hello

Hello out there, loyal readers, casual stopper-byers, people stumbling across this blog by accident. Hello, hello! I'm taking this opportunity to say hello since I haven't posted in a while.

There are so many reasons for this. I won't regale you with them; instead I'll tell you that I recently made an inner pledge to draw just a little bit more and since I was on my way to yoga class right as I made that pledge, I brought with me a little sketchbook and my favorite brush pen (thank you again, Ansel) and drew people as they warmed up.

Then I went to work and right before my first student appeared I had time to sketch these cute birds from the bird calendar hanging on the wall in my studio:

I love the action in the picture above.

I have been reading about Goethe, who struggled with reconciling different parts of himself: the artist, the man, the member of society, the efficacious maker of policies and shaper of civil life.

He wanted to be it all, cultivate it all: he felt it all within himself, could not let one part die so that another could live. 

That, he felt, would be an untruth.

As far as I can tell what he felt, of course.

Here's what I can share with you about Goethe with certainty:

bugs

It's been one of those times when the only drawing I do is doodling on to-do lists. 

Someone who knew about these things once told me "there's no such thing as 'bugs'". And yet, here they are.

creatures for march

Hello, hello! Meet this horned lizard, whom I've named Theo. He's ready to cuddle.

And here are the Birdlets of Chivor!

things living and no longer living

mid-january musings

skull

In the place where Ansel and I lift weights (his mother's basement, adjacent to her pottery studio, full of treasures), this skull is hanging. It is beautiful, and strange. I have been wanting to draw it for a while, and finally I did, today during a break. Later I asked Marla about it. Apparently he was a gift from a friend in New Mexico, something Marla wanted because of her love for Georgia O'Keefe. Yes. It all makes sense!

Done with Stockmar beeswax block crayons again, proving to be lots of fun.

He is so beautiful, there may be more drawings, in different mediums.

shrews

Some animals are not as cute as their stylized depictions. Not so shrews! They are super-cute. They are turbo-charged cute. They are unbearably, cringingly cute.

Look them up!

PS this drawing was done with Stockmar Waldorf-approved crayons. I did not use them in a Waldorf-approved way. Because I'm just a rebel, what can I do?

finding beauty

Here's where I'm going to get cheesy. And I'm going to say things that you've already heard before, probably in the same words you've already heard them said before.
And yet, I need to say them, again. Partly because I need to hear them said - again. Partly because I feel their necessity in our world right now - our urgent need for them to be said and heard, again and again. Partly because I have a blog and a blog is where you SAY THINGS, right? And partly because they are just so gosh-darn true, and they are what I was thinking about when I drew these ducks and turtles and plants you see below, and the tin hanging lamp under which the turtles were sunning themselves, climbing and lounging all over each other, and I wrote that word - "beauty".
So here they are: if you don't like what you see, out there in the world, then 1. you are right, and there's no sense in trying to talk yourself out of it, but also 2. MAKE SOMETHING YOU DO WANT TO SEE. And 3. keep your eyes open: everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, there is beauty. Ugliness, yes, without a doubt. But also beauty.

bird

As I drew this bird, I could feel the curve of his wing and the upturn of his tail and how they would keep him aloft...

animals

sea monster

A couple times ago when we visited Padraig (my friend's son, of Beat the Beet fame), he showed me a sea monster he'd drawn. I loved it so much, I went home and drew my own!

sunday: time to play!

Yesterday I was trying out my gouache on different surfaces. I chose this yellow bird as my subject. The painting above is done on some glossy-ish brown paper. Here he is on acrylic paper: 

bad day bird

Bad things happened today. Or rather, things I felt were bad, but probably won't be bad, in the long run. Anyway, I sat down to paint and out came this bird, contemplating the abyss.

octopus dream

In my dream the other night, a pink octopus was flying calmly over the surface of a lake.

blue chickadees

I've been having some trouble recently with a project I am working on for a friend. Trouble is inevitable; in some ways I think it is indicative of a good, real, working process. Still, it is not fun. Not at the moment, anyway.

The trouble is that my first draft is by far my friend's favorite, but I can't use it, for silly technical reasons. And because I can't see it the way she does, I can't recreate it. I am trying.

But that in itself is a futile endeavor. I have to instead create the new something that will capture the spirit of the first, but be its own thing. 

And I have to realize: we are not always the best judge of our own work.

dead fish

Ansel and I went walking at Chimney Bluffs, on the shore of Lake Ontario, this weekend. It was my debut for walking in a sustained way outside, after having broken my toe over a month ago. It was wonderful.

On the rocky beach we saw a large dead fish. "Wow," I said.
Ansel handed me my sketchbook.

happy 2nd birthday!

It's the 2nd birthday of my blog!

I haven't been drawing or painting as much lately; I've had a lot on my plate. This past weekend a few of my students put on a spectacular concert that took much of my attention and made me very proud. I have been singing a lot. And looking a lot. I think my mind is full of images that will just spill out as soon as I have a chance - take the chance - to sit down again and let them.

It's a beautiful day and I'm off to play a wedding! Happy fall to you all.

watermelon

This is a beautiful bright yellow watermelon that Ansel got from the market.

And here, a chickadee!

die vogelfängerin (bin ich ja)

Here again one of Teryle's magical Magic Flute birds, this time done in acrylic gouache.

pepper gazes at a spirograph

Actually, it is the imprint of a spirograph pen on the next page of the book, which I covered over lightly with graphite and then added color.

I sketched Pepper in the lower corner and then laughed, because it looks like she's contemplating some model of the universe, or the inner workings of an atom, up above her...