Back to Real Me (if a bit squinty), ink and watercolor
Yesterday I was having a hard time with some issues and by the evening was full of negativity. I watched a little TV and tried to think of a way fix my rotten mood. Nothing sounded good until I had the idea to play dress up, take some photos and sketch myself as someone else, someone not in a bad mood.
Even though it was 9:00 at night, I put on a ton of makeup (which I rarely ever wear) including teal eye liner, blue eye shadow, maroon lipstick and as much blush as possible. I tied a turquoise bandana around my messy hair, put a pretty blouse over my ratty t-shirt and set my camera to shoot repeatedly. I posed the way I’d heard Usher on American Idol telling contestants to look through the camera as if they were connecting directly with their audience at home.
I set it to shoot again and pretended like I was on America’s Next Top Model, posing for a fancy photographer. Then I put the images up on the computer screen and sketched one from the screen and one from a mirror. Despite looking pleasant in the photos, my sketches looked as tortured and sad as I was feeling.
Tortured sketch (in mirror), Pretending sweetness (from photo)
Tonight, in a better mood, I did these two, the one on the right drawn with a brush. I still wasn’t satisfied that I’d done the final self portrait to end the book.
Starting to feel better sketches (from photo)
Finally, I put my hair in a ponytail and sketched myself again in a mirror (the sketch at the top of the post) which I like and now officially ends the previous journal.
And here’s one of the photos I used for the sketches.
Pretending to be cheery
Last night I was pretending to be cheery and now tonight I am. Was it the pretending that changed my mood or is it the weekend?
I went to my dance class early this morning but burglars had broken into the studio in the wee hours and stolen the sound equipment and the computer. The teacher tried to switch to a Stretch/Strengthen class since it’s hard to dance without music but the police told us we had to leave.
So I came home to work, determined to get in a lunch-time walk in the sun (it’s spring at last!). But there was more weirdness. In between web-based staff meetings and conference calls I finalized a fancy email newsletter for the organization and sent it out to 2,000 people. Half an hour later I learned that an important link in the newsletter was broken. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about sub-domains and URLs, fixed the link, and sent it out again. So far no complaints. But no walk, either.
Yesterday was weird too. I was determined to finish binding two new journals that I’d started on Sunday, one for general use and one for next month’s International Fake Journal Month. While it wasn’t as hard as the first binding experience, I broke the “measure twice, cut once” rule (measuring only once and so having to cut twice, wasting good binder board and end papers), and ran into a couple of other problems.
Meanwhile outside the sun was shining, the best weather in months, and I was sad that I was spending it indoors. Finally I finished the journal binding and went outside. This little plant (don’t know what it is; got it as a gift for my birthday last year and stuck it in the garden) was flowering and looked happy so I sat on the sidewalk in front of my house and quickly sketched and painted a bit of it as the sun went down.
Front yard flowers, ink & watercolor
The water filter at the top of the post is another broken thing. It used to live on the faucet in the studio sink but it snapped off one day and I couldn’t put it back on. Procter and Gamble (who make PUR filters) sent me a bunch of adapters but none would stay on the threads of the spout. I called my local hardware store and they told me that I was probably out of luck.
They said if I tried to just replace the spout it was likely that other parts would get broken in the process. And since modern faucets mount on the sink, not in tile on the wall like mine, I would probably have to rip out the wall, and the old sink, and replumb the faucet, and buy a new faucet. And then I would be broke. So I’ll just continue carrying in fresh water from the filter in the kitchen, 40 feet away.
It was a dark and stormy night when Cathy and I met at Au Coquelet Cafe to sketch while listening to people debate the existence of reality and/or study English in Chinese.
I started by sketching the guy in the middle with black hair and just kept on going, seeing more and more stuff to draw. At one point he walked by our table, saw what we were doing, pulled out his cellphone and took photos of our sketches of him. That was a first! But it seemed a fair trade.
A group of four (perhaps retired professors from the university) seemed to have gathered for the sole purpose of defining reality, or proving it’s existence, or both, punctuated regularly by “huh?” “what did you say?” as one of the gents was hard of hearing (but not hard of “talking” as he blathered on and on). On our other side were Chinese college students studying English, but mostly in Chinese, with the occasional English phrase thrown in such as “I am a pretty girl” and “I am eating an apple” (which she wasn’t).
Au Coquelet is a perfect place to sketch. It’s large, open very late, has a couple of rooms, and counter service only so you don’t have to worry about waiters. There’s lots of wood, bricks, brick-a-brack and plants, design left over from the hippie days.
I have fond memories of sketching there on another stormy night, New Year’s Eve 1997, when I was supposed to be in Yosemite National Park but had canceled the trip due to rain. And it was good I didn’t go: the next day Yosemite had the worst flooding in 100 years, with roads and bridges so damaged that people were stranded there for weeks without sanitary facilities or food.
So with no plans for the evening, I headed up to the café to draw people who did have plans, partygoers coming in before and after their parties. After a while, a tall, handsome artist sketching at another table came over and joined me. We sketched together and talked, and ended up dating for a few months until I decided that the tales he told were too good to be true.
We had a sunny day after months of rain, so I took a walk around my garden. I was happy to see the hydrangeas coming back after having been cut down to little woody stalks. The three I’d planted after the comical hydrangea planting fiasco were all sprouting and there was a new one, a volunteer that appeared on its own volition.
And I too feel cut down to my woody stems, stretched thin by all I try to do.
So I’ve been thinking about who I am as an artist, who I want to be, what work brings me the most joy or the most suffering, my artistic strengths and weaknesses, and how I can make the time I spend on art as satisfying as possible.
I’m so grateful for artist friends like Barbara and my sister, who are good listeners and understand the challenge of having so many (too many?) interests and artistic pursuits to follow. Or, as Barbara writes, we’re “Never Bored” (or “Never B-ed” as she spelled it, for reasons she explains in her blog post).
Ultimately my goal is a more balanced life; I know that to stay healthy, along with time for art, I need to make more time for exercise, relaxation and play. (And some of my best art-making has been play; it just doesn’t have to be so darn serious!)
And like my hydrangeas, some good ideas are starting to bud and bloom about how I can nurture my most rewarding art pursuits now, while putting off or letting go of the others until more of my time is my own.
Blackened Salmon at Pyramid Ale House, Ink & Watercolor
Pyramid Alehouse in Berkeley is a lively, fun place for good food, good beer and sketching too. My blackened salmon was delicious and a real challenge to wait to draw and paint before eating. After dinner we planned to sketch the brewery area visible from our table. But mid-meal they turned the lights off in the brewery so we went upstairs to check out the view.
Combined 2 partial sketches (one exterior, one interior) with a pasted in bit of event calendar
Upstairs there was a crowd of people playing Pyramid’s version of trivial pursuit “Brainstormers Pub Quiz,” with an announcer reading off the challenges that teams try to solve. The teams with the most points win more beer.
I assume there is an honor system that prevents people from getting the answers on their smartphones. I couldn’t play trivial pursuit unless answers like, “You know, it was that guy who was in that movie with that blonde…” would win a prize.
Kitchen from above & Beers on tap, pasted in stuff
While we were upstairs I (tried to) sketch the chef in his galley kitchen. The perspective was challenging. Then we went downstairs to the bar area. I loved the whimsical handles on the taps, each reflecting some feature of the specific beer. They had 17 beers on tap that night.
I just noticed my color-scheme on these pages: they’re all predominantly beer colored.
After we finished sketching the laundromat, we moved on to Petco. I can’t wait for longer days so we can do our Tuesday night sketchcrawls outdoors again. But it was fun drawing the parakeets. They were holding pretty still, puffing up and preparing for beds. I worried about them, hoping they have happy lives.
Albino Guinea Pig, ink and watercolor
This little guy was kind of cute in a spooky, red-eyed sort of way, but even on sale I wasn’t tempted. When my sons were young, I bought an adorable pair of long-haired calico guinea pigs and we had such fun playing with them…for about two weeks. And then there was the years of caring for them….
Medium Male Rat, ink & watercolor
He looked way too much like the kind of rodents you do NOT want to see in your house. I’ve seen pet rats that had some charm, but this guy just looked way too big and ratty. My sister had a rat that I babysat when she went on a trip. The rat was in a cage beside my son’s bed and it pulled the wool blanket that was my Grandma’s from the bed into the cage, bit by bit, and chewed off the corners for nesting material.
Then a couple of years ago, when Alison of art blog Scribbles Adagio was creating a multi-media work that included scraps of old blankets, I sent a 12″ square of the blanket to her in Australia. She sent me back one of the finished pieces that now hangs over my bed, a keepsake partly composed of my Grandmother’s blanket.
And I still use that old blanket to keep warm and cozy when I watch TV, even though it’s full of holes, missing corners and a 12″ square.
I didn’t know what parsnips tasted like until I was served them at Chez Panisse (though I have a feeling those exquisite thin strips of crispy, sweet, salty delight were the heavenly version of parsnip that would be hard to replicate by a mere mortal like me).
The dish was so good I wanted to try cooking parsnips myself but when I got to the store I had no idea what they looked like. I was searching for something like a turnip or rutabaga). The green grocer showed me the parsnips and told me they were in the carrot family. He also warned me that they stink badly when you first start cooking them but that the smell goes away after about 15 minutes.
My parsnips have been sketched, but they’re still waiting for me to figure out how to cook them, alongside a bunch of beets, the last veges left in the fridge. It’s time to get cooking and then get shopping!
Parsnip recipes welcomed!
And of course I had to look up the etymology of parsnip, rutabaga and turnips.
16c., parsnepe, corruption (by influence of M.E. nepe “turnip”) of M.E. passenep (late 14c.), from O.Fr. pasnaie, from L. pastinaca “parsnip, carrot,” from pastinum “two-pronged fork” (related to pastinare “to dig up the ground”) so called from the shape of the root. The parsnip was considered a kind of turnip.
1533, turnepe, probably from turn (from its shape, as though turned on a lathe) + M.E. nepe “turnip,” from O.E. næp, from L. napus “turnip.” The modern form of the word emerged late 18c.
I had a wonderful afternoon with Casey (of art blog “rue Manuel bis”), her charming husband and delightful daughter on Friday when they were in San Francisco for a brief visit. Casey’s husband was interested in visiting Berkeley so we started our tour of Berkeley at Chez Panisse where we were lucky enough to get lunch reservations.
Although we brought our sketchbooks to share with each other, we didn’t sketch, focusing instead on delicious food and great conversation. I took a photo of this scene in the restaurant as we were leaving. Here is the way it appears in my sketchbook, drawn from the photo on my computer screen:
sketchbook pages
The design at top left is from the lunch menu which I photocopied smaller and glued in the sketchbook. I discovered that my souvenir Chez Panisse postcard is the perfect size to trace around to create a nice margin in this book. To keep it handy I stuck it in the glassine envelope I’d glued in the back of the sketchbook. Things were looking so messy in this sketchbook as I tried to find my way with the new paper and size of sketchbook. Now I’ve found the solution to the messy pages: draw the margins first and stay within them instead of painting to the edge of the page.
911 on Telegraph Ave.
Despite my warning that Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue is pretty funky, everyone wanted to see the University of California, Berkeley campus and visit the used record and book stores on Telegraph. We walked on campus and then down to the shops where I bought an old Busby Berkeley CD (in honor of my cat of the same name).
On Telegraph I noticed two women who looked like prostitutes wearing outlandish makeup and mini-skirts. We also passed a soapbox preacher ranting (positively) about sex, a lone hare Krishna, sad clumps of young junkies with their pit bulls, the requisite tables of political bumper stickers, a super-stinky homeless guy, a bathing products store, a “head shop” selling hookahs, and someone handing out flyers for a tanning booth.
Heading back to my car we heard shouting. Those same whorish women we’d seen were running from Telegraph towards us on Durant, pursued by several coeds and everyone was screaming. The ho’s were screaming “Don’t touch me! Get away from me!” The coeds were screaming “Give me back my purse! Give me back my sweater!”
We stood there as if watching TV, trying to make sense of it all. The two ho’s jumped into a shiny black car parked right in front of us and slammed the door. The girls continued screaming while a slight young man stood at the driver’s window, saying, “Just give her the purse back.” Finally someone yelled, “Call the police!”
That snapped us out of our confusion and while I dialed 911, Casey had the presence of mind to note the license number of the car and was repeating it over and over. I told the 911 operator what was going on and handed the phone to Casey who gave the license number.
The ho’s threw the empty purse out the car window, revved their engine, and although the girls tried to block them from driving off, managed to speed away. I sure hope they got caught via the license number but I’m guessing the car was just as stolen as the purse, and probably ditched quickly. It was weird and scary, but fortunately nobody was hurt.
It was a more comprehensive tour of Berkeley than I’d intended. We went from the pinnacle of fine dining, to the campus at the center of the city, to the ugly underside of my dear Berzerkeley.
Yesterday’s rainy-day post was a bit dreary so I wanted to post something bright and cheery today. When the first camellia on the bush bloomed I painted her directly in watercolor, without drawing in pencil or pen first. This little vase looks as intended; it is nearly flat in really life, probably intentionally squished by the potter, with just a sort of slot in the top.
I think this sketch makes good use of the watercolor paper in “The Mutt” (the name I’ve stenciled on the outside of the sketchbook I bound with watercolor paper.) I named it that because it’s a little homely and imperfect but still perfectly lovable.
The full page
Here is the page where the above sketch resides. I like to make good use of my sketchbook pages. Lately I’ve been grateful for messed up sketches because they become pages that I use for journaling right over the bad sketch. More about that in another post.
Innocent Vixens, BART riders, sepia pen
And if you were wondering about the post title “Innocent Vixens,” it was from something I heard on the radio. Someone said “innocent victims” and for some reason my mind wandered to “innocent vixens.” It seemed like a concept that might be fun to sketch someday and I wanted to remember it, so into the journal it went, above these innocent (though a bit dorky) BART subway rider guys.
Despite the rain I had a great walk to the Farmers Market at El Cerrito Plaza last Saturday. When the rain stopped I sketched and painted at an outdoor table at Peet’s Coffee across the street. Then I continued my walk to do half a dozen errands. One was to pick up the second disk of “Five Days” from the video store.
I’d rented the first disk from Netflix and couldn’t wait for it to go back and part two to arrive. I had to find out what happened. Five days is an incredibly suspenseful, well-written and perfectly acted British TV mini-series about a woman and her kids who go missing. I’d had this movie sitting around for two weeks when I finally sat down to watch it and then couldn’t turn it off. If you like suspenseful police procedurals with great character development, this one is great!
Jana Bouc, Artist 