One Lucky Dog

I completed this drawing of Edison last month, but never got around to posting it as right afterwards I got caught up in that other drawing of him that I decided to work on in stages. It looks exactly like the photo of him I used for it, yet every time I look at it only one thing comes to mind: that picture of "Lucky," the drawing quiz dog in the ads for the Art Instruction School that advertises on matchbook covers, in TV Guide and other shitty publications. You know, draw him, or the parrot or the pirate and they'll tell you if you're qualified to study art with them through the mail? I know Edison doesn't really look like that stupid drawing test, but the tilt of his head in this piece is identical to that ad and to me screams nothing but "Lucky."

Head Drawing of Edison Jack, graphite on paper, 2009

The Art of Letter Writing

I was recently talking with someone about pen pals. I have very fond memories of the ones I had in my early teen years, some from around the States and some from across the ocean. Letter-writing is a very beautiful and personal art form. I love to write letters and send them by mail. There's something exquisite about it that is utterly lost in emails and text messages. In one respect it's similar: in thinking one's words through ahead of the actual writing, choosing them with care, and nurturing a thought or a story until it has taken on a life of its own. But the physical act just isn't the same when the words are sent electronically. And taking the time- that precious and rare commodity that it is- to write to someone is a wonderful gesture.

I love the paper, the decision of which stationery to use. I love the sheets of paper held between my fingers, the thicker homemade papers, the crisp modern papers and on down to the thinnest onion skin of traditional airmail stationery. I love the smell of ink of any kind and the little dent I get in my right middle finger from holding the pen too long, pressed between my itchy fingers. Sometimes instead of a regular pen I like to use a delicate nib and a bottle of india ink in shades from deepest black to midnight blue and even the occasional sepia. I love to carefully fold my letter, with all its many pages sharing my life and soul with its recipient, into its envelope and then put on all the lovely stamps. One stamp with the proper postage isn't nearly as beautiful as many smaller priced stamps in different colors, sizes and designs filling the upper corner. For years, when I was more ambitious and had loads more free time, I would paint or color the outsides of the envelopes turning them into small, intense works of art in their own right. But now it's hard enough to find the time to write even a simple letter, let alone design a one of a kind envelope.

And receiving a letter is an equally fulfilling experience. To go to the mailbox and find something inside it that is meant just for your eyes, to share in another's life stories written in their own hand, to smell the ink and paper now a bit crunched from its journey, and even get a hint of the smell of the sender in it, now that's lovely. I'm not talking about the contrived letters of Nick Bantock's "Griffin and Sabine" trilogy here, but true art that is sent privately and from the heart.

As an artist I love having a real letter in my hand, one that is leaving me on its trip to someone I care about, or one that has just arrived from elsewhere for me to enjoy. It's a very visceral thing for me: to hold the thoughts and feelings of another in my hands, written in their own hand, inviting me into their life. There is nothing more personal and intimate than this. Letter writing: an ancient art form that is rapidly disappearing. How sad because there is nothing its equal to replace it.

Two Japanese Pears

I bought David some little japanese pears that caught my eye in the market. He loves sandwiches made of big fat slabs of sourdough bread grilled with goat cheese and pears, and these little guys looked like they would be very sweet and yummy (they were). But they were also far too lovely to not spend a little time drawing them before he sliced them up and sent them to their tasty demise. One chubby one in particular just begged to be preserved forever with its vibrant reds, patches of lime green and its jaunty little stem. These are the two relatively quick studies I did of it.

Japanese Pear, graphite on paper, 2009.

Japanese Pear, pastel on paper, 2009.

Anatomy of a Drawing: Final Photo

Okay, so I cheated a bit here. There is over five hours of work on this drawing since the last photo, which should really have been spread out over about three more photos and stages of work, but I started to draw last night and well, it was one of those nights and I just kept going until it was done. I really did intend to stop about an hour and a half or so into it, but then I thought, 'just a bit more will be okay' and that turned into a bit more and then I realized that I had been at it for almost five hours and the drawing was basically done. And then I put it down and took a shower and got ready for bed but kept flitting in and out of the room I had left it in, tweaking this detail and that until another half hour had gone by and I told myself that this was exactly what I had been trying to avoid in drawing slowly and consciously: stopping that part of me that keeps wanting to work just a bit more, to make the piece just a bit better, to not be able to stop once I start even when it's hours and hours and hours of working on something. I could keep drawing until my back is hunched and my fingers are cramped and gnarled. And sometimes I do.

There are still some things on this drawing that need to be reworked, but for all intents and purposes and for the sake of this thread, it's done. If I took a photo of every little change I'll make to it- until I'm mostly satisfied with it- that the average eye could never discern (but mine can see as glaringly obvious), there'd be no room for anything else on this blog. So consider it done. Time to move on to the next thing.

Anatomy of a Drawing: Photo 3

And still another couple of hours worth of work. I'm not used to working in such slow stages, and as I do my drawing late at night, having to wait until I shoot it the following day in the same light as the previous drawing stages before I can continue working on it has been strange, but slowly I'm getting closer to finishing. And having to stop and think about how far I've gotten in the drawing and where to stop and then where to pick up the next night really has forced me to think more about what I'm doing. It's been odd but interesting.

Anatomy of a Drawing: Photo 2

This is about another ninety minutes of work on the drawing.

Anatomy of a Drawing: Photo 1

I thought it might be kind of cool to post photos of a drawing I'm currently working on as I complete it. This will give me the chance to see what I do as I'm doing it from outside the moment, which could be helpful to me. I thought of it after I had begun a new drawing of Edison (I really need to get working on a subject other than him for my sketchbooks before this gets to be incredibly dull, but he's just so damn cute, I can't help myself. Besides, it's a good excuse to sit and draw every single day and look at my darling doggie a whole lot, too) so this first one is already a little more than just roughly sketched in. I spent about an hour and a half, maybe a bit longer, on his right ear (which isn't remotely finished) and his right eye (which is for the most part complete). Keep watching for more of this drawing to make a slow appearance depending on time-allowed for photographing and posting it.

Hitting a Really Rough Spot

I adore everything art. I always have and I always will. I love to see art, I love to touch art and I love to read about art, so why am I having a problem with reading it for those who can't read it for themselves? For the last almost four years, I have been reading regional arts and entertainment news for the blind at a local radio station. I have never broadcast this part of my life believing that if one is going to do something charitable, it's far better to do it on the down-low than to make a big deal out of what you are doing. Keeping it quiet keeps it more from the heart and less from the head. But to be perfectly honest, I have grown weary of the weekly grind. It's difficult to admit this, but it's true. I still love to read about exhibitions at museums, book reviews, New England theater, et al, but for some reason having to read it each and every week and make it interesting each and every time has become something of a grind. Deciding what to read, what to cull, making sure it all fills the time frame required, and then listening to myself reading it all a second time through for any glitches is tedious. I had a few weeks off this fall due to circumstances beyond my control and I found that I liked not having to read. Loved it, in fact. This makes me feel guilty and selfish considering that it's only a couple of hours a week. But spare hours and time for working on art is hard-earned and lately not as frequent as I'd like, so I find myself resenting anything that drags me away from it. I wouldn't stop doing the reading in spite of my feelings of unrest about it and obviously no one is forcing me to continue offering my time, but each week come Sunday night I find myself thinking, "Arrrgh, I need to go read for this week." And then I not only feel shitty because I have to take the time to tape my allotted time for the week, but because I feel guilty for feeling shitty about it. I hope this is just a phase I'm going through and I'll find the joy in it once more, the feeling I had when I first began to read, but for now I just have to try to not overthink it and do as happily as I am able what I know is right. I'm not proud of feeling like this, but I am being completely honest about it. Hopefully saying it out loud will make it less horrible.

Paint By Number Heaven

Last week I was out with Griffin picking up some varnish and fixative, but because I was lazy and didn't feel like going all the way into town to my artist supply store, we went to a local craft shop. They didn't have the exact varnish I wanted, but I did find a can of photo preservative designed with a home scrapbooker in mind, which is far less toxic and dangerous than my professional grade photo preservative, so I picked up a can of that too. As we were heading to the register, in my peripheral vision I noticed an entire aisle that was chock full of paint-by-number kits, so naturally, I just had to check them out up close and personal.

When I was a kid, I loved paint-by-numbers and did them all the time. My favorites were pictures of horses grazing in a field or running in a group. The first set I picked up this time was of a small group of horses standing around a meadow and I thought it might be fun to do it, but then I came to my senses and said to Griffin, "What the hell am I thinking? Painting a paint-by-number picture of horses- what am I? Ten?" and I put it back on the display. But then I saw a crumpled box on the floor under the display that was bigger than all the boxes of puppies and kittens and horses. It was a Winslow Homer painting, was quite large, and was in terrible condition. The box was torn open, the oil paints were separating and/or dried and there was at least a half-inch of dust covering the whole thing. There wasn't a price on it and there was no place on the display for it either. I took it to the register and the girl price-checked it for me: $19.00 despite its awful condition, so I passed on it.

But when I got home, I got to thinking. If there was this one masters' series painting then there had to be other ones, so I got online and sure enough found a few more that were available at a couple of art supply places. I went berserk when I found two van Goghs. I ordered them both: a sunflower painting and his bedroom in Arles. I was really, really hoping that someone somewhere had Starry Night, but alas it was not to be. The two I bought came this morning and I am thrilled with them. Part of me is thinking what a goof I am to be so excited about paint-by-numbers, but a bigger part of me can't wait to get started on them. These kits have changed a whole lot in the last thirty five years. Mine say they're for beginners, but they require mixing paint colors, sometimes more than two or three colors for a section, which I think is really cool. And if I use up too much of the paints and run out before I'm done, I obviously have all the colors I need for both paintings so the warning on the box not to mix too much doesn't matter a whit.

And in the end, I'm going to have both the fun of re-living a favorite childhood hobby and get two van Goghs (even if they are cheap paint-by-number van Goghs) out of it to boot. The smell of the paints in their little cups and the feel of the thin printed canvas board, when I opened my boxes this morning after the UPS man left, took me instantly back far, far too many years to count. I can't wait to get started. This is going to be a total gas.

Self Portrait, acrylic, gesso, graphite and charcoal on glued paper, 2009.

I Like it, I Don't Like it

I've been trying to decide exactly why I like certain artists and not others and there doesn't seem to be any particular reasoning to it, though when I really dislike the artist personally, I almost never like their work either. For example, I can't stand Gauguin as a person because I consider him to have been an incredibly arrogant and obnoxious man and I loathe the man's paintings equally as much. Every last canvas. Even when I was a child, I couldn't stand to look at his work. But by the same token, I adore Van Gogh who was also an arrogant, obnoxious human being yet I not only feel a warm spark for who he was but love all his work as well, in spite of the fact that he routinely made basic painting errors on virtually every canvas.

Most of the time it isn't the subject matter that makes the decision for me as to whether I like the work or not, but the artist who is the deciding factor, oddly enough. One exception to this personal rule of mine would be Gustav Klimt. There is nothing particularly irritating about the artist as a man yet his work is among the most annoying I can think of (except for maybe Mary Cassatt whose work, to me at any rate, is equally irritating to behold). I've also found that even when I come to a body of work knowing little to nothing about the artist personally, the work that I find least appealing (or in many cases, downright horrible) usually ends up being by an artist I end up disliking just as much once I learn about their lives.

Apparently for me, the person who has created the work is equally as important as the work itself. I'm not sure why this is so important a factor for me, but it obviously is. For some people, the artist and their work can be seen as separate entities, whereas for me, they are intimately entwined. I guess in my mind, an ugly soul makes ugly art. I'm still trying to work out why, exactly, I feel this way.


Self Portrait, graphite on handmade paper, digitally altered to halftone, 2008.