I am Screaming

The $120 million dollar sale of Edouard Munch's pastel "The Scream" has brought forth several emotional reactions here;

Yips of delight - hey, it's a pastel! My chosen medium has in the past been occasionally dismissed by artists and buyers alike...'not as valuable as oil paintings'. Hmph!

Moans of pain -  being a member of the 99%,  I find it a sign of the excess, that unfortunately means too much political power is residing with the 1% of the obscenely wealthy.

Sobs of joy- I love this iconic series of four paintings. Rarely has an artist achieved this degree of expression of the inner self....and been so embraced by millions of viewers.

Mumblings of hope - still. I look forward to this masterpiece being accessible to the public that has so cherished it. It would be too sad if it disappears for long. Keychain fobs, coffee cups, tee shirts will just not do. Give all of us a chance to see the original - face to face.




   

Garden To Be

On the corner of my deck sit a few pots of pansies and some annuals and French tarragon; a restrained selection, for me, in anticipation of a few small construction projects here this summer. We are having a formerly used small greenhouse attached to our house, the deck enlarged and the front stone walk and steps rebuilt. This 12 x 16 pastel is my first plein air painting of 2012. Well, at least I didn't wait until May...quite. I painted this yesterday afternoon. Happy planting!

Paper Zoo at MFA Boston

                                 photo by Michael Poster of Michael Poster and Rodrica Tilley under the Sargent murals in the rotunda

My husband and I drove into Boston yesterday to spend a day at the Museum of Fine Arts. We had a few specific special exhibitions we wanted to visit: Paper Zoo, The Allure of Japan, Manet in Black, Beauty as Duty and Passion and Precision in the Age of Revolution. 
They were all good, but Paper Zoo was my favorite; 6 centuries of photographs, prints and drawings on paper of some members of the animal kingdom. I saw L'escargot by Toulouse Lautrec, Toad by Picasso, Spider by Louise Bourgeois. A sleeping puppy by Rembrandt was about as cute as this show got. Woodcuts, lithographs, etchings. It's there until August. Go. You won't be sorry.

Last Dance Amaryllis

I have an old collection of large flowered amaryllis. This is Royal Velvet. It just gets bigger and bigger with more and more blooms and some offsets each year. Before the holidays I re-pot each one (but I'm thinking this is unnecessary), bring it from the basement or greenhouse bench, water once and wait for the heat to warm it up. I bring two up at a time and in two weeks, another two. That way I will have blooms for a couple of months at a particularly dreary time of year here in the north woods. When signs of growth appear, I water and wait with anticipation each year. I cut off spent stalks as they occur, begin fertilizing, continue watering. When the weather is settled I move them outside in a semi-shaded location and water until September. Then I withhold all water, turning the pot on it's side, let the foliage die and move to cool storage before freezing until early December.

This subject of this 20 x 16 pastel is one of my beauties sitting on my dining room table. I was looking for subtle colors in all but the bloom and I like the texture that Sabretooth pastel paper imparts. I will be framing this under museum glass. If you are interested in seeing it, let me know. Thanks for looking.

New drawing tools!

I wasted all that warm plein air weather by gardening...hey, I planted 34 clumps of daylilies!...so far. The work  I have to do here in my brand new (not bare exactly) garden is limitless, so I am determined to get out there painting next decent day.

What I have been doing is drawing, drawing, drawing. I completed another 12 hour Life Drawing Marathon on March 10...luckily the River Gallery School of Art only offers the marathon twice a year...giving some of us time to recover before the next one. Four different models for a three hour shift each: four 30-second poses, one 5-minute, one 10-minute, a couple of 20-minutes and one or two longer poses. You get focused, you get energized, you get tired, you get giddy, but it is a real stretch of your abilities and the smart artists focus on one medium. I tried everything from pastel to pencil to ink. I was afraid I would get bored...and then the woman next to me insisted I use two sheets of her lovely brown heavyweight newsprint with charcoal. Perfect. I had a great time and have something to look forward to in October.

In the weekly Tuesday afternoon Life Drawing Class, my teacher, Jason Alden, is making sure I don't skate through his class. He is so young (but wise) and usually points out to me just the right direction I should be going and the really difficult thing I might be trying to do to grow as an artist. Could I ask for more?

                            “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”

 

Also, I'm part of a cafe sketching group on Thursdays and a bi-weekly critique/support group led by the school's creative director, Lydia Thompson. And the rest of the time I am drawing plants, pets, whatever. Life is good.

Oh, yes, new tools: I just discovered Derwent Water Soluble Sketching Pencils. What fun. I've been using them for drawing from the model and sketching in a Moleskine Watercolor Journal. I really like the look and the way of working...black, white and many values of grey/silver. Fun.