Robert Johnson Project

 

I had business at the JSAC today, so I decided I would also work on some art while I was there.   I took care of business first, stopping by the office, once I had dropped stuff off in the Studio.  After that, I had another reason to visit the office- I had seen some Molly product (towels) and know she had been there.  Elyse had asked me if I've seen her lately last time I was there (I hadn't, not unusual), so now I had a better reason to stop by.  Told the director that Molly had been in the space since the last time I was there, but where she was right then I had no idea.  She's looking for Molly about possibly doing another bag (silkscreen on canvas) for this year's Trunk or Treat function.  Molly's bag last year looked really cool, so she'd like another one.  If Molly is making product, it seems like she'd be open to making bags as well- a job is a job.  Meanwhile Kaitlyn had come back from a trip to the building's attic, which she found kind of creepy.  I've never been. Kaitlyn offered to take her, but not before first putting on a pair of latex gloves.  Since I wasn't invited, I left them to their exploration, and headed for my space.

I had brought a few discs with me, and prepared to put one on, the one I made from my last college radio show, which seemed a good thing to listen to while working on some Robert Johnson inspired prints.  However, the disc didn't want to play.   Couldn't find the beginning, and eventually it came to a stop, the machine claiming no disc.  Figure out what happened later, and go on to disc 2.  I had also brought with me my home burned Homicide soundtrack, and to paraphrase from House of the Dragon, it's an album that should have been, but since one was never issued, I made it myself from things I had on my shelves anyway.  (Full story back on this blog in February, 2020.)  It did include some blues, so why not?

Today's task applied to all three blocks drawn so far- fixing the lettering.  In my conversation with Tom earlier this year, he mentioned that Hatch Show Press would be involved, a Nashville print studio that is famous for letter press, and they turn out lots of posters.  The plan here is that our prints will be turned into relief plates, and (I assume) combined with their type to make the prints that will be shown.  However, a lot may have happened since then, and I don't know even if I am still part of the show, so I am planning my own text carved into the block.  What I will send Tom is computer photos of the three prints (without text) and he can decide what he wants.  If he wants the text, or if I want to show them myself, I'll print the lyrics as well.   I included lined sections for words under each print and roughed in words (backwards of course), but I want to start cutting soon, so I need proper lettering, stuff designed to fit the half inch high lines.  So today I did that, redrawing all the lettering, including punctuation, so that it was all the proper height, and checking the spelling while I was at it.   The above photo shows what they look like now.

About ready to cut, which will take a while.  I probably should order some more ink soon.  I will definitely need it to pull the proofs I need for the next step.  I have the paper.  But cutting will take time, so I'm on schedule for now.  My disc ended, and out of curiosity, I tried the first one again.  Machine found the start this time, and when I pressed play, the first track played.  Go figure.  I would have liked to listen to that blues show, but lunch was at home, so I went there.

Drawing Class again

 

Back to the basics, as in basic drawing.  My fourth class this year at the Jersey Shore Art Center, which is the basic drawing class again.  I wasn't sure if this class was even going to happen, as for a long time I had no students, then just one.  Jeanne agreed with me that it wasn't enough of a class to run it with only one person.  We had set a deadline of Friday, but still just one student.  We decided to wait and see what we had on Monday.  A few days ago we got a second student, but I wasn't sure, as it was someone who had taken the same class earlier this year.  Not that I haven't had people take the same class over, just to get the experience and knowledge again, but I hoped she realized it was the same class, and sent Jeanne an  email regarding my concern.  Her response was that the student probably knew what she was doing, and we should assume she wanted it again.  This morning we got a third student, so it was all moot, except for some more money for me and the building.  

The first day of class is always shoes.  I've probably said this before, but I like shoes as an opening drawing exercise as they are a very common art student starting point, but also very effective.  They are organic (designed to fit on a foot), so if you can learn to draw a shoe, you can learn to draw a foot, and if you can learn to draw a foot, you can probably draw any body part, and if you can draw a human body, you can draw anything.  That's why I skipped Drawing I in college and just went to open model sessions, and learned to draw that way.  It worked.

So not much to get ready today.  Had a small bag of shoes from the last time I taught basic drawing (several, more than enough for 3 students) and I brought a good example of a student drawing of a shoe using cross contour lines- sometimes it is easier to show than to explain.  That and my regular supply of stuff was all I needed. Got there a little more than an hour early, so just dropped off my stuff.  Lots of watercolor stuff in the room (Jeanne had a class this morning), including an opaque camera and a large monitor screen, I guess so she could show close-ups of what she was doing. I found her downstairs in a meeting, so I just let her know I was there, and to come collect it when she was ready.  The door was already unlocked (not sure why) so I just waited in my room.  She came up later and collected and put away all her stuff, well ahead of my students arriving.

I've taught this exercise (exterior contours, cross contours, blind contours, best line drawing) many times before, so no surprises there.  I don't know if they liked it, but at least one student mentioned that she learned about looking, which is what much of drawing is about. 

We were there for about two hours, as planned.  Besides all the shoe stuff, I explained the differences in pencil hardness as labeled, explained erasers, and described drawing boards to everyone.  (it was on my list of supplies as optional).  A few asked about hair spray as fixative, so I explained how that works, and that I used to use it for that purpose myself, as they didn't sell fixative in the bookstore at my school. 

I also talked about next week, to bring paper, pencils, and erasers, and that we will use the same for weeks 4 and 5.  Charcoal the other days, along with the appropriate eraser.  Everyone was ready to leave on time, so they did, I cleaned up, stopped down in the basement for a few things, then went home myself.

32-20 Blues part 3

 I had my block at home the past few days, and we did get a little bit of rain, though not enough that it would have kept me from getting up to the Studio if I needed to go, but because the block was home, I didn't need to.  Did some drawing, though, and used my bedroom to help out with it.  My preference would have been to draw a real figure in a real bed, to get all the shadows, furniture, and fabrics exactly right, but I didn't have the items available for this, so no point in trying to find a model.  Luckily I have a lot of things around the house and I'm artistically trained, so I got it done.  

The bedroom is similar to some I have drawn in the past, and the simple iron bed frame is the same one I remember using for a Dubliners print years ago.  The cracks in the plaster walls come from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, Little Red Riding Rabbit, if I remember correctly, one of the plaster walls in Grandma's house, frequented by Red, Bugs, and the Wolf in this wonderful bit of war time animation.  I used my actual bedroom as a substitute for the one in the image, so it's my sheet and blanket that are visible.  For the figure I used two things- a mannequin torso I keep in the basement as a drawing prop, and a pillow as the body under the covers, and more of my pillows behind the mannequin's back. My image has the light come from a window, but the window in my room is behind the bed, and didn't cast light where I needed it, so I used a small table lamp as my source, which would be about where the flask of bourbon and glasses are in the block drawing.  The one thing I had no substitute for was the head of the woman, so that stayed the same, and I made the hair solid, instead of all the individual drawn locks.  Looks just as messy in the end, but a simpler dark shape.  I used the light from the lamp to create the shadows on the bedding and figure, and made up those on the face.  

Later I sat down with it at a table, and refined the shapes and made it a little more logical.  Added more shadows around the room.  This image may be about done, but I'll sit on it a few days before making a decision.

Meanwhile, there was a lot going on at home this morning.  But that was all done, and I needed to move my car anyway, so I did it as part of a trip to the Studio.  First a bit of business at the office, where I checked in with Jeanne and the status of my drawing class.  I had seen nothing about further sign ups, and heard nothing from my boss, so it was all still a mystery, and I had no idea if she would even be there.  But I had to move my car.  And it turned out, Jeanne was there when I got there around 1:30 pm. She confirmed that no one had signed up yet, and we both agreed that one was just not enough.  However, I do know that my mother saw a reference to the class on the internet, so maybe something will happen.  We decided to wait until Monday.  If no one has signed up by then, we cancel the class, and try again in the future.

No need to do much artwork, as I had done it at home, but it is easier to photograph things there, so I took the above photo showing the update of the image.  And then I roughed in the lyrics on all three blocks, just to make sure there was room. 

For those who may be wondering, what the title means, it fits more or less with the other lyrics, which are mostly about the narrator's desire to shoot everyone.  A 32-20 refers to a particular cartridge from Winchester that could fit a number of rifles and pistols, inexpensive, and relatively small, suitable mostly for small game and varmints.  This seems odd, as elsewhere in the song he complains that a 38 special is too light a weapon, though it is a larger caliber than the gun he takes pride in.  He also sings about a gatling gun, which could do a whole lot more damage.

32-20 Blues part 2

 

Another nice day today, so after a visit to a lab for some required blood work, and breakfast at home, I took a ride up to the Studio.  It was about noon when I got there, and assumed all the office people were at lunch, so I got to work on the latest block.  I knew from photos that there were a few things I wanted to address immediately, then I would find more. Toward that end, I had done some sketches on paper since last time.  For example, I knew that I was not happy with the whiskey bottle and glasses.  I knew because I have drawn these kind of things before.  A few years ago I had drawn and later cut and printed bottles on the beach for Amy Kucharik's "99 Bottles" video (up on YouTube if you want to see it), but I didn't like the angles of those drawn bottles.  I went back further to my Fourth of July set of prints, having remembered a time where I took my favorite drinking glass (from glassblowing class) to Armen's studio to partake in a bottle of bourbon he was keeping there, and later made a print of it for the day's image.  Found it on the blog devoted to this set (February 17, 1994 if you want to see it) and liked that set up, so did a sketch.   Then hair.  I remembered a home made video of a song from Morphine that showed a model with some wild hair, so I did a quick sketch of that. Had that sketchbook with me today. 

I had brought one home burned CD with me today, a more recent album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Dig, Lazarus, Dig), the story of which I told back in August of 2019.  Like the other Nick Cave album, not blues, but subject matters fitting the drawing in progress.  When that ended, I grabbed one of Molly's discs. which is weird as normally she just listens to radio, but recently she brought in half a dozen discs to listen to, including one from the Pixies, Doolittle, which I wrote about back in October, 2019, as I had home burned copies of a lot of Pixies in the Studio in the past.  That particular disc includes the album (which is the last new release on vinyl I brought at a mall record store, all that gone soon in the time after that), along with some rare vinyl Pixies I had, but my studio copy looks like it had been chewed up (I certainly didn't do it) and plays hit or miss now, so I had no guilt about listening to her copy.  Part of why I wanted to listen to this album was a song about how two members of the band had a miserable time in Puerto Rico as college students, something I have been reminded of with news of how the hurricane has affected that island.

Anyway, as the music played, I drew. First I erased and redrew that bottle and glasses.  I copied my sketch of my earlier print, so this was a flask style bottle.  I put the new hair on the figure in bed.  Not really happy with this yet, so I'll probably go back and do that again.  I made some other slight adjustments to the figure, redrew the furniture and parts of the room (no real changes, just better), for now added some shadows, bringing it a little closer to the value balance I expect in the final piece.  Also added lines to put in the text from the songs, as the other blocks have.  My plan is to cut it all, including the song lyrics, though I will also pull proofs without the text to send to Tom, as I believe this will be added by letterpress in the final printings of the works.  

I decided to bring the block home with me, as we are expecting some rough weather in the near future, and I may not get up there again for a little while.

Before leaving, I stopped back at the office, and Jeanne was there.   We decided to set a deadline of Friday for deciding the fate of my next drawing class, now sitting on one student.  She promised to send out another reminder (which she has done) via email, so we can hope a few more sign up by then.  I reminded her that I still haven't been paid for the third class, and it would be good to get that before the fourth class begins, if it does. 

32-20 Blues part 1

 

Time for the third block to be started.  Originally I was going to wait until next week, but it was a nice day and there was no good reason to wait to start it.  The idea was sketched months ago, so it was just a matter of starting to draw it on the block.  The wood was ready.  I had no need to see anyone in the office today, or to stop at the store, so I just drove straight to Ocean Grove and went to my Studio.  One thing I noticed upon arrival was that some framed tent supports had been put up along side the railings of the main parking lot, I assumed for the big race tomorrow.  It's a good reason to stay away from this place for the next few days.  Inside the dark main hallway I could see tables were out, no doubt also for the race event.  I just went for the elevator and my trip to the basement.

I had my rock/pop set of discs with me today from last time, so that would do.  I had been in a mood to hear the debut self titled album from The Coral (a song had been running through my head lately, which turned out to be the unlabeled bonus track at the end of the album) and you can read about this on this blog back in June, 2020.  When that disc ended, I went with a home burned copy of Henry's Dream by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.  Not a blues album per se, but the subjects of the songs did fit well with the subjects of the Robert Johnson song I was starting today- violence, sex, alcohol, lowlife behavior, etc. You can read about this album back in August, 2019, the one I had longer which included the St Christina song.

The song "32-20 Blues" is one of the more violent of the recorded Robert Johnson songs, with multiple references to shooting a woman for disobeying his desires.  Or shooting men- he just wants to shoot everyone with a variety of guns.  The lyric I went with is, "Babe, where'd you stay last night?  You got your hair all tangled and you ain't talking' right."  (actually one of least violent lines in the song) For the image I went with a woman waking up in a bed, half sitting up against pillows, with sheet and blanket covering her mostly, some kind of clothing covering the rest of her (not knowing where these images might be shown, I'm avoiding nudity in them), somewhat disheveled hair, and a bottle and glasses sitting on the bedside table.  As I wrote earlier, the basic sketch was worked out on paper a while ago, so it was just a matter of copying what I had.  I decided I liked the angle of the original drawing, so I used a mirror to copy the reversal of the image to the block.  One thing I changed was moving the bottle and glasses to the other side of the figure, from her left to her right (on the block), just because it made more sense visually.  The bottle is meant to look like a whiskey bottle, the favored drink of blues men, and a thing that often leads to bad behavior for everyone.  The image above shows the drawing as it looks now.

Of course, when I formed the idea, I immediately thought of other cases where I saw something similar, and made sure I didn't copy those scenes directly.  For example, in the film "Raiders of the Lost Ark", there's a scene where Marion wakes up in bed on the ship carrying the Ark from Egypt to a non-Nazi controlled part of the world, but Indiana Jones (who we all assume was in bed with her) is already up and dressed, noticing the ship's engines have stopped and fearing the worst.  She is more under the covers than my subject, no alcohol is present, and the angle and distance at which she is seen is different.  She also looks a lot happier than the woman in mine.  Also coming to mind was an 1895 painting from Edvard Munch called "The Day After" which shows a woman laying back in bed, mostly a side view, blouse unbuttoned but still on, looking somewhat unconscious (arm and hair hanging off the side of the bed), with bottles and empty glasses in the foreground. I used to show the slide to my college students when talking about narrative, and asked them to say what happened.  They always came up with the same answer.   I didn't ask how many had experienced a story like that- it would have been rude and had nothing to do with narrative in paintings.  In my version, the woman is sitting up and awake, a 3/4 view, and more dressed.  

As for my piece, the subject is the only figure in view.  As to where she woke up, how she got there, and what happened while she was there, I'll leave that to the viewer's imagination.  A lot more work to go on this one, but this is where I am starting from.

Love in Vain part 4

 

This block is not quite done yet, so I decided to go in for a few hours this morning and see what I could do.  After dropping off a few things in my Studio, I went to the office to ask a variety of questions, and since everyone was there today, got a lot of answers.  

I wasn't sure if the reason I hadn't gotten any notice of any students yet was that no one had signed up for the class, or if the system just wasn't sending me notices. I spoke to Jeanne, my boss for those classes, and she told me that so far no one had signed up.  Not much I can do about that.  I still have a few weeks to go, and they will be doing a push to get more students, and it's been on the website for a while, so we have done the usual things.  If I get no one I won't be too sad, as I have had three classes already this summer, but it would be good for everyone if it happens.

Next I spoke to Elyse, the new program director.  I asked her about garbage (it would be preferred if we took it to the dumpster, instead of just leaving it in the hall, or in the loading area by the ramp).  She showed me the file where she will be keeping my stories of the building, answered my questions about locking the front door (came in an email this week from two different people), responded to my question about the lack of paper towels in the mens room in the basement, and gave me a review of the hot dogs at the Windmill across the street, a plan she had to eat there last week. Meanwhile, Kaitlyn was busy organizing silk screen stuff from a studio that was about to be used, possibly left behind by Nichole.  I was given a roll of paper towels to install in the basement mens room (we are out of the usual C-fold towels we usually stack by the sink), and I went to my Studio.

I had brought with me one of discs my friend Doug made me about a year ago, a compilation called "Mod Jazz" that he liked a lot.  I have no idea what mod jazz is, but it did go well with the images I was working on.  Seemed more like r&b to me, but I like that as well. I wrote about it back in December of 2021.  I looked it up on the web, and found most of the artists were vintage and legitimate.  While that was playing, I tied up the trash bag in the can, and put a new one in the can, leaving the tied bag next to the can for later.  

Not much to do with the existing block.  I did put in some lines where I thought they might belong, and added more shadows to both figures where I thought they might belong, but I have nothing to work from, so it's all just a guess.  A few details on the train and its parts.   After that, I decided it was as done as I could make it for now, and left it there.   I'll start block #3 next week.  The disc ended, so I installed my replacement roll of towels, took out the trash to the dumpster, and drove home to lunch.

Love in Vain part 3

 

The rain has stopped, so I decided to take a trip to the Studio and do more work on my latest block.  Still in the drawing phase, but that has to be done first.  I had brought with me my jazz/blues book/album, sitting right out on my back table.   I dropped off a few things in my space, and was hoping to talk to Elyse about some building stuff, but there was a meeting going on.  I was told they would stop by after.  So I went to work.  The drawing is in progress, and is based on a sketch done months ago, so the idea is all settled.  What I'm working on now is details, and making decisions about details.

I decided to go with a theme of Miles Davis for music today.  I had two home burned albums of his from the 50's, his most influential years. Birth of the Cool was released in 1957 by Capitol, though recorded in bits and pieces over the whole decade before.  Released the same year was my second disc of the day, Round About Midnight, also released in 1957, but just recorded that year, and on Columbia.  I had written about that one back in August, 2019 on this blog, but not the former.  Both are excellent jazz albums, almost all instrumental, with Davis leading the band with his trumpet.  Playing trumpet, he was parts of bands with so many of the saxophone players over the years, and I tend to favor a lot of the sax players in my jazz collection, which includes Charlier Parker, John Coltrane, and Dexter Gordon, but I do like Davis enough to have 3 discs in my portable set.  

As for drawing, much of what I planned to get down  was already done, but there are lots of things to fix.  Some of these I did at home in recent days, the block having come home with me for the holiday weekend, but some got done today.  Since last time, I had made a few changes to the train car, based on photos found on the web, such as undercarriage details, the platform at the car's end, the windows, and a lot with values, all of which combines bits from various photos of different passenger cars from different years, so what I have is probably not accurate to a specific car.  However, I don't think that matters, and anyway, the perspective is fine, and everything has roots in the Illinois Central.   I also spent some time fixing up the two main figures, but I don't think they are ready yet, specifically the shadows on them.  (cast shadows are done, based on myself and a bare bulb fixture in the basement, the kind that requires a pull chain to be pulled to turn on and off)  On another day I will work on that.  There is nothing to copy from, so all this is out of my head.  Details can be seen at the top of this post.

An hour and a half, and two albums later, no one had shown up yet, so I took off and headed home to get some lunch.  My questions and information about the building will have to wait.

Love In Vain part 2

 

I missed going to the Studio yesterday, so I decided to go up there today.  Nice weather to be out- sunny but not too hot and no humidity.  Things were tolerable in our basement space.  I had brought one of my home burned discs with me, a collection of Billy Childish songs, compiled from who knows how many albums.  I wrote about it back in December of 2019 if you want to know more about it.

In preparation for going, I pulled up another photo of the passenger car from Google Images.  A|though the search said it was for an Illinois Central car, and the caption said that it was, the designation on the car was something different.  Still, it looked like the one I had sketched in terms of design, so I decided it would do as a reference.  Made a quick pencil sketch of it.   Then I waited around for my parents to return and actually come inside, but eventually one did, and I left.  Saw a lot of traffic and some accidents, but these didn't have too much effect on me. Got up there around quarter after 12, later than I wanted, but enough time to get some work done.  

Put on my music and got to the block drawing.  I decided to mostly ignore the two figures, and concentrate on the rail car.  The perspective on the rail car was not exactly the same as the one in the drawing I had done, but I mostly wanted the detail information, and that I had.  The rest I just figured out, but I'm an artist so I can do that.  I redrew the platform at the end of the car, the wheels at one end, some of the stuff under the car, the lettering along the top (it was light against dark, not dark against light like I had the first day), the platform lamp, and threw in some values based on the image I had, and some of the tracks.  Still don't know if it's accurate to his time, but it's just a backdrop anyway.  Nothing is necessarily done yet, but it looks a little nicer than it did.  The photo above shows my progress to this point.

We have a holiday weekend starting tomorrow, and the town is already filling up.  I decided to bring home the block, in case I want to do some drawing in the next few days.  If not, I'll bring it back with me next week to work on there.

A Class Ends, A Class Begins

 

Spent the past few days working on my next class up at JSAC.  Had my last meeting of the most recent one, color pencil, just a few days ago.  But already plans were being laid for the next round of classes, and my next drawing class is now up on the website, and corrections have been made.  (the initial version had mistakes in the hours and fees, things that had already been decided) The class will be the beginner version again, so shoe contours, negative space, perspective, and all the other things that people need to learn, but probably haven't yet when I see them.  

People who are interested in this class can register through the building website: www.jerseyshoreartscenter.org.  Or I guess you can call the office and they can guide you through it.  The class will meet on Tuesdays from 2 to 4 pm, for 6 weeks beginning September 27th and ending November 1st (we have both heat and air conditioning in that room, and may need both over the length of the class), and I think the cost is listed at $90, so quite a bargain for what amounts to college level teaching.  

The above photo is actually from 2019, but that's the room we will be in, and things we will draw sometimes, so some of what is there reflects the class that will be.

The one thing I don't know is if anyone will actually sign up for it.  Lots of people talk about taking classes, but not all actually register.  But we have about a month, so anything is possible.  I have and will send out reminders to people I know, but this will depend on the facility advertising it.