Mini Watercolor Sketches

It's been a while since I sat down and drew or watercolored or really did anything too creative, so I am a little rusty. I took out my watercolors today to work on a project for my sister, but in the end just started playing with mini watercolor sketches. I'm not in love with them, but the important thing is I had so much fun and it felt so right to be working today.

I love the looseness of them though, even though I don't think they are fine works of art or anything.

I was really loving playing with the baby food jars -- I did some more (but I didn't scan them in) -- but I think even when I have a babysitter for Violet for four hours I am clearly still thinking about her.

I also want to thank Peter Reynolds -- he's truly an inspiration. Yesterday Leslie, Vic, Violet and I went for ice cream in Dedham and stopped at the Blue Bunny Books + Toys, which Peter Reynolds owns. I have always loved his work -- I think his drawings/watercolors are so full of life and movement, and I also just love the lessons behind his books. Yesterday at the bookstore he had two original drawings out on 18x24" drawing pads and I really wanted to buy one of them. I mean, desperately. It was of a child with wings. I haven't been this taken by a piece of art in a long time. Anyway, I wanted it for Violet's room, but I also left the store with this strong feeling that I needed to create. So thank you, Peter. And if you ever decide to sell that drawing, can I have first dibs?

And here's to hoping that someday my drawings will be as fluid and beautiful as yours.

Ice Cream Cone

I know it has been forever and there goes my promise of more art. It's been so hard balancing a baby and artmaking!

Anyway, I did this ice cream cone, but I didn't finish...I probably won't finish it, as I don't like where it is going.

I used a photo of an ice cream I took, which isn't usually the way I like to work. I like to work from actual objects, but it's hard with something like ice cream that melts (or birds that don't stay put). I'm still trying to figure out the best way to draw ice cream from an actual object. Draw it outside in the middle of winter? Make fake ice cream again?

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed drawing again, so I am hoping I'll be back sooner than later.

Variations

I got some really positive feedback on the bird drawing I did, so I decided that while printing Soldier. Merchant. Man. (4"x6", mixed media on board) that I would also make some prints (Untitled), on paper from the image. I am really excited about them, but I am not sure if they should be worked into further. I like them for their simplicity -- the starkness of the white bird against the gray paper. I like the fact that the bird has just a wide open page to fly on (which now brings me to the desire to print this little bird all alone on a large paper...)

Then part of me thinks they should have something else to them. I'm not sure. Perhaps I need to leave it for a while and come back to it. I think art is so exciting in that way though...how you can work on something, leave it, and then come back to it months later and finally get what you wanted -- or just finally have it come together even though you didn't consciously know what you wanted. Soldier. Merchant. Man. was like that. I worked on it in February (at which time I only did the board using scraps of paper from an old book) and then again in June (?) when I drew the dead baby bird and then finally in August when I added the bird in flight. And it is exactly what I wanted in the end, but I didn't know it at the beginning.

Since I already had the screen made, and I love experimenting, I also pulled a version of it on green fabric. I love that too, but I have no idea what to do with it.

Finally, I had been constantly imagining a piece with a bird and a cage and shrunk the bird to work in Leonard (4"x6", mixed media on board). I like it. This is the second version I did, the first the cage was too high and I couldn't get the bird to balance correctly on the page.

And yes, I don't know what my new obsession with birds is, but they are so elegant and so fragile, I just love using them in my work.

Soldier. Merchant. Man.

I finally figured out how to finish the piece (Soldier. Merchant. Man., 4"x6", mixed media on board) I started in February. I had started it as a way to deal with Grandpa Miceli's death. He died at 92. He loved a good long life and passed away right after watching a UConn Girls Basketball win with Grandma, which was probably his idea of a perfect evening. Rest in peace, Grandpa.

Flying By

It's been a while since I posted. I have been very busy in the studio. I finally finished my piece for Danger. I am excited about it. I need to take a photo to post it...

In the meantime, this little guy made me happy.

Not sure about my recent obsession with birds. They are just so elegant and beautiful.

In Progress...Taking a Step Back...

So I am kind of at this point I need to take a step back and look at this print. Something is missing I think, which is a struggle because I want to keep the simplicity of it as well.

Further, I want the clothes to be the focus of the print, and that's not happening.

And I don't like the navy blue in the pallette, but I am not sure what other color to use because clearly I need one more. Grey?

Not sure about the ground. Thought I might need it to offset the sky. I'd like it to be graphic as opposed to drawn, but at the same time, I want this to be a print, a drawing, not graphic design. Does this make sense?

Just kind of talking myself through the process...thanks for coming along for the ride.

Ok, I am going out to try and get some pictures of flying birds, because this one is not mine...I just borrowed it for the sketch...

Returning to the Laundry

So there are some projects I keep coming back to. Laundry is one of them. I have really been into combining my drawing with my screenprinting. Today was (finally) relatively nice out, so I took to the yard and drew laundry on the line.

I tested the drawings in photoshop with the palette I want to use -- ever since I saw these colors on a sheet of origami paper, I realized these are my colors (if one can actually have colors...)

I have included the scrap of paper, too.

Tomorrow is socks, boxers, a couple of tees, some underwear...ooooh! Tomorrow is supposed to be 76° and sunny. Don't forget the sunblock!

Thirty-Eight Self Portraits (Because I Wish I Were Smaller)

I just entered this in a show...cross your fingers for me...

It's called Thirty-Eight Self Portraits (Because I Wish I Were Smaller), and it measures in at 8 inches by 7 inches. I had so much fun with it. Of course it wasn't so much fun when I was coloring in the third print because the first two didn't look as I wanted and I was racing the clock because the post office was closing in two hours!

Anyway, it's been an especially interesting project about body image, because knowing since about sixth or seventh grade that I wish I had smaller hips or smaller thighs or whatever, and then finding all the pictures, I realized that there were points I thought I should be "smaller" when really I looked pretty darn good.

Keep visiting, because I know I am going to work on more variations and now that I have these thirty-eight drawings of me, I see them being integrated into a lot of other works.

Mini Mes

Just wanted to post some little mes I have have been drawing.

Study of a Dead Baby Bird

Note, these drawings are referred to in order, but the text about each one doesn't fit next to the image, so I have put a number next to the drawing I am referring to. Although the drawings aren't numbered, I trust my readers to understand that the first drawing on the page is 1, the second 2, and so forth.

Growing up, we had a charcoal drawing of a dead baby bird in our house. (The image to the left is not it. That's mine!) It was truly beautiful, once I learned to appreciate it for the art that it was and not for the rotting corpse. My father loved to quote the artist, his friend Steve Halford, and I in turn liked to quote my dad. When asked why he drew a dead baby bird, Steve answered, "Because a dead baby bird is a lot easier to draw than a live baby bird." True. But a dead baby bird isn't that easy, Steve, so I am quite impressed with the drawing.

Yesterday, Kevin called me outside to see a dead baby bird in the front lawn. I scooped the bird up onto a disposable plastic plate and I promise I too would try my hand at my own drawings.

I did one yesterday and three today. I don't love the drawings, but I loved the exercise, and I never before got to appreciate the beauty and the delicacy of our feathered friends in such intimacy before.

Additionally, I loved the excuse to spend the day in the warm sunshine -- what a perfect day! (Drawing a dead animal certainly is an outside activity.)

Yesterday's drawing was simply pencil (1). After giving it some breathing room, I like it better than I remembered.

Today I stared off with a watercolor sketch (2) which frustrated me so I stopped. Looking back, I like the simplicity, lightness and unfinished nature of it.

Then I went to focus on a gouache drawing on a collage page (3) -- I started this piece when grandpa passed away in March. I collaged some pages from an old book full of synonyms. I found a bunch that described grandpa: merchant, soldier, and man. I found it to be the perfect base for the drawing, because in the last months of his life, I saw him as delicate as a baby bird. I am frustrated though because I don't like the drawing at all. The image became too colorful and too muddled. The gouache wasn't even adhering to the area where the head was. You can't see it because I scribbled over it in graphite -- while covering up my frustration, I think I was also trying to demonstrate the dark empty space grandpa left in all of us.

Finally, I did a simple pen and ink and then filled the background in deep red gouache (4) which I am not loving, but I don't hate it either. I love how the red really makes the little bird pop off the page.

I am wondering how I can take this gorgeous creature and maybe turn it into a silk screen. Or is it too delicate for such a bold medium. Maybe it would work for just that reason.

This little bird had a short life, but I like to think that I immortalized it in some way.

My little friend is starting to smell and attract flies (but a citronella candle works wonders for the later) so I think tomorrow will be our last day together. I don't know though. If the smell gets much worse, these might be the final drawings.

In the Studio: Cleaning

Here's a little peak of what I have been working on in the studio. I have been obsessed with decluttering lately, but there is also so much more behind these cleaners I am working on.

A Drawing A Day, 10.17.08

Here's another drawing a day -- of course the last one was in the beginning of September! 5x5 inches, watercolor on Claybord. I don't know how long it took me.

A Drawing A Day, 9.8.08

Carrots. 37 minutes. 4 inches square. watercolor on clayboard. Lunch from today. Not sure how I feel about it. Scans always look better to me than the real thing.

On another note, I can't seem to find my Page-a-Day book and have decided to end this project. It wasn't what I wanted, the paper was too glossy, and it ended being something I had to force myself to do at the end of the day. Forcing wasn't what I wanted from this project, so I have decided to focus my energies elsewhere.

Fly Paper

Not really sure...was playing with these fly drawings for something else, but I did something not as I wanted for the other project but I loved the result. So here it is. Don't know what to do with it, but it sure is pretty.