Skip Lawrence Workshop

Spent this past week at a painting workshop with Skip Lawrence. We were to choose a theme to work with and I took a photo I had of Cooper sitting by a plant in the window. I must have done 50 very different paintings of this image, most of which are under this final painting.

Lawrence had me go from simple, flat shapes with opaque color to value studies to losing edges and contrast, with many other exercises in between.

It really was a great experience. 

Music Loves the Soul

I found this image of cellist Yeesun Kim of the Borromeo Quartet in the latest issue of Strings Magazine. She is shown with her 1576 cello made by Pellegrino di Zanetto De Micheli of Brescia, Italy.

The stunning photo of Kim, by Christian Steiner, is all elegant earth tones. Her hair is black, the cello in browns, her blouse and jewelry harmonious. I've done my thing with the color (some chosen at random and some picked out deliberately) and written the haiku.  

The drawing is 6"X9".

Drawing for March 6th

Still using the Post cover photo for reference, this drawing is inspired by an image of Delta Sigma Theta marching from the Capital to the Washington Monument to commemorate the sorority's 22 founders' doing the same in the 1913 parade for women's suffrage. The members faced a chilly wind and leaned forward, holding onto their hats.

Post square 030213 ~ Budget Smudget

President Obama’s idea for taking care of our nation’s debt is to find a balance of spending cuts and tax revenue. The Republicans don’t like that idea. So, for the next ten years, Americans will be feeling the results of cutting 1.2 trillion dollars from the government’s budget.

This austerity program, known as sequestration, will be felt by the American people in different ways.

One way will involve jobs that serve the public most obviously. For example, we may see the price of meat rise because there won’t be as many inspectors working, and, as a result, there won’t be as much meat being produced. And there will be longer lines at the airports for security checks because there won’t be as many safety officers. And if we want to find a port-o-potty during the Cherry Blossom Festival, we may have to search for one, because the park service will be cutting back on amenities such as these.

Another way, which may not be felt quite so quickly, will affect research and information technology, where the priorities, involving things that take a long time, like contracts and grants, get reshaped more slowly.

The photo on the cover of the Post shows House Speaker John Boehner walking away from press microphones and cameras. I chose a detail from the building structure in the background for my drawing.

For some reason, I was compelled to use a ruler when composing my drawing from the photo’s detail. I have done all the other drawings in this series freehand so far. I chose two different colors at random for each section and used the darkest one to outline and shade the edge and the lighter color to fill it in.

I think this may have to be my last “Post square”. I love doing these, but it’s not panning out as a responsible thing to be doing in terms of using my time wisely in the pursuit of income. I’m thinking of changing my daily project to finding images in nature that are more accessible, and putting them with some sort of writing ~ poetry, haiku…

Post square 030113 ~ Chanse

Not a very interesting picture on the cover of the Post today, in terms of my motivation. A silhouette of a man reaching, I'm assuming in an instructive gesture, toward the back of a boy who is aiming a gun at a target out of the frame.

I don't like this one very much.

The story is about this boy, Chanse, being raised with an appreciation and love of guns, just like his daddy, and his daddy's daddy and his daddy's daddy's daddy before him.