Trip to Seattle

I  recently spent 48 hours in Seattle.  The founder of my art school, and my mentor in art school, Gary Faigin, passed away and I flew out for his Remembrance.  There were 600 people there!  And you can watch it on YouTube.  He had a big impact on many people.  I got to the airport with time to kill.  So naturally I drew it.

The memorial was wonderful - people telling stories about different parts of him - from his teaching to his facial expression work.  His passion for birds was totally new to me.

The next morning I taught my classes via Zoom, then got together with a friend I haven't seen in ages and caught up for several hours.  Then it was time for the Drink & Draw at the new Gage, and I tried to remember how to draw figure.  Coffee show drawings only do so much for keeping your figure skills up to date!

The next morning I wandered around Seattle for a while - I don't even recognize the city it's grown so much.  I discovered there is a banana stand outside "Bezo's balls" (as the terrarium is called).  

Then I got a tour of the new Gage facility on SLU.  Gorgeous.  Half the school is now in a different location, but I was good to see this building since it has a number of the items from the old school, including the books, and some "bricks" which were made from the old tables.  I then ambled around Seattle some more, and finally found a good matcha.

Then it was back to the airport, via the train.  Nice that there is rail now, but some serious fails in terms of finding where to buy a ticket and which train goes to the airport, but it's a smooth. fast ride.  SEA is much bigger than MRY, so crowded, but they actually have live music and I got something to eat and a few more sketches then it was home, and my neighbor's cat waiting for me.

Drawing Jam!

Today was the Drawing Jam at Gage and I spent a few hours over there.  I started off with print making, which I have never done before.  I think I could really get into it.  Here's my very first attempts:

My robot's head needs to be shoveled out some more, but I really like my pear.

Then it was over to the Judy Garland Christmas show:

And some figure.

And then good ole' Sylvia O'Stayformore, Drag Queen Extraordinaire:

I had taken the landscape that I'm working on over and thanks to Mitch for taking the time to give me some feedback, and it was great to see Deborah, Cathy, D. Lisa, Julie, and Laura again (and I hope Barbara made it over there).

Can this painting be saved???

That was the battle cry of the Atelier.  I'm not sure why we were doing figure in an Impressionism workshop - that wasn't really their mainstay - but here's Shannon in all of her green and purple glory.  I like how the hair came out and the purple fabric. It's too bad the hair isn't fully connected to her head, though, but that's workshops for you.

Oh, and here's the other study that we did real quick this morning - can you guess what it is?  The lotus caves?  An alien?  NO!  It's fabric folds.  (But it makes a great alien landscape).

I am so framing this one.

Shannon in progress

Here's some "work in progress" shots from the Impressionism workshop.  This is where I am today:

And this is where it was yesterday:

The green underpainting is interesting to work on - and with 12 of them in the room it looked like a Star Trek episode!

This is a small work from the other day with a lot of palette knife action:

And here is possibly the worst painting that I have ever done.  We dried out the paint then scrubbed it on with a cheap brush.  Personally, the whole point of oil paint is the oil, so I don't think I'll be doing any more of these!

Work in progress

I'm taking an Impressionism workshop this week, and here's the piece that I was working on today.  I'm having a good time playing with color and composition (and putting the models in a place more interesting than the studio - the background is based on another painting, the name of which escapes me).

Good show in a bad neighborhood

The next time you donate plasma, drop by the OK Hotel and check out Tamara's show.  It's a neat little space and she's got her brick paintings up along with a few landscapes that I hadn't seen before (and like a lot). The venue entrance is under the viaduct not too far from the ferry dock.  I took the 66 to get there:

More about the show on her blog: http://tamara.stephas.com/2010/07/not-an-exit-new-paintings/

(And yes, that noise you hear in the background is indeed the Blue Angels at it again.)

Some bad drawings

I took Juliette's drawing workshop this past weekend, and I haven't drawn figure in ages and haven't used charcoal in ages.  Of course, you know going into a workshop that it's just 2 days so you're not going to produce a masterpiece, but you are in fact there to absorb skills. But you still wish you could do better than you did.

On the upside, they were filming for her upcoming DVD, so I may get my 15 minutes of fame!  (I was wearing my "Shut up and draw" t-shirt).

It was great to finally get a chance to study with Juliette even if it was only for a short time!

R is for Robot

From my Illuminated Manuscripts class.  This is in the Irish Insular style (like the Book of Kells) but with a slightly modern touch…  This is on hot press watercolor paper, but our next one will be on actual calfskin vellum.

Ding Dongs and Destiny

My friend Deborah had an opening at the Bauhaus here in Seattle, and being the hostess that she is, she served Ding Dongs and Twinkies.  I don’t think either of them are actual food products, but Twinkies are really horrible.  I seem to remember enjoying them more as a kid, but maybe I just like the fact that they were injected with foam.

We had a hard time figuring out the expiration date on the Twinkies:  All it said was “Feb 19.”  What year?  Even milk has a year.  We think it means February 2019 (I mean why would you need an exact day?).  Wikipedia claims they only last a week or so, but we think that may have been written by Hostess.

Check out Deborah’s work: http://deborahkscott.com/

Drawing Jam

The 5th was the Drawing Jam at Gage – 12 hours of live models and music – the most fun you will ever have drawing. I made it through 6 hours. Loads of fun and a few decent drawings.

We had a character from Teatro ZinZanni – she had this great sprayed-on leather outfit, complete with whip and tail – and platform shoes that I’m sure took a while to learn to walk in.

Another model was a beautiful black women in a white dress with a huge white feather wig – I decided to try out the white chalk on this one. Fun to draw the whites.

And of course the usual array of your typical life models. 20 minute poses for each of these:

And my personal favorite – a drag queen dressed as nurse chapel. It’s hard to draw a guy dressed as a girl – you think “she” and start drawing but then think “that’s too masculine” so you change it but then realize, no it is a guy. It’s a weird way to draw and it throws you, but she was great. She had the whole outfit including the go-go boots and did these action poses where she held out her phaser (actually a garage door remote, I think) with a great expression on her face! She called herself Sylvia Ostayformore and there was bossa nova music playing in the background. It was a great end to the day: