Ravings of a Mad Feverish Woman

I'm that mad, feverish woman. I'm in bed with a fever, feeling as though someone has put a vice grip on my head about the ears. It also feels as though they are standing on my chest. You get the idea, today is not a day of exertion for me.

Now a little story...the other day while driving in the rain I noticed a puddle on the side of the road. Maintaining safety above all things, I stopped looking at it and continued driving home. Since I've been lying in bed, unable to get much rest, I keep thinking about that puddle, how beautiful it was, what a common, universal image a puddle is. So then I started thinking about how I would try and convey that. A puddle is such a simple, common thing, it ought to be able to be portrayed effectively in a brief way. Examples in graphite immediately jump to mind. But, I wanted to try and think about how I would do it in pen and ink. What would it take to convey those little concentric circles for raindrops? How smooth could you make the surface appear, apart from the ripples? What about reflected tree shadows?

So I took up pen and paper and had a go. I instantly was confronted with questions...what is the outside edge of a puddle like? how do the circles move out from a droplet of rain? do they get farther apart? etc? All questions that I felt my math and physics classes in college discussed, but apparently are too far back in the "rolodex" to come forward anymore.

Here's the attempt:

Not very satsifying, but an interesting start.

Monday I will make my 100th post! It will be a good time to review my goals from the year and look at what's ahead.

Barking up the same tree...

Changed my mind about being done with the shedding bark. This is the update. I darkened the water and the big tree in the back. I'm not really sure that it improved things, just changed them a little.

Compositionally, the trees should not have the same bend to them, and there shouldn't be the awkward "meeting" of the branches.

Barking Up a More Familiar Tree

I think this is done. Once again, I'm seeing there is a long way uphill before I start producing what I hope can be done with colored pencils. And yet, at the beginning of the month the goal was to get into CPs nearly every day without letting the inevitable disappointments bother me. I mostly achieved that goal...the disappointments led to more discouragements than I had hoped.

The other CP goal was just to make some improvement in my skills. I think using them everyday did foster some familiarity and therefore improvement. Also, I have a much better idea of where there are gaps in my knowledge - particularly regarding color theory.

I'm formulating some plans for next month...should involve some art history, some drawing in graphite, a little pen and ink, and some color work.

Still Shedding

Here's an update on the shedding bark tree. I don't think that this is a crape myrtle tree. But it reminds me of one and they have to be my favorite tree. I love the pink and green trunk, there is just something beautiful about that. Not to mention, they grow well here in TX and really serve to perk up the summer when all around is hot, hot, hot.

A quick review of what I'm learning CP-wise:

• Complementary color pairings for shadow or depth are amazingly effective.
• Using a color in different areas of a piece is a double-edged sword- it can create unity, but also can kill differentiation - that is, you can't tell the bark from the trunk if you use all the same colors!
• Warm grey is my new friend - I just love that color and what it can bring to my work.
• Failure may create patience in me - I read recently that you should create a palette before beginning a CP work - trying out combinations and orders of layers before you start. It sounds like an incredibly disciplined, honorable, sensible thing to do. But, frankly, I'm just a little too impatient to do it this time (plus I've got vellum, so I can erase to nothing.) Although, I can see myself wishing I had done more planning when I finish this.

Other than that, I am thinking about next month and what to study.

Gnarly Dude!

Excuse the title, I grew up in Cali, around that sort of time. I wasn't a "valley girl" and I hope I didn't overuse the words "like" or "totally." Sometimes it's a good thing if we don't remember the early teen years.

Anyway, having so enjoyed the gnarled tree last time. I'm going for another. This time, a tree shedding bark, again from the WetCanvas Reference Library. Sorry for the bad image, it was just a light sketch - I'm off to transfer to vellum and get busy...

Ghost Ranch Roundup

Ghost Ranch is where Georgia O'Keeffe spent much of her time in New Mexico. You can see it in that video that Katherine linked to the other day. In a book I just finished Georgia said that the backyard there was, in her opinion, the best backyard in the world. (The book was Miss O'Keeffe, written by a former nurse. It's an interesting look at the very end of O'Keeffe's life. It leaves the impression that O'Keeffe was taken advantage of in the end, I don't know if that is true or not, but if so, it's rather sad.)

This post is my roundup for the Georgia O'Keeffe month. First a bit about my choice of final drawing and then a few words about O'Keeffe.

This week I have hardly posted. That's disappointing but it is largely due to my struggle to find something to work on. I've been discouraged with my lack of ability to get ahold of notan, my inexperience with CPs, and just general trouble learning from O'Keeffe. I have learned alot this month, but none of it has really successfully transferred to my own work. So last night I just decided I wasn't leaving the WetCanvas Reference Library until I had something to draw.

I found a photo of a bristlecone pine tree. I was very intrigued by it. Looking at the photo I decided that if notan could be applied to the actual subjects themselves, this tree definitely exemplifies it for me. It has beautiful lines, patterns, harmony, and even goes "flat" the longer you look at it. (Barring all that, it reminded me of Georgia's bone pictures.) I really felt like it was out of my CP range, but I decided to have a go nonetheless. In an attempt to investigate whether I might be wise to make an investment in some drafting film for a CP medium I did this work on tracing paper. I found that I really love CPs on that kind of surface as opposed to paper. It actually felt almost like I was painting!

Now to a few words on O'Keeffe.

Georgia the woman:

• As a person, she is very hard to "get to know." One book I read said that her sister said "Walking with Georgia is like walking alone." There are all sorts of conflicting stories about her life - complicating things even more.
• She spoke her mind and was notoriously difficult to work with. However, the book written by the nurse I mentioned above sheds a little different view. It does appear, at the end of her life, that she could both be gentle and be intimidated into "behaving."

Georgia's art:

• There is much more to O'Keeffe than meets the eye. I think doing some study on the concepts that were important to her increases your appreciation of her.
• Today we see alot of work like hers, in her day, she was more revolutionary.
• She boiled down detail to reveal beauty in her works. This, to some degree, was a problem for me because I like art that complicates something. (I like pen and ink work for this reason.) I like patterns in artwork that cause me to look differently at something.
• On the other hand, as an aspiring portraitist, simplifying, emphasis that reveals something simple and beautiful about a person is a goal worth pursuing.

A Notan Link to Today

Just a quick one tonight. Here's a link I found to a gallery that specializes in Oriental Sumi-e Ink Painting. Notan is then a major emphasis in the work represented there. It is different than O'Keefe - it's all in black ink (done with a brush) and the subject matter varies. It has been a fun perusal for me this evening. I think seeing all those different images and artistic personalities shows me more about notan.

Oh, one guess where the gallery is...

Santa Fe, NM.

Have fun!

In a Georgian Way (sort of)

Georgia O'Keeffe was a master of many things, all of which combined to make her a legend in her own time and beyond. She was a master of the simple (or simplifying), of recognising and capturing beauty, of emphasis, of notan...

I've had a few rounds with flowers this month, but not to great effect. So, I decided to try and move some of her ideas over into my more usual arena - portraits. I knew exactly the expression I wanted to capture. I wanted to convey the pure wonder and joy that my sons have about all that is around them. There is a photo of one of my sons, his head knocked back, with exactly that sort of expression on his face.

And thus above you have my attempt to capture a simple beauty of joy and wonder in an O'Keeffe upclose sort of way. Do you think I captured it?

I have thoughts of working this in colored pencils, as a sort of color theory lesson. We'll see.

Tomato Flower

After doing some reading on notan and the value studies yesterday, I decided to think more before I began these tomatoes. I decided that I liked the juxtaposition of triangles and curves that chopped tomatoes offered. Then I thought "what would it be like if I chose some tomatoes arrayed in a near flower arrangement? Would there be an interesting play between the two concepts?" Obviously, tomatoes are often arranged on a plate in a flower-like way, but I wanted to try something more random seeming.

So that's the background on this piece. I went small this time, 2inx2in, so it wasn't a big investment if things went awry. If I had gone with a more deliberate flower-like arrangement, there would probably have been more play between "that's tomatoes" and "that's a flower." Maybe I'll revisit this idea...I'll be sure to have the camera ready at my next salad chopping session. Certainly the O'Keeffe study this month is causing me to think in new ways.

I again tried new stuff with the CPs. I did try some complementary blending to create depth - that was about the most successful bit of the CP side.

Thanks for bearing with my learning this month. It's making me desperate for some graphite and a portrait!

O'Keeffe Value Studies

Quick post today because I'm anxious to get to my pencils. Last night after reading Katherine's post about notan I decided to do quick value studies of some O'Keeffe's work. Above are some of the sketches. It was an interesting exercise. I found that the value studies that had patterns that I liked were the works that I liked and also the ones I found boring corresponded to works I didn't particularly like. Of course, I knew this before, but it is still interesting to see it for "real."

Two further points of interest:

• the value sketches for a group of apples and a mountain range were very similar - and my initial reaction to the apple painting was that the apples just seemed so large - not like in the flower works where you see the beauty of the structure of the flower - the apples just seemed exaggerated.
• many of the patterns are far more complicated than anything I've considered for myself. As well, I was really able to see the detail she took in selecting edges in her crops.

Georgia On My Mind

O'Keeffe, that is. She really has been on my mind. I've been trying to wrap my mind around her work - specifically her up-close perspectives on flowers and also the "flatness" of many of her most popular images. Up until this point I haven't been all that intrigued with her work. For one, it's overexposed and so one grows tired of the "flower lady." Secondly, I've always thought it rather simple and easy to mimic.

However, this month is again showing me things that I hadn't appreciated before now. It is not so easy to decide what to include in an up-close perspective - it has to be enough to make the image recognizable but also not everything so that a pleasing pattern of shapes can linger in the viewer's mind.

Her work is filled with beauty. Her flower works particularly emphasize beauty. She simplifies the whole flower and shows you a beauty that you perhaps hadn't seen before in that type of flower.

So, I take back that her work is simple and easy to mimic. In fact, I've been rather discouraged with my efforts. But I'm not quitting yet...

This rambling post can best be summed up with an O'Keeffe quote Katherine Tyrrell posted today:

"Nothing is less real than realism...details are confusing...it is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things."

It is Georgia O'Keeffe's mastery of emphasis that makes her a master.

Georgia O'Keeffe and her Memories

I just finished reading "Some Memories of Drawings" by Georgia O'Keeffe, edited by Doris Bry. There are several plates of charcoal drawings by O'Keeffe with her own commentary. I decided to start with this book because it is small and I thought it might attract me a little more to O'Keeffe.

Here's a site that has a blurb about the book and some images of works in the book.

I'm glad I read the commentary. For one thing, there are some drawings in there that don't, by themselves, grab me. For example, there are a few plates of her "river" drawings (which apparently became paintings). They are from the era when she traveled the world and was viewing rivers cutting across deserts from an airplane. Had I not read this and thus understood the context, I would have said "Dr. Seuss at least told rhyming stories with his pictures of long meandering lines." But, I guess now, I do appreciate more of what she was trying to convey.

The first plate is of a few blue lines, entitled, "Blue Lines." (The first picture here, the work on the right hand wall is Blue Lines.) I was encouraged to read that she did several versions of this in different media and colors before she arrived at the final version. But otherwise, it just didn't speak to me.

On the positive side, she had a drawing of a lady sleeping. (Called Abstraction IX here.)Quick simple lines and shapes. That really interested me. I've always been fascinated with the pursuit of capturing a person in as few quick lines as possible. She did it there, particularly well. Something I hope to practice this month. Hence, the drawing above. It was also partially inspired by her attempt to draw a headache (Plate V Drawing Number 9 here).

There was also a portrait plate. It was realistic in style. (Here's another portrait of the same man by O'Keeffe.) So, she did have talent for realistic work, even if she didn't value it.

And as a parting funny, my little drawing above I did on tracing paper and kept folding new parts over to try and trace the lines better or in a different medium. I had to laugh when I saw this:


So often the person we are most frustrated with is the one in the mirror!

Final on the Lily

I just can't wait to stop looking at this picture. There, it's done. Although I learned quite a bit the last few days working on it, I don't consider this a success. So onto what I learned:

• I'm a line person, I'm simply fascinated by the lines in and around things. Normally this is a good thing - line creates a strong composition, simplifies shapes, and brings action to a work. In this case, however, I went obsessive and it is all a little hard to look at. The lines in the lily's petals are almost too much by themselves, then combined with that background - YIKES!
• I don't even want to talk about that background. It's just horrendous. Maybe I'll play around with cutting it out in my new PS Elements program!
• On the positive side, I really enjoyed working with the CP medium. Having tried the methods of others in the past (and been frustrated), it was fun to let go and just try something.
• Because I grew disappointed with this work early on, I felt free to improvise with it. In some places you can tell I faked it, in others the improvisation worked.
• Finally, this experience has left me "hungry for more" in a sense, sort of like, unfulfilled potential. That is a good starting place for the Georgia O'Keeffe month.
  

In fact, I began reading last night. I read my first book...more on that later.

Just in case you wondered what a difference lighting makes...here's the same picture with the artificial lights turned on:
And to be honest, the first image is closer to what I would like the color of the lilies to be in my garden. The second one is closer to what they actually are!

Another Lily Update

Last night I went gangbusters on this lily, feeling rather desperate to finish it. I spent two hours hunched over on my not-so-reliable-nor-so-comfortable wooden stool coloring in my lap. For someone with chronic back problems, this was dumb. As I lay in bed last night, gathering courage to try and roll over, I wondered what I was supposed to learn from this. Two things jumped to mind.

One, colored pencil work is fun and addictive. I really enjoyed it.

Two, I must climb atop the mountains of clutter that are on my art desk (the reason for assuming my awkward position). One further application of my new insight - I must tilt the desk once I get it cleared off, because otherwise it will only gather more clutter once it's a clean surface. :-)

All that to say, I'll offer a few brief thoughts on this work in the next post, but for now, I must go clean off that desk!

I did manage to find five books of interest on Georgia O'Keeffe at the library today, so it should be a good month master-wise!

A Little More Progress

Last night I was able to squeeze in only a few minutes. I'm still working on regaining control of the house and yard after my little vacation. But, I must mention progress on a goal previously announced. My landscape goal for this year was to regain ground for the grass in my yard - it had been stolen by a rebel weed army that invaded. Yesterday I mowed, front and back, and I must say, it rather looks like a lovely green carpet of grass out there.

Today begins the heat up for the summer here in North Texas - so I had to claim gardening victory before it all goes brown again! Gardening may figure prominently for me this month, not only do I need to begin the eradication of rebels in the flower beds, Katherine Tyrrell is studying Georgia O'Keeffe this month and I just can't resist joining in.

A Lily from the Garden

I naively decided to draw a lily from my garden...(here's where you start laughing)...because I thought it would be easier than copying a portrait. Well, it's not. In fact after an hour, I'm exhausted. I managed a petal and some very sad looking background. (OK, enough laughing).

I'm not sure whether I'll continue working on this or abandon it. The light of a new day should tell me that. But, I met the goal for the day, something in colored pencil. And, I am learning. It would be nice to leave you a little tidbit here, but honestly, it's more questions than answers for me at this point. Questioning is good though, helps me to read better when I get really stuck!

Medium for June

As I was mulling over what to do this month, who to study, and what goals to accomplish, it suddenly came to me...colored pencils...everyday. I've been trying to learn something about colored pencils for a long time. But, vanity gets the better of me, and I decide to do pen and ink or graphite for the blog, because therein lies my comfort zone.

So, no more whimping out! One of my goals for June is to do something in colored pencil every day. I may still study "a master" along side this, but I am going to try and force myself to stick with the colored pencil medium. The subject matter will probably vary.

Today's offering is a crop of a copy of a portrait done by Rembrandt. He was such a master of skin tone, it's hard not to want to study him. I enjoyed the puzzle of choosing what colors to use where for this. I was surprised to end up using lots of "mineral orange" and "warm grey". Not what you'd expect, at least not what I expected. Parts of this did go "muddy" and several parts of me are feeling too vain to put this up, but there you go. Maybe at month's end I'll see improvement.

A Little Degas

Earlier this week we found ourselves in a discount book store. In the flurry that is "keeping my children from breaking anything" shopping, I managed to grab a few books. One of them was a copy of a book put out by the Getty Museum. It is a biography and analysis of one of Degas' sketchbooks in their collection, along with some copies of pages in the sketchbook. Without having read much of it, I gather he did these sketches of friends at dinner parties.

I remember going to the Getty as a child and looking at several Degas ballet dancer works. I was rather fascinated. Now, with filling sketchbooks a habit of mine, I'm even more intrigued. So last night I had a glance through and decided to do a quick "study" of one of his sketches. They are very quick drawings, and yet there is nuance to his lines and a definite "shorthand" to it. You can tell that he was used to doing sketches like that and turning them into something more. So, I shall enjoy reading the above mentioned book.

I'm not sure if the Fineline Artists are choosing a master to study for the month. So, I may be on my own to choose someone to study. I plan to look at my goals from the beginning of the year and make a decision based on that if I don't hear of anything else. Degas was not on the goal list this year, but he may well end up my study for this month. Then again, I know there are some colored pencil goals on there, so we'll see.

Here's a little number I did of my husband after a few Degas "studies":