This was it. The last one. Darnit, darnit.
I do believe I can keep doing this however. The format was simple - quick 1-2 minutes poses to warm up, look at some famous drawings to warm up your brain then use some different types of media to get the line and shadow you want. This class too, lacked the critique I would have enjoyed. I was always suspicious of the instructor who never had a bad thing to say however, I see where this guy is coming from and think it is a great strategy. There really is no judge, there is no right way - he showed us books on everything from doodles to masterful, accurate drawings. Drawing something and showing it to anyone else really is an exercise in humility and I've often compared it to standing naked in front of them. You know? There may be some perfect bodies out there, but only for a bit and then it goes away but more importantly, there are really not that many perfect bodies out there and there are a whole lot more imperfect bodies that are perfectly lovely to look at. It is the emotion of the drawing that holds you not the accuracy of the line.
I have several but I will end with what I feel is the best one I did all semester and this is the very last drawing I did - taking all of 8 minutes until the end of class and the model got up and walked away...
I went to the Rotary thing last night and it was not fun. It was at a bar that was supposed to be so cool and I wore my dress, but I wore my black boots with it and no jewelry and in this town - that's a notch above dressing to go to the drug store - but everyone else had on their work clothes, which in this town, is black Banana Republic pants and a button down shirt. That didn't bother me so much but I really love this dress (it's really, really simple and not sparkly or anything) but there really was no reason to buy it after all! (Hmmmm, how many times will I be thinking THAT over the next 6 months?) There was no place to safely put your coat, so that heavy thing gets carried around and they give you a coupon for one drink, so I got a little sparkly wine, and stood around. I wandered into the back where they have a cool, cave-like room with no on in it, and hid for a while, then I went back out and watched the REALLY cool snowboard movie they projected up on the wall (but when I looked this place up on line, this is so funny, they said there's a snowboard movie going, which no one watches - except me, evidently) and then I admired the fact that it had these very cool drum like shaded fixtures hanging down, which I took a photo of, because that'd be a very understated elegant edginess in my SIMS house living room, then I chatted with a young man for a while who said this is just one of the 5 'events' he had going on this week, and then I talked with a woman I sat by at the last meeting who was great. She gave me her card, told me I was welcome to come stay at her house (which is about 50 minutes by train outside Manhattan) for 3 months next Fall and I set down my half empty glass and walked out into the cold. Then I stopped and got a cold mozzarella wrap and a red velvet cupcake, hopped on the subway and came home.
I'm glad I went to drop off the bag of toys I bought for their toy drive but I would much rather have stayed home...
I am thinking this may be part of the appeal of coming to NYC for 3 months. Am I so weird that I can do this and live all alone and be all alone for 3 months because DANG, I did not like chatting with strangers or hanging out at a bar. I am terrifically excited for Shawn to come and have someone to talk to and show all my favorite things I've found but I am more excited to get home to Christmas and all my family being there. THAT kind of socializing I can handle! Oh, and the animal kind. I wonder if those dogs have gone wild in my absence?
Ah - we finally got the model back from the last 2 weeks and will have 1 more class to go before we are done. Then no more class at all. Hmmmm.
Since I didn't have my camera last time, here is what the painting looked like at the beginning of class:
I continue to work and work on every inch of this canvas - this time I started on the far right side in the middle and made my way through the middle ALMOST to the other side. Four hours, and this is all I can do! The key is to just paint what you see - get the color right, get the tone right and of course, put it in the right place. I am very happy with it and know I will not finish next week but I have learned a LOT!
And this is what the painting looked like at the end of class:
I took the subway to class a bit early, but not much (I've been having a hard time sleeping, my mind is going a million miles an hour on getting ready to come home as well as this crazy SIMS house) as I woke up at 10. I worked out (YEA! but mostly because I bought 2 sleeveless dresses - and one sweater to wear over them) wrote something on this blog, took a shower and headed out into the 35 degree winter. It's not bad if you're walking for a long time - you warm up eventually and don't even notice it - but the 3 blocks to the subway is brutal. I stopped at Eva's across the street from the school and got a Lentil soup and large bottle of water to go and got to class just half an hour early. I took the drawing pictures and got all set up, just in time to start painting the minute the model sat down. I forgot all about the soup for the first couple hours and was glad I had it by the time 'long break' came around 4. I love this class. I love this teacher. I will miss this.
I stopped at the hot cookie place and the pizza place while walking to the subway and had cheese pizza and a peanut butter cookie for dinner while I rode the subway home. I am a pro and I eat very well. I hope I sleep better tonight...
Here are my latest drawings from class last Thursday. I forgot my camera so today when I went to my painting class, I took photos of my sketchbook that I leave there because it's so big to be hauling around on the subway (and no, I am not going to take a cab).
The model this week was really, really great. Not that she was so great at posing, she was quite boring at posing (man, that makes such a difference when you have someone who is agile and graceful and comfortable being naked in front of a bunch of strangers, but this one was HEFTY! She weighed a good 100 pounds more than normal but it was SO fun to draw her! We warmed up for a while (these are the first 2 pages of sketches) one minute poses, so they're quick. I started out with the normal pen and ink - like you'd use to do calligraphy - and then tried a pen I bought at a stationary store. It has an ink cartridge but the tip is a brush. It's great! It works more like a charcoal pencil because if you move quickly, it skips and looks like a pencil but you can make thick, black lines and (if you are really careful) you can make tiny, thin lines. I just draw on top of the other drawings, so it may be a little hard to see...
Then the teacher talks to us and shows us books of drawings for about half an hour and we take a break before we go on to the longer drawings. This teacher's name is Lee Tribe and I may have said it before, he's a weird guy, but he is incredibly inspiring. He is totally non-judgmental actually brought a book of drawings this time that looked like some kid in high school was doodling and making notes on the doodles. He told us not to worry about what our drawings look like - that some may think they are lousy or amateurish or not beautiful - but that we should draw what and how we feel like drawing and feel free to express ourselves in any way we choose. That may sound cheeky but you can't believe how good it is to hear when you are in a class with 10 other students who see your work and you see their's and you can't help but to compare.I drew 2 drawings on a small, 12"x14" pad of watercolor paper because my sketch pad is thin paper - almost as bad as newsprint - but I felt so constrained by the tiny size of the paper for this huge body, I went back to my big sketchbook. These 2 were 20 minutes drawings but I was done in 10 so I drew each twice. Great fun!
I must admit, one of the biggest considerations I had for spending an extended period of time here, was to be here around Christmas time. There is no time better, in my opinion, to visit NYC than now. The department store windows, the street decorations, Rockefeller Center - it is all amazing. And now I have one more point to add to the list - the SALES. Holy Smoke. Yes, this is trouble.
I bought tickets to the NYC ballet to see the Nutcracker (they were not cheap - this had better be good!) and decided it was a good excuse to buy something great to wear. I'm not sure what excuse I used to buy all the stuff I have bought previously, but this is Beautiful Stuff, not just your Everyday Stuff. I used the local Rotary's Christmas party and toy drive (next week) as an excuse to buy a dress at Anthropologie plus I thought I could wear it to Erica and Greg's weddings as well. It was hard to stay away from black, especially in this city. This needed to be Better. Except when I was shopping I asked the salesgirl and she said her mom dressed up for it and complained that there were people there in jeans! Hmmmm, I COULD wear the Anthropologie dress.
Nah. So I bought these TWO, yes, TWO (they were 25% OFF!) funky, crazy, black dresses - well, one is too short for a dress - at Bloomingdales and I spent a sleepless night tossing and turning wondering what the heck I was doing and when I get them home - what was I going to do with them then? I would stick out like Gulliver in Pasco wearing these absolutely cool outfits. I guess I will just have to come back so I can wear them more...
Oh, this Post was supposed to be about the Christmas lights - so here are some photos (I don't think the videos work but they are the coolest!).
