Walkin Blues part 3

 Last night my new class supervisor confirmed that there was a plan in place for my August drawing class, something involving color and pencils (their choice, not mine).  Whether it will happen or not I don't know, as it's only a few weeks away, but it is on the website now, so we'll see.

I went up there today for two reasons.  Part was to confirm all this with the person in the office who actually handles the website, and partly to do some more drawing on my Robert Johnson block.  Dropped off my stuff in the Studio, took care of business in the office, then went back to my Studio.  Seemed like I should be listening to blues while working on this piece, so I brought the best blues disc I have, my edited last radio show at WIDB, which even has a Robert Johnson song on it, though the one that Tom had reserved for himself.  However, lots of good blues on there from many other artists, and some of it sounds like the kind of thing you'd hear in a room like the one seen in the image.  I couldn't find a write up of it on this blog, so here's the story.  Every station I was at had a cassette deck attached to the sound board.  Could be used to play a cassette tape, but I usually used it to record my own shows, one or two at each location.  Several years ago, at their request, I burned a two disc set of one of my WCWM shows, which was added to the Swem Library special collections.  My last ever show at my last school was also recorded.   Typical of the end of the semester, the equipment was in bad shape- the engineers all busy with final exams.  We had one turntable, one CD player, the cassette deck, a cart player, and a microphone.  No one showed up before my show, so I used the spare time to record the promotion I had made for my show, on a cart then, then used the cassette deck to record my last show.  I had to alternate between a record and a compact disc, which dictated what I would play.  I emphasized things I didn't own, since I wouldn't have access to that music again.  Despite these limitations, it was still a very good show.  If a record had a lot of skips in it, I would stop the tape and restart it afterwards.  As a result, I fit the whole thing on a 100 minute tape.  When I had a CD burner, I cut that 100 minute tape down to a 74 minute disc, and made a few copies.  I had one in the Studio, and not it's at home.

Today was not as hot as it had been, but still the room was kind of stuffy, so my session lasted as long as my 74 minute disc.  I spent that time making slight changes to 5 of the main figures, and added some silhouettes of four other figures to the deep background.  I envision these background figures will continue to be silhouettes, but I'm not sure if it will be these.  All are based on photos from that reference book I have, and all will be reversed in the printed version.  For now they hold a place, and maybe they will stay in the end.

Drawing Class #6

 

Well, it came- the last class of the current run of drawing classes I have at the JSAC.  I had sent a reminder to my long missing student on Thursday night, and got a reply from her on Friday night.  She was planning to be there.  Didn't say what she would be working on (I had told her she was welcome to bring anything related to the class, as it's been so long since she was there, I had no idea what she had bought), but it seemed like I would finally have two students again.  I had packed one big pad, featuring examples of all the processes worked on this six class cycle, and one prop.  That prop was my mannequin torso, which I store in a dedicated place in the shelving unit I built years ago in the basement to hold my art stuff.

As far as how I acquired the mannequin, that is a story.  Several years ago, back when I worked regularly at the community college, there was another adjunct I got along well with.   It's been long enough that I don't remember her name, but I do remember she had a heavy accent, and a shared office space.  A friend of hers was liquidating a failed clothing store, and she arranged for her to donate all the mannequins to our college- a wide variety that included full standing bodies, torsos with arms and heads, small children, and a few torsos like the one above  One day they all arrived in the office, packaged and marked for the department, except for one that was marked specifically for me.   I decided to take it home, which was probably a good idea, as all those others were gone within two years.  Maybe stolen by students, maybe by faculty (either is possible), but I had mine, and brought it to various classes as I need it.  It would work well for our final class.  

I arrived to find the gate closed, but not locked, and so the alarm was off.   (saved me that trouble)  I brought in all my stuff in two trips, set up my classroom, made sure the air conditioner was on (we are in the middle of a terrible heat wave right now) and readied myself for the day.  My most regular student (who had been to all 5 previous meetings) usually showed up early, but as the start time approached no sign of her.  but my long missing student did come, so at least I wasn't all by myself. I had been informing her of what we were working on all along, and she had bought various materials, and wanted to try them out.  Starting with ink wash.  Not the plan for today, but why not?  I showed her some student examples of ink wash drawings, both first and second day projects, gave her a brief lesson on how the medium worked, and let her start.  She chose not to pencil it first, but just to draw with a very light wash and a thin brush.  

Essentially a line drawing, but done with ink wash, that would become part of the final drawing.   She had never worked with the material before, but was very pleased with the results.  As she should be, since it was a pretty good drawing of the mannequin and the simple shadows over its surface.  But she also wanted to try (and get instructions) for using the chalk pastels  (what she found that seemed to be most like the conte crayon sticks I had asked for, including colors that could be the black and sanguine I requested), but I didn't know exactly what texture would result.  So I showed her student examples of that project, first the true chiaroscuro drawing a student left behind, using green paper, and some kind of black and white medium, then the version I had my students do, using white drawing paper, and sanguine and black crayons.  Once again she was impressed and ready to try it herself.  (she also mentioned really liking the pad of drawing paper I had them buy, how it worked for all the different media we did, but that's why I have them get it)  I advised starting with the sanguine, shading from dark to light as needed, then carefully adding black as needed to create shadows.  Having the student examples to show certainly helped. 

She really liked the sanguine color and how it could be blended on the paper (I showed her how paper towels could help), so she was hesitant to use any black with it, for fear of ruining her reddish-brown drawing.  Then she decided to start a third drawing, using ink wash, and her sanguine, black, and white sticks.  I didn't bother to take a photo of this last one, as it goes beyond anything we planned for the class.  But overall it was pretty good.  Drawing the same subject 3 times probably didn't hurt her rendering skills on these mannequin drawings either.  I had promised in my reminder that if she came back to class, the subject would be something we hadn't done before, and that she would learn some things.  I was right on both counts, so she was happy, except for having missed so many meetings to that point.  I advised her that she should tell the office what kind of schedule she wants to keep (around work and all that) and there would be more classes in the future.  

And that was the two hours.  I packed up my stuff, and though I heard footsteps, I saw no one on the first floor, and there appeared to be no one in the office, so I locked up my classroom, turned off the first floor lights I had put on, left the alarm off (there were some tags hanging), relocked the front door, and headed home in the heat. Back there I found an email from today's missing student, saying an accident at home prevented her from coming and apologizing for missing our last class.  She seemed excited to try the planned process, so it was probably worse for her than me.  However, she saw examples last week, and I explained it all to her, so she should know what to do.

Walkin Blues part 2

Been a while since I devoted a whole posting to this project, but it's what I'm working on these days, so it deserves it.  The prints are due early next year, so I have to get going on them.  Plus, I have a camera now, and can document what I am doing. I only wish I had something better to show.  The idea is to illustrate some Robert Johnson songs, send the images to Tom, and let him decide what will be used for this project.  He had said he wants me to make a piece that will be part of a diptych with a piece he is doing, so I figure it's only fair he should have a say in which one he takes, and my plan is to do at least 3 of them as of now. 

Finding some Robert Johnson songs was not difficult- I found most of what I remembered on YouTube, and was able to choose some lyrics that I felt I could work with.  I wrote them all down, along with some ideas I had for images to illustrate them.  In some ways, the process is no different from working on all those saints, and Ecclesiastes prints, where I only had text as a starting point, and came up with the visuals on my own.  

I decided to start with "Walkin Blues", just because the visual idea seemed the most advanced.  First I did some sketches in a sketchbook, and liked what I saw enough to start working on the wood.  Started drawing on a piece of wood the proper size with pencil back in late April, during the open studio event that was held in my building.  I have worked on it now and then ever since, descriptions of which can be found throughout this blog, but I think this is only the second posting dedicated to this piece specifically. 

The actual lyric is kind of vague, no specific definition that I can find on the web, so all I can do is provided an illustration that makes sense to me, my interpretation of the words, but like I said, this is not a whole lot different from those earlier projects, where I was creating interpretations of other people's words, so I figure I can handle this. The main difference I see right now is that those earlier series were color, while this one is to be black and white, per Tom's instructions.  I've done plenty of black and white work, so that is not a problem. 

None of what you see above is final, but it will give you an idea where I am headed.  The focus is on the woman walking in, who is getting all the attention of those in the place, positive from the men, and negative from the women.  All of this is coming out of my head, so it's a little bit of a challenge, drawing all these figures. Believe it or not, everything has improved considerably since I started it, but I am not at all satisfied with it yet.  But I think the idea is good, so it's just a matter of time before I get it to where I want it.  And having more black in the piece will help a lot as well, but no point in filling those in until I am satisfied with the drawing.  But this is where I'm at right now with the first one.  

Drawing Class #5

 

Today was the fifth meeting of my current drawing class at JSAC.  This is an advanced drawing class, so we were doing conte crayon.  As usual, only one student showed, my most regular one, and she was very excited to get started and try this material.  First we looked at her attempt at a portrait, a copy of a famous Vermeer painting.  At her request, I noted which areas of her drawing were not quite matching the source she was using for the face.  To be fair, I've actually seen this painting in person, as it was part of the famous Washington DC show I saw in the early 90's.  And copying Vermeer is very difficult.  After seeing that show, I was glad I had switched to printmaking.  

We got started.  I planned for two drawings, so kept the number of items in my still life small, a few items from the basement.   First I had her do a black drawing, since the rules are a lot like charcoal, which we did in both classes.  Then a new set up and we did sanguine.  She didn't have crayons, but pencils made by the same company, so I assume the same pigment.  (couldn't find anything on the web saying one way or the other)  My student really liked the color and medium, which I pointed out was the same color as the crayon used by one of my community college students for their drawing class, many years ago.  Had examples of those to show, as I have never used the stuff myself.

So two drawings done, and time to go.  My student remarked that I was very good at spotting parts and shapes of objects and how they compared to her drawings of the same objects.  Maybe so, or maybe it's just the years of experience as a teacher, where this was a regular part of my life.  Next week we combine the two colors of crayons together, mirroring a common exercise/project I used to do with my college students in various drawing classes I taught.  (a substitute for traditional chiaroscuro drawing, with the white of paper as part of the process)  

What happens next is unknown.  I sent a proposal for a color drawing class to the person in charge, as she asked.  Haven't gotten a response yet, but she's not there that often.

Success! part 2

 Part 2 of my camera test was to take images of prints in my Studio.  After all, most of the photos I take are there, so it's important to see if this camera does well in the light that is available there.  So I attached to my portable (brought back from Carbondale) tack board a few old prints in my drying rack, and took these photos.

Apparently, it does.  Actually these photos are much larger file sizes than I would normally use for this. I thought I changed the picture size to a smaller setting yesterday.  I don't know if I did it wrong, or if it automatically reset to the default size.  I reset Small this afternoon, and I'll see where it is next time.  Meanwhile, here are two photos of prints from a few years ago, but there's nothing wrong with seeing them again.  The light seems to be fine.  

The biggest problem right now is titling them.   I know how to, but there is a pop up on this computer that shows up every 10 seconds or so, and I have not been able to eliminate it, despite trying all the options they give me.  I can delete the arbitrary name given to the files, but it doesn't leave me time to type in the new one, and it resets everything I do.  But here they are.  Third test will be posting something that has been downloaded to the new computer, then uploaded to the internet.  That will probably happen tomorrow.

As long as I was up there, I spoke to Jeanne about the next round of classes, which would be after the current one ends, so sometime in August.  For now we settled on a Tuesday afternoon thing, 4 weeks, calling it a beginner to intermediate class using color pencils.  I'll send her a proposal in the next few days, and if she likes it, that is what we will go with.  Whether or not anyone signs up is another matter.

Success!

 

The first part of my camera experiments were successful.  I decided to take photos of a piece I had at home, my most recently finished piece, a black and white woodcut called Fever Dream, an image that mixes dreams I had recently and images related to my stays in the hospital.  It was the also the first thing I did after the hospital, so it holds an important place in my artistic history. It occurred to me that in the past my old computer did just fine with reading the SD card directly, which I had to do when I stopped using the connecting cord that I used years ago to move photographs from my camera to my computer.  (I don't remember if this was because I had to change operating systems, and the new one didn't accept my Canon software, originally downloaded from a CD, which is now in storage, but even if I wanted to try it, my new computer doesn't even have a disc drive.) In later years I know had just inserted the SD card from my camera directly into a slot on my computer, and it could read it, so I hoped it would work with this new Canon camera.  

And it did.

Once I loaded today's photos, taken on the front steps, I was able to remember how to edit them, and then how to transfer them to my desktop.  From there, I can import them to my blog, or emails.  So for all those wondering what this piece looked like, and unwilling or unable to drive to Ocean Grove to see it when it hung there, now you know what it looks like.  I'll probably post it later today to the finished posting for this blog, for anyone who finds their way there.

The next step is try out some photos in my Studio space, and see how it reacts to the light there.  My old camera worked fine there for taking photos of finished work and work in progress, so I expect the same here.  I'll experiment tomorrow on a few pieces I have there.  Even bigger will be seeing how I do with downloading and saving images to my new computer, as I expect that someday this old thing will stop working completely.  But that's a problem for another day.  

Almost Time

 Got a couple of things going on, and I'm a day or two away from finding out more.  

One thing I got as an email was a message from Jeanne, who works at the JSAC, recently bought a couple of boardwalk prints, and is in charge of the third round of classes there, thus my boss, if my next drawing class happens.  A few days ago I sent her a detailed email requesting more information about the next class (we talked about it a little in person last week) so I can make an official proposal and send it to her.  I assume this would at least get started before the summer ends (at least that was Nichole's plan for such a thing).  The email I got today said that she would be there in the office for a few hours on Wednesday, and suggested that I come in that day to discuss the details with her.  

That works out, as I plan to be up there on Wednesday.  A package came in the mail the other day, my new digital camera, something I've been waiting to get since I got out of the hospital for good and started working on new art.  After all, I can't post any images here of new work in progress, or work finished, until I have access to a digital camera.   Tried using my cell phone camera, but so far it is not letting me transfer images from the phone to the internet, and they don't seem to want to tell me how to solve the problem there at the store where I got it.  Plus, I'm an old fashioned guy-I like to make phone calls with my phone, and I like taking pictures with a camera.  My mother claimed she brought the old camera to her house, but I haven't found it here, so I assume it is in storage, which means I'm unlikely to see it until I move out.  And then it will have been a year or two since it was used, and itself more than a decade old.  I think I got it shortly after I started working at my university.

I unpacked all the parts, and started reading the instruction book over the weekend.  Today I charged up the battery pack (no using standard AA batteries any more, for good or bad), inserted the memory card, and did more reading.  Tomorrow I'll try shooting some art around the house, using daylight, and then on Wednesday I'll try shooting things under the Studio lights as I did for more than a decade.   Back home I'll see if I can get them to my computer. 

The new camera is a Canon, same make as my old one, so I hope my old computer works with it as well as it did the previous camera.  With luck, the procedures are much the same.  However, I will also try to download photos to my new computer, as eventually that is what I will be using for everything.  I'm hoping I can figure all this out myself, but if I need to, I'll call my expert friend and see if she knows what to do.  She may also know about some of these things that came with the camera, devices I've never used before, but could be part of what I need.  New things not part of the process back when I bought my old camera around the turn of the century.

So if you see any new photos here this week, you know I was successful, and I'll be able to go back to sharing with everyone what I am up to.

Another Drawing Class

 One thing I learned as a professor was that I could not count on great attendance following a holiday.  Give students a day off from a scheduled class, whether it be for a federal holiday, scheduled college break, or a snow day, and the next time we met, there would always be fewer students.  Don't know if there was a real reason, but I always assumed that it was because students were off from class for a day, and forgot they had one.  We were off from drawing last week, so I was expecting less than a full class today, despite me sending a reminder last week, and no one telling me they weren't coming.  With only one student, I was just hoping one would show up.

Today we were continuing ink wash, and in my second classes with this material, the subject is typically a leafy plant, which I would hang in a simple wooden tripod, in its hanging basket.  Above is a student drawing of this set up from a long ago college drawing class.  Room at regular full lighting, as this is not about light and shadow as the first try at this medium is, and the local colors of the set up provide lots of value range for the ink wash.  However, I do have a very leafy plant in a white pot, and can seat that on my wooden desk chair, which has a value range of its own.  And I keep that chair in my Studio, so it's handy to my class.

Got the room and my still life all set up about a half hour before the class was scheduled to begin.  I had my best attending student show up early, mostly to get my advice and evaluation of her attempt to use previous advice for portrait drawing, but eventually she picked a spot, and started drawing the still life.  She was a little intimidated by the large number and crowding of leaves, so I just told her to start with one, draw it well, then move on to the next, and before long the whole thing would be done.  (it's how I work such things) It took her a little over an hour, but she had a very good pencil rendering of the set up done.  After a short break, she put down some value, as there was a lot there to work with.  I suggested just 4 levels, based on the time left.  She also took a lot of photos of the set up, with plans to do more work on it later.  I thought that she had done a good job with the drawing, though she wasn't as crazy about her values so far.  Looks very organic to me, which is a good thing. 

As I expected, my other student didn't show, and I wasn't surprised that I had an email from her apologizing for missing the class, and saying something about forgetting today was Saturday until it was too late.  I'll write her back tomorrow with the specifics of the class in case she wants to try the process on her own, as well as materials for next week, in case she shows up.

Goodbye and Hello

 

Today I went up to Ocean Grove, but not to make artwork.  There was a farewell party for Nichole, the executive director at the Jersey Shore Arts Center for the past several years.  I had signed the card for her last week (a framed photo of her in a chicken suit, which I was told she would love). but today was the official event.  We hoped she would show up, but she was told about it to make sure she would.  Maybe about a dozen people there, most of whom I did not know (people don't come down to the basement often), but there was cake and other desserts, and at least I was able to talk to a few people.  

One person I did have a chat with was her replacement.  Elyse didn't know if we had met yet, but I knew we had, introduced in the office before she ran off to get some coffee and I never saw her again.  But this time she wanted to talk to me, and see some of my artwork.  The latter I could do, as I always have some things in the Studio.  So after cake, we went down to the basement, and to my space.   The first thing she noticed was how humid the basement is.   Actually today it wasn't bad at all, but will probably be a problem soon.  She wondered about air conditioners and dehumidifiers.  Well, we don't have either in our studio, though there is a dehumidifier in another part of the basement, which does make a difference.  She was impressed with my artwork, especially the colored boardwalk print, which I had in two copies there in my space- the framed one I was copying color from, and one of the copies I made last month.  I had a few other color pieces as well, which resulted in her commenting that I showed very good knowledge of color (a surprise to my supervisor at grad school, who felt that any school that would hire me to teach color would be in big trouble) but I showed her some black and white pieces as well.  She was also impressed with my print of a narwhal, which I had done as a wall hanging sculpture for my niece, but I pulled a few proofs before I gave her the block.  Elyse had never heard of such a thing, and assumed I had made it up.  She also remarked how the humidity must be bad for paper, a big part of my materials. I looks like she's going to be on our side about that.

Though her new office is also in the basement, she has not been down there much, so I gave her a tour of the place, showing the active studio spaces, the old cafeteria space (which has a dehumidifier), and its connection to the the theater and how it gets used (no theater productions right now, but that may change in the future), and how the painted markings on the floor can provide guidance if she gets lost.  I then showed her how to find her office, and left her there.  I stopped back in my studio to put away the prints we had looked at, then locked up.  On the way to the elevator, I passed Nichole, using a cart to push the remains of her cake, which led me to believe things had ended up there. When I did get up there, I saw that it was dark and decided to get out of there and head home.