AFTER THE WORKSHOP

Today was filled with last minute preparations before we leave early tomorrow morning, so there was no time to paint or draw but I did receive a wonderful e-mail from Kate Cissell who attended the Littleton, CO. workshop. Here's what she wrote:

"Myrna, Hurrah! I finally finished my painting of Bill a couple weeks ago. Here're shots of it at the end of the June workshop in Littleton and the finished version. I love how it turned out. You got me to step out of my comfort zone with great results. Thank you!"

Great Job, Kate!

This is the last post until next Sunday. Here are the final words of wisdom from Bruce Mau to inspire you through the week. You will notice breaks in the sequencing of numbers. That's because I have edited the material to be relevant to us.


11. Harvest ideas. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life.
12. Keep moving. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.


17. ____________________. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.


20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.


21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.


22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."


28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.


29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

LATEST DRAWING MARATHON RESULTS

Today was another drawing marathon. I had to miss the morning session but made it to the afternoon one. Too bad! The models for the morning were two of my favorites. In all the years I have done life drawing, I don't think I fully appreciated a good model until this afternoon. It's too bad it takes a negative experience to contrast with a good or great one to wake me up to the extraordinary talent it takes to be a good model. I didn't realize what creativity it takes to invent lots of interesting and varied poses not to mention strength and focus. None of that was in evidence this afternoon. The model yawned through the entire afternoon and her lack of energy infected the room. The gentleman was much more accomplished but tended to just do variations on the same pose. Anyway, it was good to be drawing from life. It's a very different experience than working from photo references and I might try going to the Tuesday night weekly session more often.

I kept switching materials for drawing today, trying to get excited about what I was doing. I tried a new combination on Tyvek which I think has some possibilities. I worked some nupastels into the wet wash and they worked very well. Above are the best of today's session.

MORE WISDOM:

7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.



8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.



9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

SERENDIPITY!

In between laundry, preparing my share of the Passover meal (soup, 20 matzah balls and 2 cakes that look like bricks to build a pyramid!!) I found some time to paint. SERENDIPITY! I managed to incorporate all the elements I most love into one painting. Texture...line...color...and a blend of abstract and realism. Unfortunately, this painting is only 10 x 14. I will try to do a full sheet of watercolor in this technique but you never know if the same magic will happen.

I have been rescuing pieces of used watercolor paper by applying gesso over the dreadful paintings and then taking wax paper and placing it on top of the wet gesso and running a brayer over the paper, then lifting it off. I decided to take the messy wax paper and press it down on another useless painting and deposit the gesso that was on the wax paper to it. I did this a number of times until I was satisfied with the balance of gesso blobs to leftover painting showing through. Today I decided to paint on this surface. I drew my "guy" on with a Pitt pen in Sanquine and then used Hydrus liquid watercolor by Dr. Ph. Martin. I must try this technique again as I just loved the results. Fortunately, I have an endless supply of used watercolor paper to play with.

As promised, more wisdom from Bruce ( I don't know him but I feel we are now on a first name basis)

5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.



6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

GRAPHITE SKETCH plus MORE WORDS OF WISDOM

This is a sketch I did in my new sketchbook. It took me several tries to get the posture right. A simple mechanical pencil is one of my favorite drawing tools. I love never having to sharpen the lead.

I spent a little time today preparing more watercolor paper covering up unsuccessful paintings with textured gesso. I hope to be able to do a little more painting before I leave on Tuesday for New York. I have spent quite a bit of time planning my itinerary. There are so many fantastic museums so I have to decide which ones to visit this time. I have been to the Guggenheim (which I think is such a marvel of architecture) so this time I plan to go to the Neue Museum to see the Klimt painting of Adele Bloch Bauer, The Whitney Museum ( I believe the Biennial is there now) and the Museum of Modern Art. The Metropolitan is too huge to tackle this time. Ellis Island was closed when last we were in New York but luckily we were able to climb up into the Crown of the Statue of Liberty. Now you can only go as far as the base. They may never open up the staircase inside again. We have 3 days to see the sights of the city. It was 45 years ago we spent a year living in Manhattan. I couldn't wait to leave. Now, I can't wait to go back!...but a few days is plenty.

More words of wisdom from Bruce Mau:

3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there. 



4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.


WORDS OF WISDOM, ONE DAY AT A TIME!

I spent some time today working on this painting. I wanted to finish it and move on. The surface is so liftable that it is easy to lose something you like while trying to correct something you don't. I had to really analyze each area I was contemplating changing and decide it it was important enough to risk the change. I hate when paintings become "precious" because you lose the fearless attitude of "go for it". It still bothers me that the face seems slightly skewed but I don't want to go any farther with this one. I learned a lot in the process and want to continue exploring painting on this surface. I have posted the original version and then the corrected version. It's truly amazing that one can make this much change in a watercolor.

There are people who express themselves with words that say what I feel and think so much better than I ever could. In my wanderings around the internet, I find some of these great bits of wisdom and save them in a file. I would like to share the "Incomplete Manifesto" by Bruce Mau. Who is Bruce Mau? I have no idea, but I like what he has to say. The Manifesto is quite long, so I shall post a little each day.

"1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them."