Life without a car

I got a thumb’s up on the start of my cast drawing. That really puts wind in my sails.

But today, let me tell a bit about life without a car in small town America.

First, people are incredibly kind and generous for the less fortunate. That would be me without a car. Rides to the grocery. A trip to the fabric store. Wonderful. However, with gas prices soaring, kind and generous only goes so far. Add time to that and I can hear some think I should solve my own problems. I think so, too.

So a couple of days ago, I went with a local store owner to his house and drove his mutt of a car back to my apartment. It would not go over 25 mph so, let’s think about getting a transmission. Finding someone to work on this car, this vintage, and obviously bionic, having had many transplants for original organs…not so easy. So I decided not to buy this great girl.

But that aside, the car is now a problem. And that is the point of this monologue. Cars give as many headaches as they cure. Now, the car is parked by my apartment and the landlord wants it moved. Instead of solving my grocery list, it has become my list.

The good of this “should I buy a car” exercise is that it forced me to look at what is the real challenge here. Owning a car is not necessary, even in a town with no public transportation. Walking is healthy and lots less expensive than a treadmill at a gym.

So, my challenge is not how to afford a car but having to reinvent how to get groceries every time I run out of something. Now that I have named my challenge–an easy button for grocery shopping–I can really take action. There are many ways to solve this. I haven’t settled on what I will do yet. But what I know for sure is that buying a car is only one of many ways to deal with getting somewhere.

Namaste, y’all, Wilder

Jumping into Casting

Cast drawing: small sketches first. Getting to know the angles. Thinking hugs and kisses–you know, forms and angles. I naturally draw small so small was easy for these. Turning the cast to the light and way from the light changes the look of it in interesting ways. Other’s drawings of the Homer cast looked sad or even demented to me. Maybe he was by the time this sculpture of him was done, but I bet not. So I looked for expression as well as form and angles. The position I like is a near profile pointing into the light. It looks to me as if he is interested or about to speak. After all, we have much to say to each other.

Actually, I have no idea why I have to make things difficult for myself. I could just have chosen the easy button and done the pose others have done. Sigh.

Yesterday I started the first full sized drawing of the Homer cast. If I don’t loose weight from this it won’t be Homer’s fault. Back up to see both paper and cast, forward to mark the paper and back again. Measure, mark, measure, mark. Since agonizing over the Bargue drawing of Homer and now the cast means I’ll have to marry him when this is done, I guess this is practice for our wedding dance. Boogie on.

I will let you know if cast drawing turns out to be the next weight loss plan. Look for me on Oprah!

On another subject, last week, I showed a drawing I did in portrait class (live model) to an instructor. The critique was rather cool. OK, she said, but not “art” yet….Then she said: If you’re interested in portrait, I have a skull if you want to do a crochet of it. “What next,” I thought, “She wants me to knit a skull?”

It turn out that Ecorche (a-cor-shay) is the name of a the very old practice of making a model of bones and muscles in clay. Lots online to see if you are interested. I’ve also been to see two different “Bodies” exhibits and found them facinating. God’s Ecorche. To see what is under the skin, all things in place, gives a very different understanding of the body. So. Ecorche I shall.

Meantime, I am hunting through boxes for the duck skull I found when living in Florida and drawing sketches of the squirrel one in the Ecorche room at the studio.

All along the way, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing but just keep going. But a few ah ha moments are like cheese in the maze. For instance, the whole group met at a small museum one afternoon last week. As techniques and styles were pointed out and compared, I understood. It is so easy to look at something done by a master looking so simple, it is another to go do it. So just understanding the compare and contrast conversation was “cheese.”

Many of you have heard me say that the light reveals the object and also that the object reveals the light. Now, the objects I draw have also become my teachers. Not so bad to have Homer as a teacher. So tomorrow, back to the studio. “Did you miss me, darlin’ Homer?”

Namaste, y’all.

Wilder

Cast Drawing

A short note to get down my first impression of working on a cast drawing in the school studio. I was given “Homer” to do. I finished the Bargue drawing of Homer in May so much looks familiar. My first Ah Ha was how relevant all that struggle with that drawing is.

Yesterday afternoon, I set up an easel and cheap paper to make sketches of Homer. The task is to find a position under the light that is interesting and that I want to use. It requires all the lessons learned in the Tonal studies and Bargue drawings. I call it hugs and kisses. Tonals use underlying geometry, edges, values and seeing things in 3D or “round.” Bargue’s keep you searching for line, large connections that you can connect, so angles and lines: OOOXXX.

Even though the sketches are big picture ideas, it made me pay attention to everything at once and is great practice putting it all together.

As I was getting a critique, I observed that even as I turned the cast, I found lines that connected features and shadow points. I expected the instructor to talk about Greek sculptors. Instead she said: that’s how the body is made. Ah Ha. That is why, yesterday morning, on my first live figure drawing, I found those connections. Wow. Divine.

The other new assignment is color studies. Like the tonals but in color. I haven’t started that. It should be a nice foil for the cast drawing.

Today, I promise myself I will quit holding my breath. By yesterday late afternoon, I had a pounding headache. Oxygen deprivation by my own hand. Deep breaths everybody. Deep breaths.

Namaste, Wilder