More Art Institute

The Art Institute has a lovely collection of art objects. These are American and made from silver. I wonder if they pump a special gas into the display case to keep the silver from tarnishing.

Art Institute

Today I met my friend Rose whom I have not seen in many, many years. It was so good to see her. My friend is still her lively, expressive, sincere self. So glad she called me.

We met at the Art Institute for lunch and I arrived early so I could draw in the galleries. This is from a case of Chinese artifacts. I love the square jar. This was also the first time I felt completely comfortable drawing at the Art Institute. Usually, it feels so uptight with guards in every corner and parents scooting their children away from me. But this time felt really good. I just tried to ignore all the weird vibes and concentrate on my drawing. Very peaceful. I even found a birthday gift for K but I can't say what this is today.

Swans

Some value practice.

Tea With My Grandmothers

This week's Illustration Friday, Tea, brought an almost instant inspiration. I remembered my grandmothers, who had been friends before my parents married, having the "girls" over on Thursdays. They played bridge regularly and ruthlessly for change and some. They took turns hosting and served tea and desert in the most civilized way. I inherited my maternal grandmother Isla's desert plates. I'm sure many,many bridge tea party goodies were served on these plates.

Fashion Play

Last night I was having some fun with fashion illustration to keep my hand in it. Where I teach, we have both a fashion design program and a fashion merchandising program. There is some overlap in a few classes and its really easy to spot which students are in which program. The merchandising majors are dressed to the teeth: nails, hair, makeup and the latest clothing off the rack. The design majors arrive looking a bit quirky: wild dyed hair, piercing, unusual clothing in a very outlandish and creative bent, usually no fancy nails owing the fact that they use their hands so much and an ardent desire to put most of their creative energy into their work.

For years, people who do not know me well are shocked to know I worked in the fashion business. I don't really get into the whole up to the minute fashion thing. My creative energy goes mostly into my work/play and what ever is left over gets put into dress. It's sort of like playing dress up once in awhile but not every day.

Mouse

I feel like I have to start at the beginning again. I'm out of the flow of daily drawing and need to get back into it again. I guess it runs in phases. This week or so has been really busy. The first few weeks of a new semester are really overwhelming. My students must feel like foi gras...Force fed so much information: but it can't be helped. They have to be ready for the class after mine.

So here is my public commitment: MORE drawing!!!

Yosemite

Thanks to my sister-in-law (yes that's you R!) I have wonderful photos from one of our family reunions at Yosemite. Its a raw and rainy day so I'm really happy to have some great photo references. I'm going to use this pencil value sketch to make a watercolor. Off to the studio!

Creating Textures

I'm working in a book by Cathy (Kate) Johnson: Creating Textures in Watercolor. She explains this so clearly and illustrates them really well. I'm learning alot from her.

Goddess Light

If my blog looks a little thin on the image side of things, its because I decided to cancell the web hosting service I bought monthly to launch my images. After I did that all my archive images were yanked. I don't know if I should go back and fix all the posts or just start from here adding new images. I can up load for free from blogger. Every little savings helps.

Upper Penneninsula II

Yet another drawing from a photo from one of our visits to Michican's Upper Pennensula.

Everyday Matters Cup Challange

When Derek and I went on one of our first college looking trips, we picked up this mug at Cornell University. Even though its cracked, I keep it for sentimental reasons.

Play

More playing around. I played with a line and embelished it. Dip pen and ink.

New Journal

This is the front piece of my new journal. I love the feel of it and the size is something I'm getting used to. I'm still keeping my larger sketchbook going too but with this book, I'm feeling very free to play and have fun!

Joseph Campbell,

Joseph Campbell was one of my hero's. He was one of the first real thinkers I stumbled on in my adolescence and his work has meant a great deal to me. Here is a great little discussion of the artist and earning a living.

"The normal situation is that, perhaps for years, you work away at your art, your life vocation, your life-fulfilling field of action, and there's no money in it. You have to live, thought , so you get a job, which may be a low-degree activity relative to what you are interested in. You could, for instance, teach people the art you are operating in yourself. So, let's say you have a teaching job and you also have sacred space and time to perform your own work. Your art is what I would call your work. Your employment is your job.

Then, you are doing so well in your job that your employer wants to move you into a higher position. You'll have to give more to the job than before, and you will receive a higher salary, but your new commitments will cut down on your free time. My advice is: don't accept the promotion. Don't accept anything that piles more on you than what you must do to earn you base income, because you're developing, not in your job but in your artistic work. You can see on campuses all the time what happens with promotions: you move up up up until you are in administration, and it uses up everything you've got. The artist must build a structure, not in the way of being of service to society, but in the way of discovering the dynamism of the interior.

To do that, to keep up with your responibilities and your fitness and still nurture your creative aspect, you must put a hermetically sealed retort, so that there is no intrusion, around a certain number of hours each day- however many you can honestly afford and that time must be inviolate."

Everyday Matters Dog Challange: Mimi

This is my friend Maria's dog Mimi. She is, of course, wearing her haloween costume. All she needs is the Hogwards cape.

Vacation to Macanaw Island

I tried to paint a watercolor of this one that turned out to be nothing but mush! Then I did this drawing and I realized that for now, I can't skip this value sketch step! Makes for a stronger watercolor.

Vacation in the Upper Peninsula

I found a whole bunch of vacation photos while cleaning out the computer table. Craig and Kelsey posed for this on the wild shores of Lake Superior several years ago.

The Sketchcrawl of One

Today was the Chicago crawl to raise money for blannkets for Pakistani earthquake victims. Unfortunatly, I was the only one to show up. But I did have a good time once I started to draw the beautiful portable altars the Tibetans use. I just feel bad because I wanted to help raise money for this cause.

While I was drawing, a gentleman stopped to chat. Turns out he draws too. He draws people he sees every day at work.Over the years, he's drawn about 6000 people and written about thier lives.( I can't be more specific. I want to protect his privacy.) Since he is interested in healing and art, I've sent him to Danny's place and hope he will check out our Everyday Matters Group. Meeting this guy helped me feel better about no one else showing up. You can never tell what happens when people are connected to other like minded people.

Retreat

Last weekend, Kelsey and I went away on our annual retreat. We had a great time and learned a lot. I attended a wonderful workshop on sustainable living given by Lisa Kirvist. Lisa and her husband John gave up successful advertising jobs in Chicago to buy a 5 acre farm and live a more sustainable life. They installed solar power on the roof of their house and erected a wind mill. They are now generating all the power they need. They also raise 70 percent of thier food. She gave us somre really wonderful ideas for how everyone can live more gently on our planet.

a)Grow a garden for food
s)Join a local co op and buy flour and sugar in bulk (and organic)
c)Use a rain barrel to collect run off from the roof to water your garden
d)Compost your vegetable and garden waste
e)Join freecycle.org This is an organization created to facilitate the free recycling of stuff. Offer what you don't want. Look for what you want. All things are offered FREE! Check this out and find a group in your area by typing in your zip code on the site.
f)look into solar panels to heat your hot water. 70% of our electric bill is to heat hot water.
g)If everyone who reads this blog insisted on buying 100% post consumer recycled toilet tissue, we'd save tons of trees! We would also help create a market for recycled products. Lisa recommends checking out a janitorial supply company for this stuff.

Lisa and John run a small B and B on their farm in Browntown , WI. Go
here to learn more about Lisa and John.
It helps them earn a living and sustain thier work.

I had a lovely conversation with Lisa and afterwards she gave me a dozen eggs from her farm. These were the best eggs I have ever tasted! I recommend you look for free range, organic eggs in the store. (The designation "cage free" is a wimpy category that just means chickens get to breath a little fresh air for 20 minutes a day.) Organic, free range chicken's eggs are really high quality protein.

Some of you know that I'm extremely pro organic food. I have asthma and changing my diet to include organic food and as little chemicals as possible has allowed me to be free from any medication for over 3 years. Exercise and diet has really improved the quality of my life.

If you have any ideas for sustainable living, please let me know.

A Wing and A Prayer

Here is evidence of yet another fellow carnivor at work. Can't identify what bird this is but from the size it might be a starling. Its missing juvinal spots though.

Yosemite in Watercolor

Well, making this watercolor was so much easier than other watercolor attempts. The thumbnail sketches, the developed sketch really helped me to see the lights and darks. I also limited my colors to ultramarine blue, burnt umber, and new gambogee (a yellow). That made things much more manageable!