok. So I showed him, but I was telling him everything that was wrong with the drawings, including the drawing above having an eye that's too big for the rest of his face. But when I held it up to him for comparison, the resemblance was pretty good! Huh! So I'm feeling much better now. Thanks Dan, and good luck on your tour!

P.S. If you haven't seen Maira Kalman's Principles of Uncertainty then do go and check it out as soon as you can! I just got the hard-bound version of the blog she has of the same name (but is no longer adding to) at the New York Times site. It's wonderful. I'm overcome. I want to adopt Maira. Maybe she could be an older cousin? I already have a few of those, so it's not completely out of the question. I'm just saying I'm open to the possibilities. Maira, if you see this, think it over and let me know! Thanks!

More achive drawings

I started drawing musicians at Farmers' Markets and cafes a couple years ago...much more fun than going to a life drawing class, and musicians don't mind being drawn, as they're already expecting people to stare at them...these two were at the market.

P.S. Agnes, thanks for the encouragement!

more drawings (from archives)

I love drawing people. Here's a few examples of musicians I've drawn in the last couple of years.

Keeping out of trouble with Tara and Brian

I did a couple of drawings at the closing party for these two artists Tara Jensen and Brian Ziegler. I usually draw someone or something when I go down to the cafe. It keeps me out of trouble, usually.