Life Drawings and a Pigeon

A couple of weeks ago, just before I succumbed to the flu, I drew a life model named Lyon, who wore a startling necklace of human molars (his own it turns out)  and who is a descendent of the notable, fierce, pre-confederation Canadian politician William Lyon Mackenzie. I forgot my chalk, which is a shame because he had great Scottish colouring.

Lyon, gesture drawing, charcoal on layout paper

Lyon, vine charcoal on gessoed paper

And a life drawing from the Autumn sessions

male model, vine charcoal on gessoed paper

 And a sketchbook pigeon for good measure.

Parc Monceau Pigeon, charcoal in sketchbook

Three Italian Plums

Three Italian plums, oil on panel, 8" x 10"

Happy New Year!

All the jingle bells are packed away for another year.   Not a resolution, exactly, but I do hope to draw paint and post more actively this year.

Jingle Bell, oil on panel, 5" x 7", 2012

Drawing at the Royal Winter Fair 2012

Ice Pigeon: just one of the gorgeous impractical creatures in the poultry show--a pigeon with feathered feet. I saw this one being judged and having #1 marked on her tag.

Last week I packed up a lean sketching kit: sketchbook, watercolour and graphite pencils, and a brush pen, and spent the day sketching at the Royal.  I planned my visit for one of the two days featuring the poultry show which is my favourite event at the fair.  All those lovely birds, captive and at eye level, make perfect drawing subjects!  Of course, the rest of the fair is great too and one day isn't nearly enough time to see and draw it all. Once again there were many fellow sketchers (even the high school kids are now taking advantage of this opportunity). 

Brown Swiss dairy cow

This sweet-faced calf was bellowing for her stable mates who were off being groomed somewhere.
Her complacent expression belies her agitation. I drew anyway.

Piglets!

Beltsville Small White male turkey

This grotesque, but magnificent turkey was strutting constantly and "gobble, gobbling" to the screaming delight of the taunting hoardes of school children.

Nestling pigeons

African Brown Goose "old male" category

Call Ducks

The call ducks are unflappable despite the cacophony all around them.

Toulouse Grey geese

The bonus: this year there were many Ontario cheese makers at the fair selling their goods at less than retail price.  I came home with an armful of cheeses from Monforte, the Upper Canada Cheese Company, and Woolwich dairy--partly offsetting the price of my admission.

Drawn from life

Zak, seated pose, vine charcoal on gessoed paper

I've made a return to life drawing in recent weeks.  We have a chatty group, which is great for refining my ability to concentrate, and we've had a number of excellent models (including some horses!, but more on that in a future post). 

Rachel, vine charcoal on paper

Rachel, vine charcoal on paper

Rachel reclining, vine charcoal on paper

Rachel reclining, take 2, charcoal on gessoed paper

Giancarlo, gestures, vine charcoal on paper

Giancarlo, reclining, vine charcoal on paper

Giancarlo, vine charcoal and chalk on paper

Robyn, standing gesture, vine charcoal

Robyn, standing gesture, vine charcoal

Zak, quick head studies, vine charcoal on paper

Zak, slouch, vine charcoal on paper

 

Horse, quick study, vine charcoal on paper

Some quick head studies, vine charcoal

The cat came back

Paper Mache masks of our dear departed

I guess I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to my cat (who departed this world after twenty years only weeks ago--see his true likeness here).  A friend's Hallowe'en party provided a perfect excuse to re-incarnate him, twice, while trying my hand at paper mache.

This one is the better likeness

I made these masks, which are lightweight, flexible, and easy-to wear, over a form I sculpted from SuperSculpey (a first for me) and aluminum foil using multiple reference photos.  The likenesses are far from exact, but I think the masks conjure him well nonetheless.

For the mask-making, I followed the ingenious techniques explained so comprehensively by Jonni Good on her amazingly informative blog: Ultimate Paper Mache.  Jonni, if you find this post, I've ordered your book, but haven't yet received it and so made use of your excellent YouTube videos.

And, since the carnavalesque masks seemed to represent only one aspect of his personality, I also sculpted a more dignified bust, using a paper mache clay also developed by Jonni Good over a wire and foil armature.  I haven't decided whether to paint him, as the ancient Greeks surely would've, or leave him to yellow slightly (there's some linseed oil in the mix).  I think I like the gravitas of the unpainted version for now.

Cosimo, profile

About face

Aloof

Plotting

Hot Ticket IFOA

Junot Diaz, Michael Chabon, and Siri Agrell at the IFOA

Last Friday night I was in an enthusiastic audience along with literary stars Michael Ondaatje and Linda Spalding to hear Junot Diaz and Michael Chabon in conversation with Siri Agrell about their new books (ostensibly, although the conversation veered all around them rather than delving into them):  This is How you Lose Her (Diaz), and Telegraph Avenue (Chabon), at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto. It was a sold out event.  Junot Diaz is compelling on stage--never still, always gesticulating.  He must be a riveting professor at MIT.   I sketched while I listened, but never really caught Chabon's likeness. Diaz and Agrell are better.

Junot Diaz not keeping still

In my defense, the lighting was pretty low.  Good practice for losing my inhibitions about drawing in public, though.

Siri Agrell at the podium

Cosimo 1992-2012

My best animal friend for over 20 years.  This portrait is of him as he was in his final month--a still regal centenarian whose personality was, as always, a hundred times bigger than his size. 

Cosimo, oil on panel, 20" x 16"

Cosimo, detail

Cosimo, detail

At the Bath

At the Bath (two grackles), oil on panel, 12" x 12"

Blue Jay

Young Blue Jay, charcoal and chalk in sketchbook

The Backyard Menagerie

I've been slightly hobbled by a kneecap injury and the studio is a long climb, so I've been staging my own Rear Window scenario and drawing the characters that appear in my view.  So many birds.  Such beautiful plumage.  Such antics.  No murders yet, but suspects abound.

Mourning Dove

Cardinals on the feeder

White-throated Sparrow and puffed-up Mourning Dove

White-throated Sparrow on clay pot

More soon.

In between time

Mercury glass ball with red ribbon, oil on card, 5 1/2" x 7 1/2"

We're in that lull, the in between time, the almost end, almost beginning.  Something new just around the corner...

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They dined on quince...

Two paintings of quinces and pears: 

Quinces and pears in glass bowl, oil and metallic leaf on panel, 9" x 12", 2011

Quinces and pears in ceramic bowl, oil and distressed metallic leaf on panel, 10" x 10"

I've written about my love of quinces before and so I include my little treatise on this mysterious, astringent, aromatic fruit below:

Smell and memory are linked so closely that I can’t be sure how much my initial experience of this particular aroma has coloured my current perception, but I’m sure I can’t be alone in thinking this must be one of the most delicious scents anywhere.

Our first experience of it was in France. It was a moody September day just outside of Moustiers-Sainte Marie in Provence. As we drove the narrow road up a mountainside to our destination for that evening, the rain began to pour down. Through a miracle of good luck, we found our chateau, which emerged all rosy stucco and pale blue shutters at the end of a winding lane through a chestnut wood. The rain had stopped and afternoon sun was slanting through tree branches, raising a slight mist and turning everything to gold. Like so many French chateaux now being rented out by ambitious new owners to tourists, this one had fallen from its former glory, but its air of grandeur remained intact. We were early and since no one came to greet us when we called, we walked through the heavy open doors onto a worn limestone floor and then into a high ceilinged dark paneled room with an imposing stone mantle and game trophies crowding the walls. At one end of the room was a doorway lit by the sun which we headed towards almost automatically. There in a rustic back kitchen, glowing in the gorgeous late day sunshine, was a bounty of golden fruits and the most pervasive and wonderful smell.

It was un coup de foudre. The fruits were quinces. I was in love. 
I didn’t think the name, which sounded like a description of a pained expression, did justice to this fruit of the heavenly aroma, but then I discovered the inevitable downside to the seemingly perfect fruit: quinces, which look and smell like an otherworldly combination of apple and pear with a little extra je ne sais quoi, are too astringent and grainy to eat raw.
I’ve since poached quinces and strained them into gorgeous clear red jelly—their ivory flesh turns russet when cooked—but I love them best in a bowl, looking like slightly lumpy golden orbs and sending their lovely scent into every corner of my house. Sometimes, in the grocery store, I find quince imported from the middle east or asia, but the variety seems different, the fragrance not so intense. These ones came from the farmer’s market where two young girls told me they had climbed the tall quince tree in their backyard to pick them by hand the day before. Has anyone else fallen for a quince?. 

Two and three quarter figs

The proper way to eat a fig, in society..., 9" x 12", oil on gessoed panel

Underwriting the painting is an excerpt of an ostensibly instructional poem by D.H. Lawrence called, simply, "Figs".  It begins: "The proper way to eat a fig, in society,"...

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