It Never Ends

Here we had a nice Thursday, and I had no prints to pull, no doctor to meet with, and no model coming.  So I decided to sit in on the figure group up in Ocean Grove.  I haven't been there since July, and while I have no upcoming projects that call for a figure, I could use the practice.  Plus I had two other reasons involving former students.  One was from a few years ago, but I see her around and trade emails with her occasionally (Nellie) and she had expressed an interest in the figure class, as it is listed.  I had written back that I had been in attendance a few times, and it was not really a class, but told her what it was in case she was interested.  She is, and planned to start going.  For various reasons I couldn't go last week, but I am free today.  Also, after my last posting, I got an email from the student who I had been working for in advance of her upcoming Asbury show.  She felt that she may have left her cell phone and wallet in my space when she was there a few days ago picking up her prints.  I didn't know for sure what she had done, but called her the next day as requested, and she decided that she could wait until today to check it out, and agreed to meet me there around noon.  

So this morning I headed up that way.  Got up there in plenty of time, and the door was even open, saving me from using my photo ID (brought with me today) to get in.  Down to my space first, where I spotted Mary's phone and wallet right away, so I'd know where they were when I saw her.  Picked up other things I needed for drawing.  Last time I had been to the figure group we were meeting in the old 40's room on the second floor (I've taught drawing there in the past), but we had been told the class would be moving to room 5 on the first floor, and last time I saw Joe (maybe 2 weeks ago), that's where the class was.   Now I was told the class would be in room 3, also on the 1st floor, and also a place I've taught before.  In fact, I still have a key to that room, given to me a few years ago, and since they weren't in a hurry to take it back, I decided to keep it.   As long as the ac and lights worked, I was fine with the switch.  And my former student Nellie did show up to draw, what she says is her favorite thing to do.  As someone who has taught figure drawing several times and believes in its value for students, I'm not arguing that with her.  The new room is a little smaller than the one we had upstairs, and if we had any more participants, it might have been a problem, but for today there was just enough room.  I wasn't crazy about today's model, and even less enthusiastic about the charcoal drawings I did, so I'm posting a few pages of pencil gesture drawings, 30 second and 1 minute sketches:

Nellie seemed to like it, and will probably return in the future.  She asked me about woodcuts I have done, and so I invited her down to my Studio to check out the latest.  And waiting for me was Mary, there to search for her stuff.  She was very happy to see her missing items, grabbed them up, and was gone before I could ask her things about the upcoming show.  I believed Nellie has seen the first few Robert Johnson prints already (last saw her at the Punk Rock Flea Market there in the building, where those prints were still on display from the Tenants show) and she said she had, but now I showed her some other black and white prints from the past few years, including the two newest complete prints from that series.  She was suitably impressed.  I didn't bother to tell her about Saturday's show, as I don't know much about it myself.   Maybe next time I see her I'll know more. 

As for the recently printed prints from the Johnson series, I had a bunch wrapped up for shipping to Virginia in my car, and on the way home I stopped at the post office and sent them on their way.  My plan is to contact my friend there later and let her know they are on their way, when to expect them, and what it cost to pack and send them.  If she wants the tracking information, I can send that as well.