Just a Nice Piece That I Like

Rachel - a Value Study

 

Way Back Machine

I’m  ALWAYS tempted to get rid of everything I’m not using RIGHT NOW, but I’m sure glad I can control that sometimes.  While moving my studio I ran across these little pieces of personal history.

We’ll begin at the beginning.  I’m pretty sure I drew this before I started school…?  It’s me and my dad feeding the sheep.

I don’t remember going to this circus.  I do remember Mrs. Jones and her wonderful handwriting – See the “Very Good”?  She was really a dream of a teacher.  I loved her.

I thought Jr. High would stop being embarrassing to me by age 35.  Nope.   This is from 8th grade, I think.  I don’t remember the teacher’s name, but I do remember thinking her glamorous – she had bleached blond hair with a hair style after all.  This project was a scratch board.  I think we used crayons to cover the paper, then painted it with india ink, let it dry and doodled away…

I’d forgotten about “ROY”  – it was the name on a bowling shirt my hoodlum friend Annemarie had?  It seemed so cool at the time to me.  Annemarie – what was the story there?

Fast forward to high school.  I don’t know where my school stuff went – much went to friends and family – thank goodness!  (I painted huge paintings during those years.  What a hassle to keep around!)  Anyway, I went over to take Life Drawing classes in the evenings at the local college (now SOU).  This shows the influence of both the teachers I studied with – Bob Alston always wanted us to sit down and look waaaaay up at the model who would be on a really tall pedestal.  Later I saw his paintings at an art show and they were all of sky scrapers seen from the street.  The other teacher was Jim Muhs who had a zen approach – he wanted us to be convinced our brush and ink were actually on the flesh of the model and would travel over and around it.  His paintings were large and distorted but interesting.

After high school I went to Pacific Northwest College of Art for two years, until I dropped out to have my dear little daughter.   I have many fond and embarrassing memories of college.  The embarrassing ones I blame on the fact that I was gearing up for a nervous breakdown.  Anyway – I imagine I’ll regret all this spillage – but the recent studio move and a friend’s addiction problem is causing me to drop normal barriers today.  Here are some Life Drawings – this one is of Ed C H King – another student at PNCA.  He, our friend Jacq and I modeled for each other to make up for some classes we missed.  Look up their art on the links I posted – they are fantastic.

Here are some quick sketches where the model came wearing some striped long underwear and Tom Fawkes, our teacher, asked her to keep them on so we could draw them.  I borrowed this exercise when teaching kids at the Ashland Academy of Art.

This whole post kind of started – in a round about fashion this morning when I saw that I had written “Notan” on a file folder on the kitchen counter.  I’m pretty sure that was something Steve LaRose told me to look up because something I’d done at Life Drawing recently reminded him of  or something ?  -  (why is my memory so bad?)  Anyway – I looked up Notan and then went to go organize the stacks of old art work I had to deal with when I ran across this – an exercise from like Design 101 or something – I guess this was a Notan exercise.  I think the teacher was Christy Wycoff.

So PNCA was big on printmaking – and during my last semester in school I made this wild thing – I was feeling exactly like this at that time.

And finally here is a self portrait I did at home – but during the time I was in college at PNCA,  I think it was right before I spun out of control.  It would be many, many years before I seriously took up painting again.  (Well, many years for someone who is 20.  Really I guess it was only 5 or 6.) I look like a boy in this piece – and that’s not the first or last time that my self portraits look masculine. weird.

Fast forward – This painting was something I made looking back at the time I’m referring to.  It’s supposed to be serious and sarcastic – painful and angry and funny.  It’s how it feels to know people are “worried” about you and how it feels to be grieving, how it felt to me to have embarrassing things get public.  Believe it or not, Judy Garland was an inspiration for this piece as well.  I painted this in like 2008 or something, not long after finishing four years in the Gulag.

OK!  Enough about me!  Share a memory or two in the comments.   Was adolescence embarrassing for you too?  And if you were there for some of the events above – please chime in.   oxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

PS – And the Gulag thing is a joke – and not as mean-spirited as it probably seems.  I learned a lot at that institution and I respect the instructor and classmates.  There was some unnecessary art-police brutality though.  That’s all.

Workshop Piece

I took another workshop with Michael Grimaldi at BACAA this month.  As usual, the experience was extremely enlightening in pretty much every artistic way.   Structure, perspective, anatomy, light – natural light situations.   Here is the drawing I created during the session.

I had such a great experience that I am signing up to go back and take Dan Thompson’s workshop at BACAA in October.

Amina

Amina by Sarah F Burns

Rachel

Not much to say about this piece – I really hated it when I was painting, but with a little time and distance, it’s grown on me.

Rachel by Sarah F Burns

New Models

Hannah by Sarah F Burns

I just got a new batch of art models for the summer- and I hired them off of Craigslist.  People raise eyebrows when they hear this.  For the most part, it’s perfect.  I’ve found some excellent new models this way.  Will, from last week’s post was a Craigslist find.  He’s a member of a local dance company and was a lot of fun to draw and paint.   Usually Craigslist folks are first time models, and first time models can be refreshing.  They do some weird things because they don’t know what the routine is.  That being said, it’s  always fantastic to use a professional model.  They know what their body can handle, they have a sense of what makes an interesting pose.  They remember to bring a robe and set the timer and all that.

That being said, this weeks new model, Hannah, wasn’t a Craigslister, she found me at the Art Center.  She was available at the last minute so she modeled for us in the last two weeks.  It was her first time, and she was nervous and kind of froze up and talked a lot, but she did the job fine, if not very inspiring, the first week.  The next week (the week of this painting) she came in obviously stoned, which irritated me, so instead of setting the pose myself, as I usually do, I pawned the job off on the first artist to arrive.   Because the model was inexperienced and high, it took them a LONG time to settle on a pose. They picked a pose that was okay, the hand placement is not what I would do, but it was fine and I was sure the model wasn’t going to be able to hold still worth a darn, but again, whatever.  I was not excited, but surprise surprise – it worked out.  Despite the handicaps, we had a great night and I like my piece.  It’s not always easy to know what will translate into a satisfying painting experience.  Sometimes we’ll have a pose that knocks me out and my painting turns out horribly.   But please models, come to work sober anyway.

New Approach

Painting of Will by Sarah F Burns

On the Wednesday evening long poses I usually like to paint on panels sized about 12 x 16 ish.  I’m kind of a creature of habit, but I’m also busy and temporarily out of titanium (needed to make the gesso I use to prepare panels) so at the last minute I had to grab whatever I had available – which was an 18 x 24 inch stretched canvas.  It was already toned (yay!) I didn’t want to think in full color so I kind of just did a drawing using raw umber.  The results you see above – and I have to say I am pleased.  Unfortunately I don’t have any other canvases prepared and I still haven’t gessoed any panels, so I’m not sure what I’ll do next Wednesday….

Ink Wash Exercises

If you want to go to an evening Life Drawing Session in Ashland, Oregon you have two choices:  My group at Second Floor Studios or Steve LaRose’s group at Tease.  The spring weather fronts seem to have been blowing in a desire to switch things up and try sketching with ink wash, because in the last couple of weeks both Steve and I coincidentally have switched to that medium.  Check out his blog to see his results – which look pretty cool.   Personally, I was inspired by a Tiepolo sketch I saw at the Portland Art Museum recently.  And how humbling indeed when I got home and gave it a go.  But it must be good for my little brain to think in another way.

There’s a ton of potential with this medium – working with a wide value range is pretty powerful and I like the loosey flowy fresh jazz you get.  With ink wash too you cannot go back very well – I can blot a little I guess, but it really forces you to keep it fresh and intentional.  I’m planning to stick with it for a while – at least until I blow through all my watercolor paper. Hopefully I will get a little closer to the results I’d like to see.  I’d like it to be fresh and gestural, yet precise and solid.