Three Sisters Drawing Update

My teacher liked this version of the drawing.

An Evening at Home

After a hard day of work we just watched tv, ....


...worked puzzles and I worked a bit on my drawing homework.

Blog Tag

Okay, so I wasn't actually tagged, but I really like the questions that Vanegatiss asked on her blog. I learned so much about her and really liked the questions she chose for others. She asked the following questions and I think they are such a wonderful way to get to know someone, so I'm going to answer these and pass them on to anyone who reads my blog (You are tagged - send me a note in the comments to let me know you have answered and then you make up 11 other questions and tag someone else.

mes 11 questions:

..•.¸¸•´¯`•.¸¸.ஐ

1) Ton film préféré?
My favorite film (at the moment) is probably Rear Window or maybe To Kill a Mockingbird
2) Ton premier ouvrage au tricot?
I'm not sure if this asks what my first knitting book (work) is or first piece is - but I don't remember either! The first thing I ever knit is so long ago I can't remember it - probably a potholder. My first book was probably The Vogue Book of Knitting or the The Dover book of Needlework. The thing I most like to knit is shawls and my favorite one that I knit has been Vampire Whine by MMario. That's pretty much everything about me and knitting in a nutshell!
3) Ta couleur préférée?
Right now my favorite color is deep purple.

4) Thé, café ou chocolat?
It depends - I used to be a tea girl and now I'm definitely a coffee gal!
5) Quelle est ta principal qualité?
I hope it is creativity. (smile) I am very analytical too and that might be what others notice.
6) Ton chiffre porte bonheur? 169.
7) À quelle époque aurais-tu aimé vivre?
I prefer to live in my own epoch, because women have not always been treated so well over the years, but of course if I were wealthy I think it would be fascinating to live in 1920s and 30s Paris. Victorian dresses were awfully pretty too - but I doubt I could live in them!
8) As-tu une préférence pour un peintre?
I adore the work of Franz Marc. I think it would be great to have a Modigliani or a Matisse portrait!
9) Quel est ton meilleur souvenir de voyage?
My favorite memory of a trip is difficult - It was probably seeing the temple ruins in Palenque with my family (even though I was a rebellious teenager and didn't want to be seen in the presence of my family!)


More recently I think it was probably climbing a tall temple in Thailand, or being invited into the home of a wonderful older village woman for tea in Japan.
10) Quelle saison de l'année?
Autumn.
11) Une photo que tu aimes?

At the moment I love this photo by Robert Doisneau. If this is to be a photo that I have taken, then here's my current favorite (taken on an outing with my sister.)


Here are 11 questions for anyone who might want to play:

1. Who is your favorite historical figure who lived between the years of 1200 and 1800 and why?
2. If you could donate an animal to a completely humanitarian zoo, what animal would you want to be credited with giving them?
3. What is your favorite book illustration?
4. What art have you always wanted to be able to do, but never dared (or had the time) to pursue?
5. What famous building have you always wanted to visit?
6. Favorite 20th century novel?
7. Which poem can you not stand (even though others seem to love it)?
8. The last line of your favorite song?
9. What is your least favorite fruit?
10. Three (now) dead people you would invite to a dinner party?
11. If you were going to murder someone how would you do it?

Three Sisters Redux

Okay, I haven't gotten very far on the new version, but my most recent image was seen to be too flat and not too interesting because there was too much rendered. I am to work on a larger piece of paper - this means slower progress, but here is what I have done for today.

On the Rack!

I am dressing my recent doily by Niebling - the so-called Trollblume.


It's 32 by 22 inches.

It turns out that I pinned it out upside down. Here is the finished version unpinned:

The Joys of Breakfast in Bed

New Drawing for art class

We are starting self portraits now. The self-portrait part isn't very good.

San Francisco Cafe Revised Version

It was suggested I change the focus of the image, so here is a new version.

Guthrie Review - The Birds

The great thing about the Guthrie Lab is that they aren't afraid to take risks and are willing to take on projects that may be unpopular or controversial. This is certainly the case with their new production of The Birds. Based on the situation from Daphne Du Maurier's novelle, Conor McPherson's free-associative version crosses it with Night of the Living Dead to present a dark view of human relations under attack more from itself than the world outside. While the play has little to do with the Du Maurier story and even less to do with the film, it does share a certain connection in terms of the sense that the source of human tragedy is rooted in its connection to nature and to sexuality in general. The play starts in a cottage refuge with a middle-aged woman writer who is nursing a middle-aged man who has been attacked by swelling and aggressive swarms of birds. This unseen, but aurally threatening menace seems to attack with the incoming tide about every six hours. Later Diane and Nat are joined by a 16 year old street urchin named Julia, who may or may not be responsible for the death of another girl and who beautifully secretes the hyper-hormonality of teenagerdom combining apparent naivité and sexuality, innocence and a yet a certain depravity.

Some advisements are in order. The play is not like the Hitchcock film (nor should one expect a play to be like a film). "The Birds" contains some cursing (of the four letter sexual variety) and people in their underwear, so those who are easily offended should not attend. The profanity is completely appropriate for the subject matter and motivated and I personally did not find it excessive (although others I know who saw the play did). It is not vioent in a physical sense of the word. The only bird we see is a dead one that gets kicked off the doorstep (and one only sees it if one is seated on the extreme left.) Otherwise, the scariness of the attacks is rendered by psychological means and by marvelous sound effects and thumpings on various parts of the set and shutters.

The acting and the direction in the production are brilliant. I want to say this at the outset. The production is marvelous and the set is perfect (and quite carefully produced for a lab play where minimalism is frequently the rule of the day.)
Angela Timberman plays the rational and nurturing older writer with gravity and grace. J. C. Cutler gives us a man who has had relationship and mental problems (perhaps) and who with his white t-shirt and tattoos screams working class schlub.

From MPR.

Summer Hagen exudes just the right amount of waify "desire to please" or at least to manipulate combined with the selfish determination sometimes found in sixteen year old girls.

From Aisle Say.

...and Stephen Yoakum (not unexpectedly) completely steals the show with his welding-masked, shot-gun toting old farmer across the way - a man who can fulfill his material needs, but is lonely for human and sexual companionship.

From the City Pages.

My complaints are directed against the play itself. One expects post-apocalyptic inventions to be dark and to distill human frailty down to its essential elements: it's essential elements, not its essentialist ones. The play is thought-provoking. It ends with a bang and a whimper, but it also seems to reduce human beings to the sum of their biological underpinnings. Without wanting to ruin the play for those who might want to see it (and it should be seen), I would still like to mention the conclusions that seem intrinsic to the play's ending. (So stop reading here if you worry about spoilers.) My primary quibble is with the fact that woman are ultimately secretive and manipulative. They are jealous of each other and either valuable in the procreative scheme of things or they are not. Men are equally pathetic for although they are much more open (or perhaps superficial) about their motivations, they are ultimately (and seemingly uncontrollably) victims of their need for control and sexual desire. So without completely giving away the end, I will simply say that I am dissatisfied at a play which makes older women and intellectuals manipulative and soulless beings willing to do anything for their purposes. The result is to make it seem that others (and men in particular) are necessarily the victims of manipulative young sex-pots but that everyone is even more at risk from the educated and from the only seemingly nurturing crone.

From The A.V. Club

Obligatory Cat Photos

New Cafe Image

In class today I redid the Cafe. Here is what I ended up with (rendered on a print of the last wash.)

Today's Wash and Some Variations

I'm trying to get some of my Art class homework done before Sunday, so I did the wash part today and will work on the details on Sunday (Tomorrow we go to the Guthrie to see Hay Fever!) My Mom is visiting from Houston, so it is an exciting time. Here is today's work!



I was also supposed to trace and modify my drawing, so I scanned my wash and played with it a bit. For the first one I used pen and ink. (I'm not too crazy about the figure in back on the left.)


Here is the same drawing, but I used vine charcoal on it.