Retrouvaille, number fourwatercolor on 300 lb Arches, 8x10", september 29, 2008 at 9:30pm
A very hard day.
A very hard day.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Terry, sleeping
Terry, sleepingconte on canson paper, 11x14", september 26, 2008
This 45 minute study was done with conte: sanguine, brown, white and just a touch of black. I like the way the reflected light is working here. And I love drawing Terry---great model :-)
Unfinished Sketch of Terry
Unfinished Sketch of Terry, sittingcolored pencil on canson paper, 11x17", september 26, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Greta, sitting
Greta, sitting18x24", black and white conte, september 21, 2008
one hour figure study
(I mangled the paper by dropping it afterwards....there is a crease on her jawline from paper damage)
(I mangled the paper by dropping it afterwards....there is a crease on her jawline from paper damage)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
How Many Routes to Home?
Yesterday as I sat in Charlotte traffic, allowing my mind to wander, I started to think about how much nicer it would be to live in the country again. No traffic lights, no honking cars...only one or two routes to get where you're hoping to go. To be able to look at trees, and streams and notice that Mr. Sparkman had deer in his yard. It takes 30 minutes to commute to work about 10 miles from my doorstep....on really bad days, it takes up to an hour. Once or twice I've turned around and worked from home.
I sat through yet another traffic light; NPR droning on from the radio, and tried to think objectively. If there is a traffic issue on one route, I can usually find another route pretty easily. When I lived on top of the mountain, we had to time our morning commute very carefully. You had to be sure to leave before Mr. Slone (an alias, of course) had crossed over the mountain. He drove a steady 15 miles an hour at all times, all weather. Because the roads were so curvy and narrow, it was almost impossible to pass him. If you didn't time it right to be in front of him, you were taking in the world at a snails pace. It would take 30 minutes or more to go anywhere. You had time to note the trees as well as the garbage that had been dumped beside the road. You had a chance to realize that the deer in the yard were plastic (still love the "No hunting" sign), and note the houses that were being well maintained, as well as the ones that weren't. While it was frustrating to be caught behind this one man traffic snarl, it was kind of funny too. You didn't feel so pressured that you had to get somewhere, and you could see the humor of it.
Now I fight that feeling of pressure all the time. It seems like I'm always running late, and there's never enough time and energy to do what needs to be done. I don't always take time to notice when there are trees, streams and parks. I don't always really look at the public art (both good and bad) like I should. It's interesting to take a different route every so often just to note the new commercial and residential construction that sprouts up every day. But often I'm so focused on getting there, it's all a blur.
Maybe that's what makes the mountain home...that the feeling that life is something to experience rather than a destination that must be achieved at a certain pace. Maybe I should notice what's around me at traffic lights and jams rather than wasting my energy on being frustrated about not being there when I'd planned.
I sat through yet another traffic light; NPR droning on from the radio, and tried to think objectively. If there is a traffic issue on one route, I can usually find another route pretty easily. When I lived on top of the mountain, we had to time our morning commute very carefully. You had to be sure to leave before Mr. Slone (an alias, of course) had crossed over the mountain. He drove a steady 15 miles an hour at all times, all weather. Because the roads were so curvy and narrow, it was almost impossible to pass him. If you didn't time it right to be in front of him, you were taking in the world at a snails pace. It would take 30 minutes or more to go anywhere. You had time to note the trees as well as the garbage that had been dumped beside the road. You had a chance to realize that the deer in the yard were plastic (still love the "No hunting" sign), and note the houses that were being well maintained, as well as the ones that weren't. While it was frustrating to be caught behind this one man traffic snarl, it was kind of funny too. You didn't feel so pressured that you had to get somewhere, and you could see the humor of it.
Now I fight that feeling of pressure all the time. It seems like I'm always running late, and there's never enough time and energy to do what needs to be done. I don't always take time to notice when there are trees, streams and parks. I don't always really look at the public art (both good and bad) like I should. It's interesting to take a different route every so often just to note the new commercial and residential construction that sprouts up every day. But often I'm so focused on getting there, it's all a blur.
Maybe that's what makes the mountain home...that the feeling that life is something to experience rather than a destination that must be achieved at a certain pace. Maybe I should notice what's around me at traffic lights and jams rather than wasting my energy on being frustrated about not being there when I'd planned.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Michelle, reclining
Michelle, recliningink on Arches 140lb watercolor paper, 16x20", september 12, 2008
From the book "For the Time Being" by Annie Dillard
"Throughout my whole life", he noted later [French palentologist Teilhard de Chardin], "during every minute of it, the world has been gradually lighting up and blazing before my eyes, until it has come to surround me, entirely lit up from within."
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Retrouvaille, number three
Retrouvaille, number threegraphite on grey canson paper, heightened with prismacolor and nupastel, 9x12", september 10, 2008
Unless we are very, very careful, we doom each other by holding onto images of one another based on preconceptions that are in turn based on indifference to what is other than ourselves. This indifference can be, in its extreme, a form of murder and seems to me a rather common phenomenon. We claim autonomy for ourselves and forget that in so doing we can fall into the tyranny of defining other people as we would like them to be. By focusing on what we choose to acknowledge in them, we impose an insidious control on them. I notice that I have to pay careful attention in order to listen to others with an openess that allows them to be as they are, or as they think themselves to be. The shutters of my mind habitually flip open and click shut, and these little snaps form into patterns I arrange for myself. The opposite of this inattention is love, is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.
Anne Truitt, Daybook, 1982
Retrouvaille, Number Two
Retrouvaille, number twowatercolor, 11x14", september 9, 2008
"Of all the Ten Commandments, 'Thou shalt not murder' always seemed to me the one I would have to worry the least about, until I got old enough to see there are many different kinds of death, not all of them physical. There are murders as subtle as a turned eye. Dante was inspired to install Satan in ice, cold indifference being so common a form of evil."
Ann Truitt, Daybook, 1982
Monday, September 8, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Terry, Resting
Terry, Restinggraphite on canson paper; about 11x14"
I don't recall ever doing a portrait at this angle before....the total image is larger, but I've cropped it here to reinforce an intimate quality. The nervous twitch that has captured my head and my hand for these last months is flickering into something resembling fluid motion again. And I remember why I do what I do.
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