Hello Dalai!

Introducing my next portrait series subject...His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And, in honor of Mother's Day, I wanted to share a link to this great book. Check it out!

No. 8

Here is #8 in the series of portraits I drew as a tribute to Georgia O'Keeffe. This one is from a photo by Ansel Adams taken in 1937. It shows her with a man named Orville Cox (I didn't draw his features). I added an india ink wash to the background and over some of the darkest areas. I'll be giving her a rest for awhile and move onto another subject. I'd also like to experiment more with the india ink.

Canyon Road & Abiquiu

I've read that there are about 80 galleries on Canyon Road and another 120 sprinkled elsewhere around Santa Fe. You could see and buy 12th century Anasazi pottery, Tibetan Buddha sculptures, Contemporary art, Cowboy art and the mother load of turquoise jewelry.

I wandered into Ernesto Mayans Gallery at 601 Canyon Road to see the work of Natalie Goldberg, a writer who paints. Her work stand out for it's simplistic forms, attentive details and striking color. Natalie actually has the nerve to paint an adobe house blue! I had seen her work in her book, Living Color, and read how she began with a box of children's paints, the cheap kind that come 6 to a pack.

Her paintings make me smile. Maybe it's the vibrant color shouting out from the earth tones of the New Mexican landscape that attracted me at first. As I've seen more of her work either on her website or in Shambala Sun magazine, I am taken in by her keen observations of mundane things like a piece of pie or a chair. Her outdoor landscapes of trees and mountains are explosive with color and imagination.

So I was not disappointed when I saw her actual pieces. I was welcomed by Ernesto who left me alone to wander through the rooms filled to the brim with art. Natalie's work was displayed in a small room and I examined each painting to acquaint myself with the splashes of color and investigate the lines that tell stories as vivid as her memoirs.

I told Ernesto I was visiting and came specifically to see Natalie's work, but everything in his gallery drew me in. He offfered me a delicious chocolate cupcake that I couldn't resist and I knew I made a friend for life!

Later, I wrote in an email to him that I enjoyed my visit to his gallery because it was the least pretentious gallery I walked into. While I visited several others and saw a lot of decorative work, what I saw there showed what only could described as spirited.

Further along Canyon Road, you can see works of art imitating the "matron saint of New Mexican art", Georgia O'Keeffe. Well, it's no secret I'm a huge fan of her work. (read previous blog postings) I've been to the O'Keeffe museum many many times but on this trip, I wanted to get out in the landscape that she painted rather than take in the view in front of her canvases. So I paid a visit to Abiquiu.

Let me just preface my account of my visit to Abiquiu with this quote plastered on the wall of her museum: Where I was born and where and how I live is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest." Do you think she was telling me not to bother snooping around her property? You bettcha! But, I did anyway.

Anyone who admires O'Keeffe's work as much as I do, knows that you can't just show up in Abiquiu and walk around her place. Tours are arranged months in advance and maybe next time I'll do the "official" visit, but this time, I was on my own equipped with a guidebook titled: From Santa Fe to O'Keeffe Country: A one day journey through the soul of New Mexico by Barkin & Sinclaire.

Had I made this excursion while Miss O'Keeffe was still in residence, I am sure if she saw me peeking over her adobe wall to see her house, she would have verbally blasted me right back to my rental car. I am convinced that if I ever met the woman we would butt heads. She wasn't easy to get along with and any breach of her privacy meant that she would slam you good!

I was still determined to walk the walk! The turnoff at Bode's Store puts you right by the post office and around the curve to her backyard. I actually went passed her house and had to re-direct myself backwards because I thought it would be more remote than it actually was. Good thing it wasn't tourist season and tours weren't beginning until later in the week because no one was around except a few maintenance workers and they didn't scare me. I was careful not to enter private property, I just walked along the perimeter of her house. The view from her property was amazing and I stood there for awhile taking it all in so that the next time I stand before one of her paintings, I will make the connection that so moves me to be an artist. I get it! It's the moment of wonder mixed with the execution of discovery that makes artwork stir my soul. How wonderous!!

There's more but I'll save that for the next posting....

From my O'Keeffe drawing series

Georgia was photographed by her companion, Maria Chabot while they were on a painting expedition in the dessert . Imagine what it would be like to camp out in the areas surrounding Abiquiu, New Mexico in the early 1940's. In the book Full Bloom by Hunter D. Philip, she writes, " Chabot often wondered if people admiring O'Keeffe's serene and seemingly effortless pictures realized that the artist endured driving rainstorms and freezing winds to gain a more profound experience of the landscape."

I took more liberties with this drawing than previous ones. I departed from the original photo reference in some ways. The photo shows more of the diagonals of the tent in the background, but I chose to fill in the areas with dark tones. I was struck by the pose of the artist combing her hair and added more detail to the hair than was visible in the photo. I also played around with highlights on the legs to make the seated pose look more believable in the picture plane.

Just when I thought I had enough from this series, another photo of O'Keeffe grabbed my attention and I ran to the art supply store for some more good drawing paper. I'm on a mission.

O'Keeffe as Photographer

I don't know who took the picture of O'Keeffe that I used as a reference for this drawing. I had torn the image from a Texas Monthly magazine and I cropped all the information except that it was part of an ad for Austin Museum of Art in 1998. What I find intriguing about this picture is that it shows her as a photographer. O'Keeffe is so well known for her paintings of flowers and the Southwest taken from observation. Not much is written about her using photographs as reference for her artwork. As the wife of the famous photographer, Alfred Steiglitz, much is published about the photos he took of her and how they composed their works similarly; hers in paint, while his on film. She was nearly 60 when he died and then went on to live another 40 years.

As for my drawing progress, I am going to continue with more O'Keeffe inspired drawings. I finally found something that holds my interest and challenges me artistically. I don't know where it will take me. I've considered portraits of others and may take on other subjects once I feel I have exhausted all my O'Keeffe portraits.

The 5th finished drawing of O'Keeffe

Many of us stay busy inventing reasons not to create - we explain, whine and will not work because we are terrified of doing so. She was impatient with this. You do not wait for the perfect setting and mood to be artistic, you seize and breathe your air, lay guiltless unequivocal claim to the light, the space, the aloneness.

This is something about O'Keeffe that I wrote in a journal but I do not know where it came from. These words are a reminder that taking time to be creative requires boldness. Are you there yet?

Back to the drawing board

I've been enthralled with drawings inspired by the life of Georgia O'Keeffe. It's been forever since I've drawn with this much realism and I finally found a subject that interests me. I don't always draw from photographs. In fact, I hardly ever do. I tend to draw a lot more gesturely when I draw from life. Also, what I'm noticing is that when I'm drawing like this I go in "the zone" and it's like I'm meditating! I don't even play music; it's just me and the drawing and I shut out everything else. I'll have finished drawings to show very soon.

One Last Drawing - 2006

Here is my latest drawing. I'll be working in the studio during the holidays enjoying time off from school and away from the computer lab. I'll be back in 2007 with plenty more to share. See ya in 2007!

Walking with her chow

I've been looking for a common denominator in my work and I think I've found it. Sometimes things are right in front of your face and you fail to recognize them for what they are. I've been struggling with the idea that my work seems to be all over the place. Yet, I have maintained a strong conviction not to be led by styles or trends. Recently I've been to the Fine Arts museum twice and I stand before the O'Keeffe paintings soaking up all the color and imagery for all it's worth. I don't know precisely when her work began to pull me towards it, but I can say this: that it hasn't let up. I'm not in any way, shape or form comparing myself to the great O'Keeffe, but I have seen how color, simplicity, emotion and life show up on the page in front of me. Rather than try to explain what I'm thinking, I post this sketch. The weird thing is I saw the finished drawing in my mind's eye before I even started it.

Question: How does the work of your favorite artist inspire you?