nanke's stuff

Last Thursday my friend Vicki and I went to a life drawing group of the  Jackson Civic Art Association.  I hadn't done any life drawing for years, and was a tad nervous about doing it, especially with a group of people I'd never met before.  They couldn't have been any nicer!  Both Vicki and I were welcomed by a small group of very friendly women (later a man named Gordon joined us), and I felt comfortable being with them right away.  The model was a beautiful young woman named Iris, a daughter of one of the artists.  Iris was an experienced model, and she was a joy to draw.  This group uses clothed models, and they pose for 20 minutes at a time - no short warm up poses to start with.  So, my first drawing was my warm-up.

I decided to focus on doing portraits.  Iris has the most beautiful face and hair, and it was a real pleasure to draw her.   I only took charcoal pencils with me,  and I think next time I'll take along some graphite pencils, too.   I did get interrupted by a phone call that I had to take (I had my phone on "vibrate only", in case you're clucking at my rudeness), so I tiptoed out to the hall to take the call, then tiptoed back in when I was finished.  Because of the call, I only spent 10 or 12 minutes on one of the poses, and it shows.  I'm thinking I might play around with at least one of them a bit more, now that I've shown them to you "in the raw",  just to see how far I can take it.  If I do, I'll post it  so you can see if there's any improvement.  I'm not entirely pleased with them, but maybe playing  a bit will make a difference.

I hope you have a super week .... that's what I'm planning on doing!



 

I wanted to draw, but as often happens, not much was appealing to me to do.   Personally, I think it's my inner critic in a snit, but today I ignored her.  So, after wandering around for awhile actually talking right out loud to myself (to the confusion of the dog who  thinks that all conversations are to and about her).  Fortunately my sweetie wasn't here.

I decided to start small, so I got out one of my sketch books, divided a page into sections with a Micron pen (.005, my favorite) and chose one of my necklaces to sketch.  It didn't take long before I was immersed in what I was doing, so when I finished the first one, I chose another one.  After all the sections were filled on the page with different necklaces, I decided to forge ahead by adding color.  When all the color was added I, rather compulsively, proceeded to fool around with a border.  I'm not sure it adds anything to the thing as a whole, but I had a good time doing it.  And, I just might start adding color to it when I'm finished with this post .....

We've been having a lot of problems with our internet connection, and finally got a whole new system.  I think this one will work better than the last one (meaning faster).  We live in an area where our choices are dial-up (we've had that and it's slow enough to make you crazy), satellite, or wireless.  There's actually another choice which we've tried,  it's like another cell phone or something.  Can you tell I'm not very skilled or informed about these things?  We just switched to wireless which we began yesterday, and after having a wee problem with it, I think maybe now it's working ..... I really, really, hope so.

Anyhow, I've finished the Man.  Well, that is, I've done as much on him as I'm going to do this go around.  I'll probably tackle him again, but it may be years .... no really, before this dance with him, it had been many years since we connected.  As you can see, his hat and clothing weren't the focus of this drawing.  I find his face both compelling and challenging to draw, and as interesting as I find him, I also lose patience with him after awhile.  He really doesn't say much, though I talk to him constantly when we're together.  So, without further ado, here he is:

Well, I managed to scrub the paint off the path in order to improve on it.  The scrubbing went just fine - the paint came off easily just using a rather soft brush and water.  Even the staining color almost completely rubbed off, much to my surprise.  After that, I let it dry completely and then started to noodle around with it.  While there's some things I like better in this version, I'm still not happy with it.  I'm troubled by the following things:  the right side has much more detail than the left in the foreground, and it looks unbalanced;  the darkness around the tall red flowers doesn't work very well;  while I like the "stones" in the path better as far as perspective goes, they're boring; and last, the greenery on the right foreground reminds me of army camouflage. 

I'm going to let it sit for awhile (maybe a long while, who knows!), and go downstairs and make the marinade for Beef in Flatbread (that's what we call it).  It's very tasty, easy and quick to make.  What could be better?  After marinating the beef, it gets cooked in butter (or whatever) quickly over a fairly high heat, then served in flatbread with diced cucumbers and Greek yogurt (or sour cream, whichever you prefer) on top.  You could also put diced tomatoes on, if you want.  Want the recipe?  Here it is:

About 3/4 lb sirloin steak (or some other tender cut) cut into pieces about 2" x 1/4"
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 tsp oregano
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt

Diced cucumbers, pita bread,  plain yogurt (or sour cream)

Mix together all the marinade ingredients, put the meat and the marinade in a zipper bag and refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour.  When ready to eat, heat butter (or oil, or a mixture of the 2) in a frying pan over medium high heat.  Drain the meat & toss the marinade out.  Sear the meat (it will snap and pop at you ... I advise having someone else do the cooking since you did the prep).  Serve with pita bread, diced cucumbers, and yogurt.

Ok, I almost forgot .... here's the watercolor:

Yesterday my friend, Vicki, and I got together for a day of fun!  She brought me some wonderful goodies to play with (I'll show pics later), and we talked and laughed all day long.  One of the things we did was play with Aquabord.  I'd heard about it and read about it, but never tried it, so we gave it a go.  We each had a small (5 x 7) piece which we proceeded to paint with watercolors.  I haven't used watercolor paint in a very long time (with the exception of adding paint to quick sketches), and I always start with a sketch.  Yesterday I decided since this was an experiment, I would just go for it.  No sketch...... the painting shows it!  I definitely do better starting out with a sketch.

Anyhow,  I used a watercolor painting in one of my books as a reference, and jumped in.  I love Aquabord!  I love its texture, the fact that you don't have to stretch it or prep it in any way, and the way it takes the paint.  As for my painting itself, it definitely has some problems.  I haven't tried correcting them yet (my main issue is with the path that looks more like a wall).  When I finish this post, I'm going to try scrubbing it to see what happens.  If it works out OK, I'll redo the path and see if I can't improve on it a bit.  I'll show you the results - for better or worse.

Oh, by the way, I just remembered I can't upload pics from my camera because I'm not sure I know how.  (Sweetie, if you're reading this, stop grinding your teeth!).

I can't tell you how sad I am that Border's Books is being liquidated.  We've been going to their bookstores for decades - mostly to their flagship store in Ann Arbor.  We've watched with dismay as they made changes in their inventory.  It used to be that when you went into the store there were thousands and thousands of books covering all manner of subjects.  Browsing was such a pleasure, and we always left with several books apiece.  In spite of the changes (most of them not for the better as customers, but we understood them from a business point of view) we continued to be loyal customers.... which won't stop until our store is closed.

I was in one of their stores yesterday and bought a couple of books.  One of them is called Keys to Drawing With Imagination by Bert Dodson.  I was fascinated by the cover - such an unusual view with great, wonderful, detail.  It's a hardcover with a spiral binding, so it lays flat.  It contains the work of many artists, and is a series of exercises designed to help improve one's drawing skills starting from the ground up.  I decided to start at the beginning and work my way thru.  The first exercise is called Doodling and Noodling.  The doodle is just a continuous line that ends where it started.  The noodle is adding things to it.  So, here is my first lesson - some of my additions were the ones suggested in the book, but not all of them.  It's similar to Zen Tangling, except instead of using a variety of patterns, only one is used. 

I included a picture of the cover so you could get an idea of what drew me to this book!


                                                      

I haven't been doing much - the illness I had in March never completely went away and I've been trying to behave.  Behaving has never been my strong suit, but I've been doing my best.    Anyhow, I haven't worked on my man at all, but while sitting on the porch recently I decided to try my hand at something "arty".  I have to use the word loosely in this case.

So  first I did an ink sketch, and then later I used watercolors to fill it in a bit.   I'm not very happy with it, but on the other hand, at least I put an implement in my hand and did something with it!  So, without further adieu, here is my humble offering.