Happy Solstice!

Hugette's flowers

Wow. here it is already the summer solstice and a new moon. I celebrated by opening my lovely house and terrace to a dance party for all the local art students. We had the hoola hoops going, music, of course dancing, good food, drink and company. I felt it was a good warming of my beautiful dance floor and although the temperature was a bit brisk, it was a clear night and lots of stars appeared as we are near to the dark moon.

I do love this time of year with the long days and sandal weather.

Here you see the grand willow tree some of you will be sure to recognize down by the river, a good place for quiet contemplation, lots of irridescent dragonflies, water lilies and a stone wall.

Already three months of the course with Ted Seth Jacobs have passed. We have one more week before the break. My Still Life of the pulcinella mask is for all practical purpose finished! I am working hard on understanding the concepts of light on form in the drawing portion of the day in the morning, working more with sepia and white chalk and find it very rewarding.Of course our model is very inspiring and unbelievably good as she must maintain the same pose for four weeks!

I thought it might be fun to make some observations about the day in the studio.

We arrive at ten a.m, the model is very punctual and is ready to start a twenty five minute set. Once we start, all that is heard is the scratch of the pencils on the paper, a pencil sharpener or graphite being sharpened on sandpaper (which sometimes sounds like a scalpal being sharpened) and an occasional sigh of frustration or a. Hmm... When one's stomach growls or the body makes some other decidedly embarrassing noises, everyone is aware of it, and a giggle or 'pardon me' may occur. After the first set there is a five minute pause where we usually say our good mornings because by then we are all settled in at our easels. Two more sets of 25 minutes of work, a five minute pause, then again concentration, intense quiet and the scratch, scratch of drawing tools on paper.We then have tea break of 20 minutes for a relaxing time of conversation, jokes, biscuits, a breath of fresh air or personal space, what ever one needs in any given day.

..Then three more sets before our lunch break.

At lunch break we all go our separate ways to eat, chill, sleep, exercise, what ever it takes to get back to the studio for the afternoon of painting. In this afternoon session, I worked on my Still Life and earlier in the course this was the time I was doing poster studies. It is a really exciting time for me because I am learning to paint and understand oils, each day something new. Some students who are more advanced are painting the live model but some are also just doing exercises with the understanding they are the foundation to a good painting just like a dancer does a barre and class every day. Poster studies, rounding studies and sketches are all preliminaries to mastering the art.

We get critiques daily, two days in the mornings and two days in the afternoons, but much of the time one is working on whatever bits and pieces Ted gives us to chew on as he passes from one to the other. Often I will stop and listen or observe the critiques that he gives to the other students where one can learn so much more. I try and remember that it is not about making a pretty drawing as much as it is a workshop and a learning space. I remember once being in class with Jurgen Schneider of ABT, he stopped the dancers and scolded us for trying to be beautiful. "Class is a work space", he said, "You are here to make mistakes. If you don't make mistakes how can you learn?" And so it goes.

Well I have been very wordy this time, so I will stop now and add some photos of the garden, my herb harvest and the yellow pansies for my mother, who has her yellow pansies in Reno Nv!

Happy Solstice and love from Argenton les Vallées FR

               It is fitting to create a new post on the last day of May, with a beautiful spring sunrise. 

The days are lengthening and the weather is finally changing. We had a lot of wind, rain and cold, the result was that the pink climbing roses, heavy with blossoms broke their retaining wire and fell. I hoisted them back up onto a strong nylon line and they rewarded me with fragrant prolific blooms. This is my little corner of the earth after all the rain, rich in color, wild purple bells climb the steps. I have herbs in the boxes and have planted two tomatoes, one called corazon and the other a cerise.

Here is a close up of the pink roses. Now as the wind picks up and days are getting warmer, the delicate fragrant petals have begun to fall and cover the walkway creating a light carpet. Will my compost be sweeter next year when I sweep them up? I visited the beautiful Rose garden in Doue la Fontaine  and of course in the gift shop there were many options of rose products to buy. It was a hot afternoon so I ordered a scoop of rose ice cream. yuk! Tasted like grandma's soap!

Up the river from me, I shot this little wild plot by the roadway. I don't know if someone intended a little fairy garden, but it is a tiny paradise of color. The poppies are brilliant in the morning sun.

Well down to the business of art and learning form and structure, which is why I am here after all. This was a four week pose that I did in sepia and white on a light blue paper. Magda's eyes are the clear blue of the paper and I enjoyed letting that be the only bit of the paper that showed through.
Here is the beginning of the painting of Pulcinella, second in a series of Commedia masks. This is a color wash, that is, done without medium like a water color which serves as the base. I have partially started form painting in the right corner of the draperies and a part of the bass recorder.  The photo shows the model in the background. The cup is the hand turned ceramic copy of an antique and the big white clay pot I found to be quite elegant.
I close today, the Sunday before Pentecost with this incredibly joyous  gem,  the perfection of Nature's design.The miracle of structure and form is that there are no two forms exactly alike, yet the blueprint exists and everything, as Ted says, has its own special shape.