RESTING

Alan lying down - three weeks ago 18x24 bond paper

After a breathless  two hours of shopping for a birthday present for my pisces husband  and an urgent message from my daughter that we have the book she needs, which I miraculously find amidst the chaos of books everywhere, I am ready to platz.

This year we have been denied a snow day. Usually every winter, nature offers us a gift – overnight there is a huge snow fall – and we awaken to at least two feet or more of light or heavy snow piled against the entrance to  our houses. And the snow doesn’t stop, it continues. It is a signal to people like myself to stay in pyjamas. What is particularly exciting on these occasions is the mounting list of closures, early closures, cancellations. School children shriek inwardly and outwardly with delight, lazy folk like myself roll over in bed and stare out the window in pure admiration for this miraculous transformation of the landscape – mon pays c'est l'hiver:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH_R6D7mU7M

A Field on a farm a few miles north of Waterdown - pastel 7 x 91/2 

three days ago - I'll go back there next week

This year it’s as though the snow hasn’t even begun -  Almost? not quite, the timing has been off -  it’s occurred elsewhere – I’m bewildered. We might get another five or ten more centimetres but that’s it folks – not enough to warrant a snow day.  Feeling cheated?  You bet. 

On Sunday Afternoons

Sitting I

Drawing in chalk on bond paper, 18x24

Sitting II - a few changes

Drawing in chalk on bond paper, 18x24

Drawing in chalk on manilla - 18x24

Now for the past month and a half I’ve been drawing Sunday afternoons on James North. It’s a corner building at James and Mulberry up three flights of stairs. There is a pool hall on the ground level and I would love to go in for a game of snooker. My father and brother taught me to play snooker when I was a little girl and I loved it. 

But my husband is of the opinion that these men are old world and the presence of a woman in their midst might confuse them. So I have to put that temptation aside for the moment, but I haven’t given up on it entirely. I’m convinced that if I expressed my sincere fascination with what ever game of pool  or billiards it is  they do play,  that even if they were hesitant or cautious, they'd at least be polite or even welcoming or even better, indifferent? Surely not hostile! Besides I wouldn't be alone. David, my husband, my protector would be with me. Eventually they'd accept me. It is a little absurd isn't it?
Still I am curious.

Last Winter's Snow

Winter woods  study -pastel, 14"x10" on prepared  pumice ground on water colour paper

This was actually February or March from two years ago - somewhere between Dundas and Guelph. (I do have the map  in a binder somewhere -  I'm just too indolent to look it up.) I did a number of winter plein air sessions with the great Catherine Gibbon. It was slippery underfoot, beneath the snow. Because it had melted and then grown cold there was a layer of ice beneath the snow and it was treacherous trying to get from a to b  but nonetheless very pleasant to be outside for a couple of hours – most of the time being taken up with lugging materials and setting up.

Now two years later - early afternoon I had a wild time cycling around my neighborhood on my new bicycle,  the Kona Honky Tonk – up and down local streets.  But there was a promise of snow to come from the  weather people and not to prove them wrong or disappoint them,  it’s now here. Snow. It has arrived with moderate abundance. The weather, the weather – how exciting, how exasperating, how marvelous, how banal, how inevitable the weather.

Precarious

I  left these drawings in my basement which is generally dry but with humidity  they got a bit water damaged, so I decided to photograph them.

Charcoal, chalk on manilla 15"x18"

Life is a balancing act and so is still life,  movement versus stability and always the possibility of movement within stability -  even in the case of  still life where inanimate objects seem to rest unperturbed for eternity. The best we can hope for with still life as with life as with art, is to arrest the ravages of time – to preserve the celebration of the moment or moments – keeping in mind that the eye lacks the shutter speed of a leica.

Still life arrangement on bond, pencil, charcoal, roughly 13"x16"

Still life study on manilla -  pencil with chalk - 15"x18"

Toasty warm + Five & Dime

This last Wednesday, I arrived late at 270 Sherman North expecting to suffer as I had the previous time. Wrong! So much for expectations. There were more people (seven including myself),  more light, and it was luxuriously warm. Also I underestimated the space – I would say it was easily the size of a football stadium. I was also wrong about windows. There were rows of huge frosted windows all the way around the open space on all four walls.

But there was no water in the women’s toilet, just in the men’s. that’s because without something amiss we wouldn’t feel at home.

Click on the images below to enlarge:

Charcoal 20" by 26" - 20 min pose

Here are some of the studies  done a week ago on James North, all 2,  5 and 10 minute poses:

Charcoal 5 minute pose manilla paper

10 minute pose

5 or 10 minutes on manilla, charcoal

2 minute warm up pose

The Life Drawing Scene

Today I thought it would be a good thing to post a drawing or two since there are so many lying around.

Earlier in the day I'd  prepared a beef stew in my slow cooker and then forgot to  plug it in. I was sure I smelled something good but when I went over to touch it, two and a half hours later it was stone cold. Well we’ll just eat a bit later that’s all – maybe nine, ten o’clock. And if I get hungry before then, I'll drink a glass of wine and nibble.
                                                      

Charcoal and carbon pencil on Ingres paper, 20" by 26" duration approx 50 min. - last spring in the loft at DVSA - open session

Charcoal and coloured chalk on manilla paper, 30 minute pose - at 270 Sherman North

Click on photos to enlarge

Hamilton is starting to have more opportunities to draw from life. Yesterday I drew at an artist’s studio on James North – we shared the cost of the model it was cheap. The model was terrific. Her poses ranged in length from 2 to 5 to 10 milnutes. .Her  poses were challenging and her movement fluid. I'l post something from that session in a day or two.

Wednesday night I’ll draw at 270 Sherman North, again. The building is owned by 270 Sherman North (a group of engineers)  and the Imperial Cotton Centre. Artists are able to rent studios there and there is quite a turnover. Twice a month someone – maybe the engineers, foots the cost of the model and anyone can drop by to draw – 3^rd floor. The lighting though is barely adequate. I was there for the first time in mid December. The space is literally cavernous. It was at night and I didn’t see any windows.  I estimated there was easily 20,000 square feet of open space and it was so cold, I  suggested to the model that she not disrobe. However one of the drawers got hold of a couple of small heaters and we proceeded. Actually there were only three of us drawing and occasionally the building manager would walk by staring straight ahead looking neither to the left or right. Bizarre. The model was a little freaked out by this to say the least.

This coming Saturday morning begins 5 weeks of open drawing sessions in the loft at DVSA in Dundas. I’ll go to that.

Accentuate

Clay, Life size portrait of Jenny before it was cast, from the Sherman St studio.

click on photos to enlarge

I began this sculpture simply as a demonstration of a head for a friend's students using my daughter as  subject. She was in high school at the time. Later in my studio I gradually extended the sculpture to include more of the body but due to the limitations of the armature I was forced to restrict the pose and improvise as best I could. My plan is to rework another variation of this pose, turning and tilting the head into the raised arm to give movement. and perhaps reposition the upper arm - also allowing room also for a base.

This time of year I remember a truly great melody composed by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Johny Mercer. Good really for any occasion but very appropriate for our 2010 New Year:

You've got to accentuate the positive

Eliminate the negative

And latch on to the affirmative

Don't mess with Mister In-Between

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum

Bring gloom down to the minimum

Have faith or pandemonium's

Liable to walk upon the scene

To illustrate my last remark

Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark

What did they do just when everything looked so dark?

(Man, they said "We'd better accentuate the positive")

("Eliminate the negative")

("And latch on to the affirmative")

Don't mess with Mister In-Between (No!)

Don't mess with Mister In-Between

(Ya got to spread joy up to the maximum)

(Bring gloom down to the minimum)

(Have faith or pandemonium's)

(Liable to walk upon the scene)

I've heard it sung by Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters,  Al Jarreau - all  great and fun to dance to.

My immediate agenda this new year is to replenish my clay. Tomorrow or Monday - a trip to near by Oakville Pottery to buy some nice red clay, not too soft, not too hard, not too sticky. It sounds a bit like porridge perhaps.

Happy New Year All!!!