Poems that Appear in My "Self Portrait" Book

The Artist's Palette

I want to draw what I see
not what I think I see.
One part articulated so that now
your eyes grasp the enormity of its smallness
and contain its beauty.
I want to capture what you will feel
standing before a field of burnt sienna,
rising from a burnt earth, a burnt past.
I want to see Color, Shape, Line
the path a sparrow takes across
the runway of the sky -
the soft, beaded swell of lake against
a vast wash of ultramarine.
I want Form, Value, Movement
the way we Run, & Breathe:
the sharp clutching of our hearts
lhe velvety gray of our lungs.
I want to be precise and draw
what is so—Improbably real

  

I Love Words

I love words, the way they whisper—

allegory, almond, armistice

Words like hover, humble, hum

Clover, river, rippled.

These are for my silent tongue.

Pepper, prestige, prescient.

They fade quickly from my ears:

Ephemeral.

But the shapely letters stay

Against the transparency of my eyes.

They fill my head, like a

Maelstrom, a myriad—

They’re in each cough, cackle & whistle

The birds around me make.

They are silly, sibilant or strange

They snap like onomatopoeia

Dulcet, dapper, and Darwinian.

These are my companions. 

What I didn't get to say at the Slide Slam

1.     What materials and methods do you utilize?
As an undergraduate, I concentrated drawing and painting. My methods are currently evolving, and these images follow my progression from drawing/painting toward printmaking. I am exploring different methods; my current focus is on woodcut and gum transfer prints.
2.     Where do you draw inspiration for the production of your work?
I draw inspiration for my work from my own experiences and what I see in nature. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, where I was always close to the land and nature around me. Through art, I react and express concerns, examine memories, and try to translate how I see the world. My art is often quite personal, but I hope to connect to my viewers through a thread of common experience.
3.     What is the desired affect of your work? How does it produce sensation, meaning or transformation?
I am interested in examining how we relate to nature, and breaking down the everyday natural world into fragments for our examination. I enjoy making something aesthetically pleasing, but I also believe art should trigger some thought.
The pest series is specifically targeted toward viewers who may live/have lived in the northeast and have had encounters with the insect subjects. Every person may have a different reaction to the subject based on his/her frame of reference and past experiences. I would like to examine viewers’ initial reactions, whether it is one of pleasure or disgust.
Through this we can examine the connotations a common creature, which we might see every day, can have. Is it disgusting because it is an insect? Why are insects regarded as disgusting? Is it frightening or irritating because it is a pest? Or can it be seen as an attractive or beautiful creature? We see butterflies and ladybugs as beautiful or cute designs to decorate our clothes and accessories – what about these other insects? These pieces use color and repetition to go beyond representation to create a decorative feel. The repetition can be seen as sinister, echoing our fear of being over-run by nature, or simply an element of design.

The Quick Sketch

This was probably a 15 minute drawing. I was tired and wanted to go to bed, but I also didn't want to end the day without a drawing -- trying to cultivate good habits here! For copying, a quick sketch doesn't do justice to the original drawing because copying is too much of a seeing and rendering task, but quick sketching certainly has its place. I love the looseness of a scribble, the freedom of the graphite skipping carelessly across the paper -- but don't be fooled -- it takes skill! It's amazing how one line, a simple line of black, can seem effortless and another clumsy. I love sketching because it can free us from the look-draw-erase-correct-look-draw perfectionism of a finished piece. Sure you have to learn to see, and see correctly, quickly. I can imagine Sargent scribbling this beautiful little drawing in a few minutes. It lends itself well to the contemporary vision of a model pausing on a catwalk. Imagine how much fun those high fashion contraptions are to draw in action! (America's Next Top Model drawing session coming up?)

Rondout Reservoir

I went to a party instead of drawing yesterday, so I will leave you with a photo of the Roundout Reservoir at dusk. It might make a good oil or watercolor painting.

If you would like to read more of my musings, check out  my poetry blog.http://secondofspring.blogspot.com/

Portraiture: Similarity

 The past few days I have been working on portraiture. While I like making an accurate representation of a face, I have never spent much time with portraits. I preferred to study the figure, since I felt it was less stiff and posed, giving more emotion to the piece. I'm giving my self a little course in drawing here, making  a drawing a day! I plan to start with portraits, and work up to the figure, experimenting with different media as I go along  to refresh my repertoire.
This drawing began as I searched my computer for photographs to turn into portraits. I wanted to start with black and white photographs, since the values are much more clear and easier to practice with. Before I began turning all of my photos black and white, I found this cell phone picture of a portrait of my mom. I decided it would make a good subject, and it would also be interesting to compare our features, since I am around the same age now. Here's the drawing in progress-- I am posting this to see what I might change in this drawing, because something is off and disrupting the similarity between drawing and photograph. I can't quite put my finger on it. Something about the scale of the eyes/nose to the overall facial shape? It looks like the whole face needs to be wider. Time to do some measuring. Maybe I'll begin anew.

Sargent no. 2

Sargent no. 2 is a portrait of  Gordon Greenough, another moustached man with googly eyes. This one was more difficult, partly because of the level of detail, but mostly because of the scale. The actual size of the drawing is 9 x 11, so it is not reproduced much smaller in the book. As we all know, or have been told by our professors, it is much easier to draw large, a fact which always seems counter-intuitive.  Beginning art students are told to draw big, once you can get the proportions correct at a large scale, you can draw anything smaller. I had trouble with the size of the head and the delicacy of the ear and jaw line, and once again, I made the wrong eye higher, which totally upsets the tilt of the head and the placement of all of the other features - that combined with making the left shoulder much too high makes him tilt. I also did not add the white of the inner bottom eyelid as I had already redone the right eye, with the effect of flatting the eye and making him seem to be wearing eyeliner - michael jackson eyes.  In my drawing, the edges are more a line, rather than a value shift, and I was not very careful with the hair. However, compared with Sargent's drawing, you can tell it is a portrait of the same man. I think this piece would also work better if I were using a darker paper, rather than a strathmore drawing pad. Off to the art store! I do need another kneaded eraser, stubs, paper, masking tape, and spray fix. I may sound overly negative in my writing about my piece, however, an artist knows that being able to spot the mistakes is the first step in correcting the drawing. If I were to continue on this piece, (rather than simply making it an exercise), I have already listed several things that I could do to make it better. Photographing and comparing the pieces also makes it much easier to spot the differences, another trick, like looking from a distance or in a mirror. In fact, let's try the mirror trick, only digitally: (much easier than holding it up to a mirror, and much more stable!)


 Ta da! In this image, we can clearly see how the raised shoulder is affecting the whole drawing. There also seems to be something questionable about the placement of the mouth: in fact, it is set straight on the face, rather than tilting to accommodate the tilt of the rest of the features. That might correct the distance between mouth and nose, although I might have to look into the angle and length of the nose as well.

Sargent no. 1

On being an artist...

I remembered how to draw today. I did it of my own accord! It's been so long since I have voluntarily drawn - or drawn for the fun of it (prints don't count right now, since it takes a different kind of thinking and a different eye), and I've been berating myself every day for ages, asking "How can I be an artist if I don't PRACTICE??" I think the last thing I drew was a dragon from Magic the Gathering. Seriously! I know that I need to practice, make it routine, but I spend so much time waiting for inspiration to strike, because if I try to draw in the wrong frame of mind I'll end up in tears -- and then won't want to draw again for months. Should it be this difficult? Is this the curse of the artist, or am I simply weak-willed? Others are so prolific, and I used to think of myself that way because once I begin a task I attack it single-mindedly until it is complete. But in recent years making art into something I "had" to do, and comparing myself to others, made the whole process quite disheartening.

This morning I went through and sorted all of the photos on my computer, nesting dolls of folders inside folders. That way I could really see and catalog what I've done in the past couple of years -- some were dated earlier than 2007. Then I watched some TV like I've been doing non-stop for the past year. But when the thunderstorm came, I was ready. I finally practiced. Took out my book of John Singer Sargent portraits and picked one to copy. He felt like just my style at the moment, since I haven't drawn anything in pencil in years, and I wasn't feeling the whole charcoal dust lung thing (also I didn't want to sleep in a bed covered with charcoal, since that was where I chose to draw). Here, my dear blogosphere,  is the result:

Not half bad! His style is very flowy and I like the sketchy shading. With an all-graphite 8B pencil, the lines come out as smooth as silk. I don't know how long it took me to complete, probably two hours maximum. Now, if I can keep this up every day, and then switch back to drawing from photographs and life, I'll be prepared -- and have something to show for it. This would easily translate into an etching, or perhaps, as I will find out this semester, a lithograph.
Here's the real drawing by Sargent, so you can see the differences. I think the head is tilted forward more, and the chin, eyes, ear, and nose are off. My strokes are darker as well. I'm not sure why there's a checkerboard pattern in the image, my scanner is doing something funny Already?!! It's brand new :(

A Walk Around the Orchard

 

I left my house and tumbled into the bright August day around one in the afternoon. To my right the stunted apple trees waft a chemical scent, the residue of the spraying that woke me early this morning. "Danger - Peligro - Pesticides Pesticidas - Keep Out!" warn signs along the road. The fruit is still tiny and bitter green. On the left, a tiger swallowtail butterfly enjoys the giant purple thistles that bloom along the edge of the road, under the shadow of the weeping willows.  I turn left onto Hurds road, and slightly uphill. The sun is warm. If I turn around, I can see the Mohonk Mountain house's tower atop the hazy blue mountain ridge.

I see crates of apples, more "No Trespassing" signs, and always the tiny apple trees. Short school buses and trucks buzz by me as I examine the houses up here. Most are large, prosperous facades. Down in the valley trailers hide around a stone-walled corner, laundry flapping in the breeze. I cross a dammed pond and come to the top of another hill. Back to a bit of civilization, here I find the intersection of Hurds Road and South St. If I hadn't just eaten lunch I'd stop here at the "Gunks Haus Restaurant." The patrons leaving as I walk by say, "Come back, the food's delicious!"

Lured by the blue mountains in the distance, I continued on, left down South St. More apple orchards are on both sides until I get to the bottom of the hill and enter a forest. Here I find a large dead cicada, one less voice in the myriad around me. I pass signs for "Crow Hill Road" and continue through another hilly meadow. I come to another intersection, and turn left onto Station Road.

I'm captivated by the purple wildflowers and yellow goldenrod here. A dog barks from his yard and I jump - I can't help looking back over my shoulder as he rambles toward me. A grayhaired man sitting in front of his house says, "He can't leave the yard, he's got one of those chips under the skin." Then he offers me a ride. I continue on, my heels beginning to hurt from my flat sandals. I told him I had a long walk, and it was true, but I wonder where exactly I will end up. There -- at the end of Station road I see familiar territory, and I'm on S. Ohioville again. I am exhausted now, plodding along in the heat.

Walking on the road is an interesting experience. I'm always amazed by how many people either stare or offer me a ride. I'm sure I stare when I see someone walking down a paved road too, but I wonder why? Is the sight of someone walking so strange? Is it because we are kind and hope to help our neighbors? Or because we're curious what event took place to make them walk -- a car breaking down, a ride not showing up, a family feud? I am sure that most people are well intentioned, and I might be grateful if I truly did need help. But for some reason it irritates me. They are reminding me:  I am out of place. This isn't a hiking path -- why are you walking here? I'm not jogging; I don't have ipod headphones stuffed into my ear; I'm not dressed in spandex or lycra. If I were some exercise freak or flabby mom, sweaty ponytail bouncing, I doubt anyone would ever ask if I needed a ride. But I would never "enjoy" the outdoors that way, plugged in and turned off, sneakers pounding the pavement.