Art training: the evolution of my painting surfaces.

An observation.

In the first year in art school, I bought Ampersand panels, dutifully gessoed them, and painted on them. Too scared to try anything else, I used only the first surface I was introduced to.

In second year of art school, I bought linen, cotton, more expensive wooden panels, thicker wooden panels, and just went nuts on surfaces. I said I was experimenting, but really, I couldn’t hold off on buying a new genre of art supply. Oh the joys of a sophomoric year!

Then in third year in art school, I cut up some cardboard boxes, gesso the heck out of them, and paint… because who has the money, the time or the space??

As I progress in my art training, the painting surfaces get cheaper, the brushes get better.

Jim, Middlemarch, and Moby Dick

Jim was reading Middlemarch. On the spine of his Middlemarch was a sticker from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I believe it was from Aug 11. I feel happy knowing Jim brought his Middlemarch to the Met. I like Jim and Middlemarch and things that get stuck on books. I feel less upset about the Met going from colorful metal pins to transient paper stickers. One advantage of those stickers, I suppose, is that they can get stuck on books one brings to the Met, perhaps to read in transit on those horribly crowded 6 trains… Those pretty metal pins don’t get stuck on books. You can try… but they fall off. Maybe I could’ve tried affixing the pins with artist tape. I love holding things together with artist tape… they remind me of those expensive colorful tapes in molecular biology labs. I love molecular biology and running gels. I do miss those days somewhat but I am an artist and an aspiring lawyer now. So there’s that.

Jim read Middlemarch when I was reading Moby Dick. I am still reading Moby Dick. When I go back to studio 1 & 2 in two weeks, I hope to be reading a different book, maybe Ender’s Game finally. And I hope Jim will tell me about the biography he started about that quirky physicist who discovered and named quirks.

Things that got stuck on my Loomis book.

I finally finished nibbling on my Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth by Andrew Loomis.

There inside the cover was an except about President Eisenhower learning to paint I ripped from a NYTimes Magazine and affixed with artist tape. I must have found it important or interesting… or perhaps felt inclined to post the salmon color  with a bit of warm gray on the except against the white of the inside cover. I have also been in an artist tape phase where I affix everything with this nifty reversible adhesive strap. (I am so passionate about artist tape). There on top edge is a paper clip that I must’ve used to hold a tracing paper to an anatomy page I was copying. To the right is a lime colored paper clip that goes well with an orange-green paper tab. Here are the things that got stuck on the inside cover of my Loomis book and this is my accidental collage.

Yes, I had a subscription to "Scientific American"

Just stumbled upon my Dec 1999 copy of "Scientific American" featuring on its cover: "what science will know in 2050." If I am hanging around in 2050, I will do a thorough check to see how our scientists have fared in building knowledge. Yay for nerding out in nursing home in the future and yay for unpacking fun in the present!

(Addendum on 05/28/13: Yes, I do acknowledge that the kind of reasoning I employed above is a apt example of how I talk myself into NEVER THROWING ANYTHING OUT, like fucking EVER. I do recognize this is a problem. I admit I need help, but first I will try being superbly organized and fitting everything into a tiny space. No, it does not help that I have a passion for packing.)

Currently reading...

If on a winter's night
A traveler
By italo calvino

And I feel delightfully dizzy.

my pencils

After two years of drawing, I have amassed a graveyard of pencils:

  

To my delight, however, I realized I now possess the awesome pencil sharpening abilities that will allow me to make more use out of these pencils. I can now go halfway into the black tip on those Steadtler pencils. It’s like discovering a hundred dollar bill under the mattress… oh so much uncovered graphite!

What the heck, here are more assemblages of my pencils…

my portable pencil case, always with me:

My back up pencil case I use to change from soft to hard or hard to soft pencils depending on what the drawing demands:

 

And finally, my treasured graphite set:

The whirlpool world perturbs me not as long as I have stocked up on sharp-able pencils.

Poems and loss

I sat in the back with a real attitude in AP English Lit my senior year of high school. I refused to learn the mechanics of poetry: oh all those devices! Getting me to participate in class discussion must have been like scraping melted rubber off the floor.

But poems are insiduous. And I spent the next decade buttressed by them. One in particular, I forget and remember as needed: "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. Since "so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost," a person has no choice but to master "the art of losing." As I am losing a mentor who taught me a different art ("None of these will bring disaster"), I want to go find Mr. Gern and thank him for sending in his army of poems.

Happy poetry month everyone!