Summer Work: Grave Dancing

I recently attended an intimate dinner theater event, where a friend of mine, Andrew Borne, read some of his poetry. He wrote this poem after reading a lot of Charles Simic’s poems. Simic writes in a very surreal but simple way and he wanted to do something similar. His poem is about finding flowers blooming in everyday events or experiences. Here is the poem:

Blooms have been coming up everywhere

A bed of tulips is rising from the spokes of my bicycle

A field of clovers is emerging from the roof top of my apartment

Several water lilies sit between the bubbles in the baby’s bath water

The hair of my 3 children has turned to pear blossoms

The petals fly from their heads like snow

As they dance in the wind

The backyard grill has sprouted a lilac bush

The aroma has taken over the entire neighborhood

The lavender clusters cover the hot coals

A father’s coffin is pushed open from the force

Of a large magnolia tree in full bloom

As the mourner’s hearts erupt with sorrow, joy

A cross on Golgotha has grown rose buds

The first one is opening from the soldier’s spear wound

The Convict relinquishes His Spirit, a new fruit

The imagery spoke of life growing from unexpected places, including the grave, and one passage really inspired me;
A father’s coffin is pushed open from the force

Of a large magnolia tree in full bloom


A corpse being animated by the roots of a tree. That inspired this pen and ink and watercolor drawing.
I call it "Grave Dance".

That got me to thinking and more drawing. I wanted to do something a little cleaner-looking with two figures who were more obviously dancing. "Grave-Dancing". This one is pen and ink colored digitally in Photoshop.

This led to a general obsession with the juxtaposition of skeletons and life. This next one is called "Crown of Ivy".
Another pen and ink and watercolor.

The next one is a variation on the theme called "Flames of Love". The idea of love totally consuming two people till there is nothing left but the bones. Pen and ink and acrylic.

Then the skeleton-couple idea kicked in. This one came to me as I was lying in bed my wife and our cat one morning. "Skeletal Couple and Cat"

This led to different types of couples. The idea of a human man and a mermaid. "Man and Mermaid".

This led to a final mermaid/man composition, a variation on the skeleton/mermaid idea I called "Tideline".

This one is called "Heartflower".

 

Animals and Adjectives Challenge: Final Week

If you have been following my posts for the last month or so, you know my wife Amy came up with a fun challenge  to keep me drawing each day. She wrote a list of about 30 adjectives on a piece of paper, and a list of animals on another; she put all the adjective slips in one cup, and all the animal slips in another. I pick an adjective slip and an animal slip at random from the cups each day and then draw whatever came up.
After a break for vacation, here are my sketches for the last weeks, (4-5) of the challenge.

The first one was "Sad Tiger". 

 Perturbed Porcupine which with a lack of reference  ended up looking more like a wolverine.

Mournful Kangaroo.

Pleasant Wolf.

Brave Owl.

Neutral Eagle.

Joyous Cow.

Overwhelmed Otter.

Dominant Chipmunk

Confused Horse.

 Serious Octopus.

 
That's it for now. 

Animals and Adjectives Challenge: Week 3

If you have been following my posts for the last couple of weeks, you know my wife Amy came up with a fun challenge  to keep me drawing each day. She wrote a list of about 30 adjectives on a piece of paper, and a list of animals on another; she put all the adjective slips in one cup, and all the animal slips in another. I pick an adjective slip and an animal slip at random from the cups each day and then draw whatever came up.
Here are my sketches for this week, 3 of the challenge.

The first one was "Hungry  Platypus". It's y very cartoon-ey rendition of a platypus with a cheeseburger. Who knew they were carnivores?


















Next was "Flexible Bear". I really like bears, so I did several versions of this one.

 Then came "Frustrated Field Mouse".

A"Grasping Dragon".

 

A"Proud Anteater".

 A"Nervous Fox".

 And finally, a "Jealous Duck".

 I still have more to go, but I am going to take a week off. I will post more when I return.

Animals and Adjectives Challenge: Week 2

If you read my post from last week, you know my wife Amy came up with a task to keep me drawing each day. She wrote a list of about 30 adjectives on a piece of paper, and a list of animals on another. then she cut up the paper so each of the adjectives and each of the animals names were on a separate slip of paper. Then she put all the adjective slips in one big coffee cup, and all the animal slips in another. I was to pick an adjective slip and an animal slip at random from the cups each day and then draw whatever came up.
Here are my sketches for this week, week 2 of the challenge.

The first one was "Excited Shark".

I liked this one so much I did several alternate versions.  

   Then "Creative Unicorn".

 
















"Tense Hummingbird."

"Timid Aardvark".

 "Loyal Elephant".

 

















"Infatuated Chicken".

 





















An "Infatuated Chicken" alternate version.

And finally "Ecstatic Sheep".

I still have a cup full to go, So I will post more over the next few weeks.

Sketches from "Cocktail Culture"

My wife Amy and I recently went to the RISD art museum in Providnece Rhode Island. While there we took a tour of their exhibit "Cocktail Culture" which is an exhibit of fashions and accessories associated with the growth of drinking as a social custom. Before prohibition men went out to bars or private clubs to drink. These establishments had an exclusively male clientele and drinking alcohol with a woman in any kind of respectable social setting was unheard of.
After prohibition, drinking and entertaining at home, and in mixed company became a neccessity and over the years, increasingly popular. The fashions reflected this fundamental change in American culture as men and women became more comfortable and indeed celebrated the cocktail.

Since I was unable to take photographs of the exhibition, I did a few quick sketches and made notations while we were in the gallery, and then colored them with watercolor later.
It was a great exhibit and I would recommend making a visit.
The link is here:http://www.risdmuseum.org
The exhibit is open until July 31st.

Drawing with Ham

Last night my wife Amy asked me to do a few drawings of her. This is part of her ongoing encouragement to keep drawing as much as possible in spite of the distractions of running my own graphic design business, e-mail, the internet, Facebook, etc. It has been a while since I have drawn from life, and years ago in art school I came up with a phrase that describes how it feels to get back to drawing after a prolonged absence..picking up a pencil or brush feels like you are "drawing with a ham". It refers to the inability to get the brush or pencil to go where you want, and do what you want, becoming as awkward as using a ham, a large block of meat, to draw with. Above you can see my four drawings of my lovely wife. You might think by looking at them that it is a drawing of four different people. Each was done in about 10 minutes. She asked me to first do the first one in lead pencil in a "realistic" style (1). The second was supposed to be done in my "George" fine-line ink style (2), the third in a looser brush style (3), and the final in a cartoony, Tim-Burton-esque style (3). Although they all contain accurate bits of what she looks like, and capture certain distinctive features, what is interesting to note is that the more cartoony the style got, the more it started to actually look like Amy. To me this shows that loosening up, actually frees up expression. I have a constant struggle finding a happy balance between the labor of rendering, and the freedom of expression. Drawing from life, which I don't do nearly enough, is one key to expression that is "alive", the other, is just having fun, loosening up and forgetting what you think something is supposed to look like, and just letting your right brain take over.

Sketching

Anyone who has known me for any amount of time, realizes that I hardly ever leave home without a tiny sketchpad and a pen. Most of my drawing for the last few years has been done in a series of small memo books 4.25" x 2.75", filled with plain white paper.
The size is unobtrusive, and will fit in almost any pocket nicely, and can travel anywhere. I have always liked drawing small anyway. I buy plain white paper memo pads from CVS and cut them to size.



I also use the best pen ever made, it is a Mitsubishi UM-151, a uniball pen with extremely black, nearly-waterproof, archival ink and a .028" tip. They are not available at your local stationary store and had to be ordered from Japan through Jetpens.com. I covet these pens, and love drawing with them.



I will also sometimes carry a small Windsor Newton watercolor kit, which is compact, self-contained, and very versatile. That means I can do small, quick sketches almost anywhere.

Here are some sketches that I did recently of the Iris Apfel show at the Peabody Essex Museum using this method.