No Going Back

Fabulous visit with an old, younger friend this afternoon. I feel like a proud mother.

Flopped Over Peas in Bloom

As I recall, today is really Memorial Day, May 30th.  I thought more today about the men and women who died serving the United States Armed Forces than I did yesterday as I ate my deviled eggs during the legal holiday.  I believe all, or at least most, legal holidays now fall on a Monday or Friday for the convenience of a three day weekend.

Back to feeling like a proud mother.  Beth Brader, after going through a terribly scary episode in the local hospital, has awakened her artistic soul.  She covered her hospital room walls with drawings when she wasn’t catching flying tennis balls. She begins every day and ends every day with drawing using a bic pen and markers.  The work is incredible!  Klimt, Beardsley and Matisse all come to mind, yet her work is not derivative. Her drawings are uniquely Beth Brader.  Had Beth not made it through her crisis, the exquisite drawings I saw today would not exist.

I returned home, drank half a bottle of wine on an empty stomach and drew my pea plant monsters in my sketchbook, still feeling the thrill of Beth’s return to her art.  I think about the tragic loss of musicians and artists who died fighting wars.  I think about the loss of all those whose lives were cut short.  Yes, they died fighting for our freedoms.  A greater contribution than one’s life cannot be given, yet I wonder …… what art, what music, what inventions do not exist today because the inventor, the creator, died in combat before the contribution could be made.

Sketchbook drawing: drawn first in ink with fountain pen, followed by watercolor, followed by white gel marker, followed by dip pen in ink.

 

Summertime Art Parties

Summer is a perfect time for Art Parties.

Justine Gardner, Musician

You supply the food and drink. I bring the art supplies!  What else do you need?  Maybe a kitchen table … or card table … or lawn chairs …. and, of course, guests. Bring the joy of art into your life.  You’re never too old, you’re never too young.  Schedule an afternoon party or an evening Art Party. We will play The Color Scheme Game and guests will take home a small sketchbook, dice and the rules to the game.  Beware!  Drawing and painting the everyday places and things in your life can become an addiction, one that is good for your heart, your brain and your soul!

Pink Hollyhocks

I usually bring dip pens, ink, watercolors, brushes, lots of paper and little sketchbooks for everyone.

Contact me for details.

 

Wall Mural is completed

In every painting, especially a large mural, there is one keystone element that unifies the whole, bringing all parts into harmony.  In the case of our landscape of trees, a 12 foot wide wall mural, the keystone was the far left tree in the second cluster from the right, shown below.

A cluster of trees

Sorry for the poor photograph.  It is extremely difficult to photograph the mural.  Hopefully Xochitl will have better photos on her camera and I can post them at a later date.

We thought we would finish in about two hours on Monday, the day most people were attending parades and enjoying barbeques with family and friends.  The keystone tree demanded far more of our time.  We finished at five o’clock, just in time to allow to clean up the dining room, put everything back in place and let our client’s family enjoy the holiday.

Left side of finished wall mural

The mural looks gorgeous.  The beautiful finish of the latex paint made the struggle worthwhile.  To the very end, it refused to dry as predicted.  Every time we thought we had it tamed, it challenged us.

Xochitl adding last few touches of paint

Xochitl and I work well together in spite of our different approaches to art and to painting.  the finished mural is a unified work of art.  It is not apparent that two, very different artists, worked side by side from beginning to end.

I was happy to wake up this morning and have the day to myself to catch up on all that had been left undone during the last three weeks of mural painting.  In spite of being happy to get back to my regular abnormal schedule, I am already looking forward to another wall mural.  I must be crazy.

Landscape of Trees, Monochromatic color Scheme, 12 feet wide, latex paint.

 

Soothing My Wounds

I should have been at a jam, painting my friends making music together.  Instead, I was at ArtWalk in downtown Bethlehem on Memorial Day Weekend (when everyone has left town) in the middle of a thunderstorm.  Sitting outside with one’s art is not the best choice in the pouring rain.  Fortunately, I was able to move inside and spend a couple of ours catching up with a good friend, Gayle, who was minding the shop at Artfully Elegant.  Thanks to Gayle, I didn’t go home and slit my throat.

When I find myself at the end of a rope ….. any rope ….. I tell myself that the answer to my problem is simply to get better at what I do.

New and old drawing tools

The trumpet parts had not lined up well in Trumpet Parts No. 87.  First thing this morning, I made myself a grid guide (inspired by the one I saw in Nikolay’s hand at a plein air event last month).  I carefully drew the bent trumpet part, checking and correcting…. checking and correcting. I even hunted down two erasers.  I rarely use an eraser.  Hah!  The parts lined up! I’m sure you can’t tell in this photo.  I incuded my Waterman Phileas fountain pen, and the great leather case (contribution from Nicole), in the photo because it’s about to make its mark on the paper.  Hopefully I haven’t destroyed the surface too much with all my erasures.  I’m not used to drawing in pencil first …. then inking.  I much prefer to start right in with ink and go where my eye leads me, even if it’s down a winding, nonsensical path.

As I near the end of this series of One Hundred Drawings of Trumpet Parts I am faced with a dilemma. A little voice inside my head continues to whisper “Do what you love and the money will come.”  Do what I love?  Should I start another 100 drawings of my bent trumpet parts?

What do I love to draw and paint?  I love drawing dancers in motion, musicians playing …. alone or with others ….. I love throwing paint and bringing nude figures out of the splotches and splatters …. I love plein air painting.  I love starting the day with an ink contour drawing of my bent trumpet parts and adding color with watercolor.

What do I love the most?  Right now I would have to say that it is painting to live music …. letting my dip pen dance across the paper and the watercolor flow over the ink to the patterns and rhythm of the music.  Is there a market for such a thing?  I doubt it.

What I find absurd is that all the other drawing and painting I do is just an exercise to get better at drawing and painting so that I can respond completely intuitively to that incredible moment of motion, rhythms and patterns I experience when listening to live music.

A huge thanks to all the musicians who have created those magical moments for me to attempt to express.

I didn’t really care about selling paintings last night at ArtWalk, I just wanted to share them with friends and strangers.  Of the two people who walked by, one of them made it worth the week of matting and the lugging back and forth of the art.  She looked at the paintings and said ” How strange ….. when I look at these, I actually hear the music.”  She pointed to one ….. “I can hear the jazz of New Orleans in this one!”

Thank you!

 

Kevin Eubanks at RiverJazz

Last night was the last of the Artsquest RiverJazz performances.  The Saucon Valley High School Jazz Ensemble opened for the Kevin Eubanks Jazz Band.  Another fabulous night of music !

Rene Camacho playing stand up bass with Kevin Eubanks

My favorite painting of the night is of Rene Camacho playing his unusual stand up bass.

I’ve posted the rest of the paintings on my ‘Chris Carter Artist’ Facebook page.  SteelStacks RiverJazz Musicians

Sketch: drawn first with dip pen followed by watercolor

 

A Race Against Time

Egon Schiele, one of my favorite artists, died at the age of twenty eight.  I am sixty and have not accomplished what he did in only twenty eight years. There is so much I  have left to do before I close my eyes for the last time.  There is so much I want to accomplish before my brain starts to let me down, if indeed it is going to let me down.  My father suffers from Alzheimer’s.  I feel as if I am in a race against the time bomb of Alzheimer’s.  Perhaps I will escape it….. perhaps not.  Each day I eliminate more of the elements of my life that sap my time and energy.  I haven’t any time or energy to spare.  It all boils down to what lights my flame.

Bent Trumpet Parts No. 87

I don’t know if I will enjoy the series of Hedgerows as much as I have enjoyed the series of bent trumpet parts.  Only time will tell.  I have only thirteen more trumpet parts drawings to go.

The proportions of this drawing went totally awry.  I didn’t paint the lower three sections because it would then be even more obvious how drastically wrong the drawing is.  What I love about drawing directly with ink is that there is no going back.  It is what it is.  It’s not about being perfect, it’s about observing more carefully.

Sketchbook line drawing: drawn first with Noodler’s Flex fountain pen filled with Nodler’s Ottoman Azure ink, followed by watercolor.  Analogous color scheme….. purple blue as the dominant color.

 

 

Coloring Book Follow Up

Last night I colored in more of the page in my sketchbook that I referred to yesterday as my homemade coloring book.

Pea plants and potted herb garden

I think I will keep adding to this …. more peas and more potted herbs stretching over to the facing page.  I might leave areas as ink drawings and diminish the watercolor as I move across the page….. It’s a work in progress, a new phase of my ink and watercolor sketchbook drawings.

Drawn in large sketchbook made of watercolor paper.  Drawn first in ink using a fountain pen, followed by washes of watercolor.

 

Coloring Books

As a child, I loved coloring books.  As an adult, I frowned upon them, feeling that they stunted creativity.  As an older adult, I find myself making my own coloring books.

Peas and Herb Garden in Clay Pots

I find myself staying within the lines ….. how dreadful!  I rationalize my current obsession by saying that the difference between mine and ordinary coloring books is that I draw my own pictures and my lines bleed into the colors.

I also find myself at the coloring table with small children and ordinary coloring books.  I enjoy every minute of it.

Coloring Book Sketch: drawn first with fountain pen followed by watercolor in handmade watercolor paper sketchbook bound in leather.

Staying within the lines

 

Beware – I am rambling

My plan was to spend the day at the local Blues Festival sponsored by Bourbon Street Liquors.  I have missed it every year and it’s only a shout away from me.  I opted to do yardwork and paperwork instead, hoping to catch a few notes that might find their way across the valley to my ears.  As the sun began to set, a few notes of the music found its way to my backyard.

I am struggling with priorities.

Autumn Clematis or Poison Ivy?

After pruning way way through three overgrown wild honeysuckle bushes I uncovered my Jackmanii Clematis and what I think is my Autumn Clematis (Clematis paniculata, c. terniflora).  At one point, after diving into the wall of vines, I realized that I might be surrounded by poison ivy rather than autumn clematis ….. three leaf clusters,  shiny leaves, some of the leaves shaped like a mitten …….. I had wiped my eyes and my face multiple times while pruning the overgrown garden.  Knowing it was too late to uncontaminate myself, I hoped that I was still as immune to poison ivy as I was in childhood when my two older sisters delighted in making a bed of it and forcing me to lie down in it.  They weren’t pleased when I awoke the next morning without even a hint of a rash.  (We’ve resolved our differences over the last five decades).

My thoughts throughout the day have been focused on two of my online influences, Carol Marine and Qiang Huang.  I have watched as Carol barely skipped a beat after her home in Texas was burned to the ground.  It did not surprise me when Carol recently announced that she had stopped painting.  Ouch!  Fortunately, she laced up her boots and is painting again, just not so many apples (which I think is a good thing.) I have watched as Qiang Huang is carving out a new life for himself as a full-time artist, struggling with the balance of business and creativity.

I hope that one day I meet both of these artists in person.  I want to thank them, face to face, for the inspiration they provide while I, once again, re-invent myself.

Sketchbook drawing: drawn first with Noodler’s Neponset Fountain pen (awesome pen! … more reliable than the Konrad) filled with ‘Rome Burning’ Ink, followed by watercolor.  It turns out that the vines are Autumn Clematis, not Poison Ivy.  Autumn Clematis has opposite branching, not alternate branching ….. whew!

 

Coffee With Dine

Today is Dine’s birthday.  We celebrated with a Ladies’ Night Out at Circa in High Bridge.

A painting for Dine’s birthday

Dine is an artist, a photographer and  wonderful friend.  She nourishes my creative spirit through good times and bad.  Our conversations over coffee and foamed milk are rich, thought provoking, honest and heartfelt.  We laugh. We explore.  I am grateful to have her as a dear friend.

Happy Birthday, Dine!

Painting for Dine: Drawn first with fountain pen followed by watercolor.

(left to right) Judith, Bonnie, Sally, Chris, Dine, Liz