Yesterday, despite feeling otherwise perfectly fine, my nose turned into a broken faucet that wouldn’t stop running. I was trying to paint and it was becoming impossible to work for more than a few seconds without sneezing, wiping, or blowing my nose.
Necessity is the mother of invention: the only solution was to stop the flow. So I made little nose “tampons” by tearing a sheet of Kleenex into about thirds and then folded and rolled it into a size that would fit my nostrils and I was set. I could paint for at least 10 minutes before it was time to replace the nose-pons.
Today it’s turned into a real cold with the full range of symptoms which is sad because it’s a rare sunny day and I’d planned to paint outdoors. Instead I’ll be indoors bundled up, drinking tea and chicken soup.
Some day I’ll sketch a flattering self-portrait. Some day I’ll follow the “rules” of portraiture and get features the right sizes in the right places. But not today. Today I just look and draw and see what happens.
I always save the last few pages of my journals to do a self-portrait and look back over the pages and write an index of what they contained. I look in mirrors as little as possible, so it’s weird to spend quality time with my reflection and seeing what’s wrinkled since last time I looked.
FAIL: No Likeness
When I woke up I had a curl standing straight up on top of my head which fell onto my face as the day progressed. That reminded me of this poem my grandmother used to recite to tell this curly-haired, often naughty granddaughter:
There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.
End of Journal Self Portrait #3
The best part of drawing this one was using the Black Pentel Color Brush Pen (not waterproof) for my curls and sketching the puffy down vest. I have tidier eyebrows than I drew but it’s ink so there you go.
All Day Meeting Sketches #1, graphite on notebook paper
We had an all day staff meeting today at our co-director’s home. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with each other, celebrate our accomplishments over the past year and plan for the huge amount of work we’ll be doing over the next year. It was also a chance for some sketching.
The gentleman above rests his finger just below his nose when he’s listening with concentration. (Just had to explain since it looks like he’s doing something else).
All Day Meeting Sketches #2, graphite
I really like the way the woman’s foot in this sketch turned out. She’s quite petite but I think I should have made her legs bigger since they were closer to me.
It felt inappropriate to take out my sketchbook (even though I know I listen well while drawing, I didn’t want others to think I wasn’t paying attention) so I drew in the same cheesy notebook I was using for notetaking. Of course everyone knew I was sketching anyway…
Last year we had our annual all staff meeting in a stuffy conference room. It was so much nicer gathering in a home where we could eat pizza in the backyard and sit in comfy chairs in a pretty living room and kick our shoes off.
Self Portrait with Sketchbooks and Tea, ink & watercolor
When I set up my old mirror to sketch the self-portrait I end each journal with, I could see my sketchbooks on the shelf behind me in the mirror, along with the cup of tea behind the mirror. When I finished the sketch I pasted this photo of my Lady Gaga Makeover on the opposite page:
Me with Lady Gaga Hair
I found Instyle’s Hollywood Makeover website when I was looking for new hairstyle ideas. You upload a photo of your face, line it up, and select a hairstyle (from a huge collection of celebrity photos) which then appears on your face. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time!
Once you select a hairstyle (and even change the hair color) you can choose face and eye makeup, creating a complete makeover, which I did. If you register on their site you can save and download your makeover photos and it’s all free.
Jennifer Garner Hair Makeover
I brought this more reasonable makeover photo to my hairdresser, who rolled her eyes since the original model (Jennifer Garner) has thick, straight hair and mine isn’t. But with the help of her scissors and blow dryer, I did get something close.
Of course now my hair has gone native again, back to curly, since that’s so much easier than trying to turn it into something it isn’t with gels and blow driers and clips and pins and staying out of the wind and fog.
If you try the makeover site, please share the results! Or at least enjoy the laugh!
I dreamed that Bob Dylan was having dinner with my friend Michael and he invited me to tag along. They talked seriously about music trivia for hours in the old wood-paneled café. I was surprised at how much better Dylan looked in person. I was going to tell him but decided it sounded too dumb. So I just sat there silently, trying to inconspicuously flirt with him.
Then my calico cat Fiona woke me up, making those telltale, pre-puking sounds cats make. I pushed her off the bed and tried to go back to sleep since it was still dark. Just as I’d finally fallen back asleep she started licking my eyebrow. I gave up trying to sleep and spent the day feeling dopey and too tired to do the oil painting I had planned.
Instead it seemed like a really good idea to wash off the entire background of the Big Tulip painting I thought I’d “finished.” More about that later…now off to get some sleep!
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?
In 1998 when the movie The Big Lebowski first came out, my father, who considered himself an intellectual, raved about this movie. So I went to see it on his recommendation but couldn’t figure out what he saw in it.
Now the star, Jeff Bridges, is in a new movie and people are again talking with great reverence about his role as “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski, which some critics rate in their top comedies of the past 25 years. My son even had this movie in his collection, so I borrowed it, thinking if its popularity spans that many generations, I should give it another chance.
I watched it. I still don’t get it. At the end, when “the stranger” (Sam Elliot) who begins the movie with his narration returns to the bowling alley for another sarsaparilla and concludes the narration, I decided to sketch him so at least I had something to show from spending two hours with these morons.
Is it a guy thing? Is this a movie that makes guys feel good because they’re not as bad of losers? Do people really think the Dude’s pothead approach to life known as “The Dude abides,” was worthy of worship (there is actually a church based on his character, called Dudeism)?
I loved the Coen Brothers’ movie Fargo (mostly because of Francis McDormand) but even she couldn’t save their most recent movie, Burn After Reading, which, after renting it accidentally, I thought had to be the most pointless movie I’ve ever seen.
If only the millions of dollars spent on making stupid movies (much of which goes to already obscenely wealthy movie stars) could be spent on feeding people, funding education, the arts, or making the world a better place.
The Berkeley Public Library is a beautiful old building that was lovingly preserved and added on to a few years ago. We met there to sketch last Tuesday night, enjoying the ambiance and craftsman furnishings in the lobby of the old section. I experimented with trying to get the perspective from where I sat in a room filled with wood, metal filigree screens, brass door frames, carved ceilings and handcrafted furniture.
I asked Cathy to take a picture of me sitting in the high-backed chair with diagonal arms so I could sketch it later. I messed up my face (in the sketch) so I just pasted on a fresh piece of watercolor paper and did it again.
Me for realMe sketching in funny chair
When the library closed at 8:00 we headed across the street to Peet’s Coffee, hoping that their manager (who looks like Harry Connick Jr. and dresses in fancy 1950s suits and ties and an Elvis pompadour) would be there for us to sketch. He was there but he was wearing a different costume: suspenders over a tight white t-shirt and a fedora. I asked him why he wasn’t wearing a suit and he said he hadn’t known in advance he would be working that night so wasn’t dressed for work.
Last time we were there I asked him if he was in a band and why he dressed so cool. He said he just liked to, and that years ago when he was in a band he dressed much more sloppily. (My dad was famous for starting up conversations with strangers and asking similar questions which used to embarrass us kids but I guess I inherited his curiosity.)
The manager never stopped moving and was often out of my sight but one of his buddies who seemed to be channeling Keith Richards (only looking much more alive) hung out for a while and he at least stood in one place long enough to sketch him.
Peet's: Rocker Dude
Cathy was facing a tiny, ancient man in a weathered, WWII leather aviator cap who parked his 1940s era bicycle behind me in the store’s entry way, giving her a perfect view for sketching him and the bike. He was selling bike parts to a young man. When he left she showed him the sketch of his bike (but not of him because it was just too funny) and got the information about his bike for her sketchbook.
Before they closed at 9:00 I was able to get in a quick sketch of these people at a nearby table.
Brennan's Bar and Restaurant, ink, watercolor and logo
I stood outside on a dark, drizzly night in front of Brennan’s Bar and Restaurant last Tuesday night, drawing until my sketchcrawl buddies arrived. Brennan’s recently moved to a new building, a former train station a block away from their former location under the University Avenue overpass in Berkeley.
I’d propped up my sketchbook on the hood of a truck parked nearby and immersed myself in figuring out the building. “HONK! HONK!” Suddenly the truck honked at me. I jumped, and moved away, thinking someone was approaching and would get in their truck and drive away. But nobody showed up so I went back to drawing. But then every few minutes the truck would HONK at me again.
Each time I jumped and then I heard guys laughing. One of the three silly, half-drunk men joking around near the bar was using his remote to play around with me. He came over to see if I was drawing him, as his friends said I was doing. Uh, no. But I told him he could pose for me. He declined and they left just as Cathy and Sonia arrived.
Brennan's Turkey Leg Dinner, ink and watercolor
We went in and ordered dinner. I have a thing for turkey legs so while Cathy and Sonia each ordered half turkey sandwiches, I got this huge plate of turkey, mixed veges, boiled cabbage (yuck, what was I thinking?) and boiled potatoes. The turkey was great and I took home enough for two more meals.
Old Dudes at the Bar, ink
I switched to using a Pilot Varsity fountain pen, adding water over the lines with a waterbrush to make washes. It was so convenient sketching at Brennan’s. The light was good, the atmosphere full of energy, and we sat right near a water and condiments station so we could fill and empty our water containers a few feet from our table. Since it’s cafeteria style dining there was no waiter to care how long we sat there.
Dining alone, ink
Cathy suggested we do some contour drawing so I drew the condiments at the next table.
Condiments and Irish Coffee
I used to go to Brennan’s back in the 70s for their Irish Coffee (and for pitchers of beer with my women’s softball team after our games). Now that I’m not consuming sugar or much caffeine that wasn’t an option. But I did get a cup of decaf and it was worse than our office coffee so I figured I probably wasn’t missing much.
Couple talk
This couple was pretty good about moving between two poses. I found that if I just waited a bit they would return to the position I was drawing.
Really nerdy guys
These guys at the bar were soooo nerdy. The guy on the left was actually wearing orange pants.
This week we’re going to the Berkeley main library to draw.
This afternoon I went for a hike with Jessica and Mariah in perfect autumn weather and then J made tacos for dinner. After dinner Mariah (age 10) plopped her sketchbook, watercolor pencils, and Niji waterbrush on the table, pulled the bowl of fruit over in front of us and said “Let’s sketch.” How could I resist!
Mariah’s sketchbooks are such treasures. When we first started sketching together a couple years ago she preferred drawing from her imagination but now avidly draws what she sees too. Watching her abilities and understanding of what she sees grow is such a pleasure. Especially since she’s around the age when many girls stop drawing when they realize they can’t do it perfectly.
I also really admire how she has many pages of “just practicing” as she called them in her sketchbook (pages someone else might tear out thinking they were “failed” drawings). She doesn’t fear leaving them there or “wasting” the page. They’re just practice. Sometimes there are three pages in a row like that. No big deal. Such wisdom. I wanted to post her fruit sketch too but she turned the page while it was wet and it got all blurry. She just couldn’t wait to start the next sketch: the box of taco shells she said she really wanted to draw but didn’t know why.
I’ve managed to squeeze in a few other nothing-special sketches in the middle of a two-week, too-busy period (work, family, life!) and here they are:
Subway Ladies, ink and watercolor
Friday night my watercolor group came over and we painted together. I did a couple quick sketches of them while we sat around the table. Judith had a new shorter haircut.
Judith, ink in Niji waterbrush
Sharon worked in water-soluble oils instead of watercolor and somehow got yellow paint on the wall that wouldn’t come off until I tried my Magic Eraser and it came right off.
Sharon, ink in Niji waterbrush
We were all so tired after a long week but it was great to get together and paint. By request, I demonstrated how to get a good “bead” of juicy paint when making a flat wash and everyone took turns doing a few rows of the wash down the page. Together we created a really nice even page of purple.
A few more days of craziness and things start settling down again. Can’t wait!
Jana Bouc, Artist 