Storm Watching

 

Sailing Home

 

Grid art

 

Mist and Snow

I've been working on misty fog in the mountains using Paynes gray and arches paper. The birds were added on procreate. 

Here I took the same painting and added a ski scene instead using procreate. I am enjoying mixing the two mediums.

This one is 100%  Paynes gray water color  and arches paper. What I don't like is the way that the grid separates us from the birds. But perhaps if it is accompanied by a story of an old man looking out his cabin window it would work. 

This one is 100%  Paynes gray water color  and arches paper.  I added a series of skiers to suggest a blustery ski day. 

I hope to do a few more. But this time pay attention to the shadows, sun direction and story line. 

 

Gridtastik

This was fun on so many levels. I used oil pastels to fill a page with color and then cut up squares, circles and bits of paper. The papers were rearrange to form this collage. 

Kenny Barron at Jazz Alley tonight

 At Jazz Alley last night listening to great music. I had to respond with pen and ink. It was dark so I did it blind while responding to the music.

Cabaret

 

Alex and I decided to try our hands at dancing last year.  

This was our first time on stage. It was a riot near wracking fun but I would do it all over again!

Here we are in rehearsal. 

A value study.

My French cousin Lucie took this photo for me while on vacation during the holidays. I tried to reproduce it as simply as possible. It was really flat so I set about adding a little shading and texture. It was fun to experiment. I mixed 8 different shades of gray ahead of time and then added the donkey at the end. My hope was to have the white trees a focal point.  

 

Abstract painting with watercolor today

 

A walk in the woods

Practice makes better, not perfect. But I am in the right direction as so that feels good. These are mostly watercolors but I ended with some gouache to help place light in the dark areas.  I have been painting two at a time while attempting to make the same painting. But a you can see, no two are alike. Which do you like better? One or two. 

 

The whole is greater

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Aristotle

 I love this quote. It has so many different meanings. This morning I related it to the making of art. We take bits and piece of materials. And play with all the parts in a unique way hoping to form a whole. 

Winter wonderland's one and two

 

A Colourful Melange

 A Colorful Melange for 12 31 23

I was inspired by Karel Appel's color palette and his pure abstraction.  As seen below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD27czhCUu0

Karel Appel painted Life in Colour

This one I found in an old 1967 Unicef book that graced our house in the 60's/ 

Alfred Lesbros

 

I copied and Alfred Lesbros painting in hopes of learning his style. He was an expressionist painter about 100 years ago in the South of France and I love the way he simplified his work. Perhaps I will learn a thing or two. 

Money doesn't grow on trees, but back in the 60's sometimes phones grew on sheep!

 

The mysterious American Soldier

In 1918, all the soldiers who had not perished in the horror of the Great War were returning home. The French government asked French families to accommodate American soldiers while organizing their repatriation. Régis, my great grandfather, offered to host one. The soldier is the photo below wearing a hat. The rest of the young people are my grandfather, Marcel, his siblings and three girl cousins.

The story goes that there was a flirtation with Germaine (my grandfather's sister) to the extent that they even considered getting married. Germaine said it was love at first site but her father Régis did not accept the idea of his daughter moving to the other side of the Atlantic. In the end, the soldier left for home.

Later Germaine married Jean Saïn, a jeweler in Avignon.

Top Row from left to right: Roger (who died of TB at the age of 19), Régis Jr. , Marcel, The American Soldier, Pierre, and Jean

Bottom Row from left to right: Germaine and 3 cousins 

The Met on Degas and Manet

 Three portraits,  three people

 
Fillippino Lippi Self-portait around 1500AD

Edward Degas copies this one while studying. Circa 1860's

And so Sandra Moreano couldn't help but take a stab at it using colored pencils. 
I love the unevenness of the eyes lending an expression of ignorance from which I am also quite guilty. I have much to learn.

The MOMA at Thanksgiving

Emily took me to the Moma (Museum of Modern art) last Tuesday and I savored every moment. The impetus for the photo below were the words "Artist Who Do Books" in the piece that stands behind us. Bookmaking is a passion we both share. 

And here a few favorites from the permanent collection. 

And this one by George Grosz and is called Self-portrait with a Model 1928

He seems to crowd himself into the painting. While she looks almost bored with the whole thing. I wonder what she thought of the painting when he finished. 

Florine Stettheimer also paints herself into the painting as she is shown on the left.  Family Portrait II. Painted  was completed in 1933.  Multi-talented as also a set designer and poet here she is portraying her family living at 182 W 58th street with grand views of the Chrysler building and Rockefeller center. I don't know how serious she took her work but she did call it her "Masterpiece." 

This one below is by Merit Oppenheimer called Fur Covered Cup  from 1936. 

How perfectly unappetizing.

This one is painted by Richard Oelze, a German from 1936 Called Expectation 

I wish I had more back story on this one. It seems so ominous. 

And of course Picasso is always a treat. This one is called Woman Dressing Her Hair  1940. 

He painted this in Paris just before the Germans invaded. I love the political commentary as she certainly does look stuck with little freedom to move like so many in 1940 Paris.

Picasso again this time from 1944 The Charnal house. A spectacular response to the ghastly ovens that slaughtered so many, 

 

As we move farther and father from the 20th century I become more interested in its treasures. All of these artist express themselves in unique ways. And that was a luxury that the 19th century artists could not imagine.

Trust - It's hard to know what to believe and what to trust.

But when I sit down and doodle with a friend, I trust that moment is where I need to be, doing what I should be doing.

Working on my style

 

I'm working on my style these days. This one is black ink with a watercolor filling. I stayed simple and just used diluted yellow ochre for the skin color. I am beginning to realize that although I like mixing colors I never mix up enough or I soon alter the shade. Which means if   I need more, I have to struggle to match the color all over again. At this point in my life I need to accept my preferences and skills and just work within those parameters. I have so much to say and if I spend the rest of my days working on perfection than I will never get the story told. So this is me, this is my messy imperfect style.

And so the story will soon unfold on this blog. A story about the summer I sent to France in 1962. I have been working on it all summer and will wait until it is just right to post the pages one at a time. Writing this memoire has been pure pleasure. 

Here is one more. I think smooth skin is what I seek and so I finished this one off in Procreate