sketch night Society of Illustrators

walnut ink on toned paper 9x12

Every Tuesday and Thursday here in New York at the Society of Illustrators there are two models and a three piece live band.  It gets crowded and, since there is bar (it's in the dining room of the Society), it has a speakeasy quality without the smoke.  $15 and anyone can come.  Many good artists are there doing anything but your standard academic nude drawing.

This piece was done with a fountain pen loaded with Walnut ink made from the shells of walnuts, an old type of ink.  It's water soluble, so, when I go over it with a water filled brush, I can get a wash.

I should mention that I drew this from a chair placed on a table so the artists are actually below me while the model is on the same level.  This explain, in part, the perspective.

Katsushika Hokusai

"From the time I was six, I was in the habit of sketching things I saw around me, and around the age of fifty, I began to work in earnest, producing numerous designs.  It was not until after my seventieth year, however, that I produced anything of significance.  At the age of seventy-three, I began to grasp the underlying structure of bird and animals, insects and fish, and the way trees and plants grow.  Thus, if I keep up my efforts, I will have an even better understanding when I am eighty, and by ninety will have penetrated to the heart of things.  At one hundred, I may reach a level of divine understanding, and if I live a decade beyond that, everything I paint --every dot and line -- will be alive.  I ask the god of longevity to grant me a life long enough to prove this true."

postscript to One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji (translated by Carol Morland)

Hokusai got it right, about the point of making art.  It's not about exhibiting.  It's not about making money.  It's not about someone else seeing it.  It's about the challenge Hokusai set for himself.  I discuss this more in my other blog.  By the way, Hokusai lived to 90 years of age.

french cafe, Madison Avenue

20x16 oil on canvas

This one is bigger than any of the others on this blog.  I decided I wanted to go up in size from my 8x10's and 9x11's.  The size seems to make it easier for me, I think to get things right although it takes longer to paint. 

 I've been using a "tight spot" brush which turns at an angle at the top so you can see clearly where you're paint is going.  It's a very common brush among house painters, but rare to find in art stores.  It helps a lot to get the detail right.  Anyway this ones not completely finished, but I have to let it really dry to make the changes I want to make.  

In case you're wondering, there is someone to the left, across the street, that the couple in the foreground is trying to attract.  He is wiggling his finger in a "come here" gesture and has his cell phone in the other hand.  Her "open" arm gesture over the chair that this person will sit in is very telling.  If I were him, I'd hurry over.  This is an Eric Fischl compositional idea:  to make what's going on  puzzling so that it keeps the viewer there trying to figure out what's going on.

Starbucks Teens

8x10 oil on board

There was something about the gestures of these two teen-agers that intrigued me. They were sitting in darkness at the front window of the shop with blinding light coming in. It was a fun study. I may put a starbucks sign in the window and clean up some of the lines.

the fox went out on a chilly night

8x10 oil on canvas board

Another Maine scene.  I thought it needed something so I put in a Red Fox which normally comes out about the time portrayed in this scene.  Foxes are usually considered very smart and canny, but they are really just extremely cautious.  One can image that the little red house is a chicken coop that the fox is going to raid, but in fact, I think it was a pump house for water.

Central Lovell, Maine

8x10 oil on board

This is a painting about the light.  It's early fall and the sun is setting.  We were visiting a friend who has a house.  It's the same place that the country fair was (see below)

Maine County Fair

9x11 oil on board

I learned a lot about farm animals at this fair like the difference between steers, oxen, and bulls. An oxen is a 4 year old steer. A bull has not be castrated. I always thought steers and oxen were completely different species.

Painting the straw was an interesting example of how you have to conceptualize something as having layers which actually doesn't. If you paint what you know the straw is, a chaotic mixture of many thin straws, it doesn't read right. You have to first paint a solid layer as if the back part of the straw piles were flat and then paint a few straws that catch the light to create the illusion of depth.