Drawing at Surel's Place

Did I mention that I am an art-workshopolic?  On Saturday, I attended a drawing workshop at Surel's Place in Garden City.  It was free, so how could I resist?

For those who do not know, Surel Mitchell was a local artist.  Unfortunately, I did not know her personally, but knew of her.  After she passed away, her house was donated to the city and is now used  for an artist-in-residence.

I like how the artwork and books owned by Surel are still there.  Here is a small, blurry picture of the tiny bathroom that has artwork covering almost every inch of the walls.  These were by different artists.

The current artist-in-residence is Jennifer Wu and she was the workshop instructor.  What we did was look at artworks by some of the masters and drew them.  I liked what Jennifer said at the beginning, that it doesn't matter if we end up with something looking like the painting, the point is to see what the artist did. And we did not share our drawings, although you could see what others were doing.

Also, we were asked to point out things we noticed about the painting as we were sketching.  It really is a good exercise as you are looking at a piece for an extended period of time and noticing things you wouldn't if you only spent five minutes looking.  It also makes you appreciate the artwork more.

We spent about a half an hour on each drawing looking at a projected image on a screen.  All the artworks were paintings, so translating it into a drawing was a little different.  We were asked to bring our own drawing supplies.  So, I brought my sketchbook, some larger paper and an assortment of pens and pencils.

While she was in town, our printmaking instructor, Rose Davies (from Wales), gave a little talk about her daily sketching habit. She uses pens for her sketching and at one point said that pencils were for wussies (jokingly, I think).  But at another time when she was talking about teaching rehab patients to draw, she said she never gives them pencils because it is too advanced for them.  So, I'm not sure where she really stands on the issue, except that she uses a pen.

I admit I am a wuss and like to use pencil in case I would like to erase.  I understand that the point of the pen is to commit to the line and not worry about mistakes, I guess.

Anyway, I used my mechanical pencil and drew in my regular sketchbook.  I did not have my eraser out and, hence, did not use one.

Here is my first drawing.  We were looking at Picasso's A Muse.  I scanned all these drawings in black and white so the contrast is not really as much as it seems here.

Since I started the drawing on the left hand side of the paper, I ran out of room when I got to the second figure on the right.  You can see a couple of mistakes where I was not able to erase.

For the second drawing, we looked at a still life by Cezanne.  This artwork had a lot of dark values and was very painterly, which made it hard to translate into a drawing.

The third artwork was Bonnard's Dining Room in the Country.

By the last drawing, I was getting tired of drawing the masters.  The last piece was a Matisse.  So instead of drawing it, I decided to draw what I was seeing in the room.  

Here you can see the projector and the screen we were looking at and some of the other things around it.

Here is what it really looks like.

And here is some of Jennifer's work. (You might recognize the bathroom in the lower left corner.)

Some insights I had doing the exercise:
- I approached my drawing differently with the different styles of painting.
- I started getting better at the proportions as we went along (more practice).
- I didn't need an eraser as much as I thought (there were only a few places I would have liked to erase).
- I should do this exercise more often.

Maniere Noire Drawing

My name is Lisa Flowers Ross and I'm an art workshop-oholic.  Yes, I am taking another workshop at Wingtip Press this week with instructor Rose Davies from Wales.

Yesterday, we worked on drawings in the Maniere Noire technique.  Maniere Noire is french for "in the black manner."  It is a reduction method.  So we started with a piece of paper covered with several layers of gesso and then completely covered with charcoal.

Rose starting the demonstration with her pepper still life.

Then we used different items such as steel wool, varying sand papers, q-tips, etc. to remove the charcoal to create the drawing.  We had objects to chose from for our still life.

I think I chose one of the more difficult items, a paper and wire sculpture.  Here is the beginning of my drawing and the object on the corner of the table.

 Here's my friend, Mary, working on her drawing.

Here are all the finished charcoal pieces.

In the afternoon, we did another drawing using the same technique, but with a layer of graphite instead of charcoal.  I think the majority of us found it a little more difficult to "scrub" off the graphite.

Below, my friend, Cassandra, is working with artichokes.

Here is Mary's gourd drawing.

After choosing the paper sculpture in the morning, I decided to go with something simpler in the afternoon.  So I also chose gourds.  But I think they were too simple and boring.

Here is Tyler Hackett's drawing which is also a gourd.  Both of his drawings were wonderful.

Drawing in this manner requires a different thinking process than regular drawing.  It also made me realize how very much out of practice I am in doing realistic drawings.

This was a warm up for the next three days when we will be working with a three color reduction monotype process.

Thanks

I want to thank all of you for your supportive comments. It really has made me feel better these past few days. I know my blog has been a bit of a bummer to read lately. But life is sometimes a bit of a bummer. Lyric made a nice suggestion to rest and meditate. I think I would like to do that, maybe after my trip, when I feel like I have things under control. My mind is already racing ahead but I'm trying to ignore that and concentrate on the things that need to be done now.

While I was in the hospital, I tried the expanding square exercise that I had given the kids. Only I didn't have black and white paper and scissors, so I drew it. Here's one of them. I recommend using the paper and scissors. It takes a long time to color in with ball point pen.

Valentine's

Here's a Valentine drawing I did in the hospital. I only had a notebook and pen. Those are suppose to be lungs.


I also wrote a Valentine's poem:

Happy Valentine's Day,
In the hospital I stay
with the pneumonia times two,
Oh! what can I do.

I read it to Anna when she visited me and Frank said I should do a hospital haiku. He was teasing, but why not. The title is I.V.

Long snake seeks my arm
It's sting bites underneath flesh
Life-giving nectar.

O.k. not the greatest but what can I say.



Today is the last day of the Flying M Valentine's auction. I wanted to go see all the art. I got myself together and we went down to look. Here is Anna's necklace. It was hard to take pictures there.
They don't have much wall space to begin with and they really have to cram them in. The papers below the works are the bidding sheets. Frank saw one he liked but the bid was already too high for him.