New Exhibit

Unfortunately the snow storm cancelled our opening, but I have been working with Extending the Link and a documentary on immigrants and their changing definition of home.  The documentary called Bayt Jadeed compares the experiences of Somali immigrants to Minnesota with the experiences of Syrian migrants in Germany.  You can see the trailer here.

In the meantime I thought I would post some images of our exhibit. I drew the larger pencil images and Zoe Huot-link did the smaller ink drawings.

 

We had some problems with the adhesive, but eventually came up with a solution.  Zoe's images concentrate on the many peopole interviewed for the documentary.  My images focus on the experiences of the Syrian migrants who travelled to Germany and in particular Berlin.  The images are composites of press reports and photos that I took in 2015 and again in December of 2018.



My images show such experiences as escaping from a war zone, crossing large expanses of land and sea, leaving over-crowded boats,  the endless waiting as migrants got stuck at borders, and experiences in the new home.  I'm looking forward to the opening! ;-)

Ho Hum ....another self portrait assignment in another art class

A favorite assignment in Art classes seems to be self portraits. I know I should have assembled a collection of objects that represent who I feel I am, but I took what I thought would be the easy way out - yet another realitic representation. This time though I decided to use pen and ink (something Iam not so good at.)  I did at least 4-5 images that were so awful that I couldn't bear to look at them. They made me look so old and ugly.  Finally I got one that made me look like Anton von Leewenhoek, so, since I was thoroughly tired of drawing my self, I just pasted it into my journal and had done with it.  Today I decided to try one more time. Here is the microbiologist:

 I am certainly not that attractive, but I liked it better than the versions that made me look like Baba Yaga.

I think this one is more accurate.

Yup, that is pretty much me!

More Texas Wildlife

The deer, when they came to the feeder were so cute, especially the little babies.

 

Other "animals" came to the feeder to - like these green jays.

 

We went out to a different owl house and found another screech owl.

 

I also got a few decent pictures of the turkeys that came to the feeder.

Here are a few more shots of the pigs.

There was also a banana spider near the house.

On our way out we visited the Longhorn mascot again.

 

 

Finally, here is a pastel drawing I did of deer at the feeder.

 

Self Portrait in Style of Renoir

Trying again!!  Pastels are new to me and I am no Renoir!

I think I look like Harvey Keitel in that picture. It is something about the eyes!!

 

Yet another Self-Portrait

Surprise we have a(n unexpected) final project in my art class. The rest of the class is doing self porttraits and since I haven't really ever worked with color in drawing I decided to try and do one too. We are supposed to be doing an image in the style of. I chose Renoir, but honestly my lack of facility with pastels means there is not style of anyone visible. I think I will have to do a few different versions!  Here is what I have so far. (I may need non oil pastels so I can blend.)

State of the drawings

Hmm, I am supposed to have 11 finished drawings by the end of the semester and I have been struggling to find a 10th and an 11th. As noted earlier, the class has been doing self portraits in the style of other artists. I decided I needed to expand my medium, so I have been working with charcolal and Käthe Kollwitz. None of my sketches really resemble her masterful work and in factthe more I do, the less they resemble her stuff, but I did a third charcoal sketch today and figure I can count the three self-portraits as drawing number 10.  I did work on the first sketch and overhaul it a bit today too.  Todays sketch  is here.

To make it more Kollwitz-like I added dark on the dark side and I don't think I like it better, but worse.

You may remember my first sketch. The face was too narrow.



I've adjusted the eyes and broadened the chin and cheeks - unfortuantely now the crown of the head is too squat, but it is a better drawing.

So the big question was what to do fot the final project. I was so uninspired that I decided to try something completely different. I found a photo of a bunch of women from the 20s seated for a group portrait, but was really taken by their hands and legs, so I decided to do those. I need to clean up the hands, but I kind of like this:

Self Portraits for the heck of it

The class I am sitting in on (sort of - because they are drawing 1 students I am so -called (?) advanced) is doing self portraits in the style of... So I couldn't resist dusting off my charcoal and trying a couple of self-portraits in the style of Kathe Kollwitz. (She is amazing and I am a very cheap imitation - but here is what I came up with.)

 

I used watercolor paper to give it texture, but I don't love it somehow.

Here is my second attempt.

 

There is something I like about this one as unflattering as it is, even though it isn't terribly like Kollwitz.

Viennese Cafe Updated

 

I redid the central figure (Kafka) I think that solves the focus issue, so I also removed the shoes.

Vienna Cafe moves Forward some More

So I redid the figure on the left. She works better compositionally, but I don't like her as much as the original. I may redo her a fourth time. I think her size is better and I likethe leaning head better.

 

Here is a detail of the previous version.

 

And here just for the fun of it is Aimee looking way more innocent and easy-going than she is!

 

Saturday Update Drawing and Knitting

So here is what I have doen with my drawing:

And here is the progress of the knitting:

Sunday Drawing Report

So I have art class on Monday and have to do my homework beforehand, so Sundays I will probably always have a  few drawings to post (or more likely changes to old ones based on critiques.)

You may remember this one: (I have toned it up a bit to give it more compositional interest.)





I decided to try and do a more minimal version of it with a few lines to connect less comprehensible areas.

I think I like it.  I also went back to the one of my mother and her sister as children. It is still a work in progress, but I brought it forward a bit.

Cafe Before the Opera Drawing

Well, I'm back a t work on my recent drawing. I didn't like it so much that I spilled a coke across it as I was bringing it upstairs!

 

I guess I'll try and iron it! 

 

Here is a brighter version - neither are very accurate to the work itself in terms of contrast.

 

Drawings for the Day

 

Fast graphite stick sketch just to play with the composition.

Here is the original.

I worked on the cafe a bit too.

Drawing Update

So, I am trying to work on spatial relations and negative space, but Iam not succeeding too well.
I'm at a stopping point with the picture of Grandmuddy Hunt and I also started a new drawing to try and work on space. I was hoping to have five or six levels of space and I have three, but it is a beginning.

Grandmuddy Hunt feels finished to me, but of course my teacher is usually not satisfied as easily as I am. (I'm not sure why the backgraounds are always so grey in my photos, but if I auto contrast, thenthe pencil lines become much darker than they actually are and if I raise contrast  then I usually lose subtleties. (I guess I need to take pictures with more available light.)

What will my teacher say? Probably too much rendering and he rarely likes it when I use dark values.

This one feels like i am going backwards. Iknow it is not about the accuracy of the faces and figures per se, but it feels very much like I would have drawn 40 years ago. We'll see what advice I get.

Sketch of Faces (Updated)

Here's the draft. I'm about to do drastic stuff to it!

I decided I wasn't happy with the draft - kept working on it:

 

Okay, (still not happy, but... so what else is new?) and of course as I look at it, even though I completely redrew all the features of the lefthand figure, I don't see much of a difference. (Probably time to start over). Anyway, then I started  changing things up a bit. I still need to work on the lefthand figure and think about the background, then tighten the focal points, but here is the current stage of the drawing.

The figure on the right is fairly faint, but the other two are fairly strong. I can't seem to get the right balance in a photo. Here is a second shot in which the right figure is too prominent, but you can see the other figures better.