the view from here

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

Here are my US Presidents in cross-stitch thus far -- all 22 of them. I have about 2 or 3 that need to be photographed, and another 3 that are already drawn, graphed and waiting to be stitched. The portraits are arranged randomly.

Time for a POP QUIZ! See how many presidents you can identify. Don't feel bad if you don't recognize more than a few -- the likenesses are pretty solid but some presidents are pretty obscure -- through no fault of their own. I've included the key below. 

Once all the presidential cross-stitch are completed, I'm hoping to have kits available on my Etsy store. I'll probably start a new Etsy store as the stitchery doesn't really go with the stationery I'm hawking. More on that later.

Did somebody say "funnel"?

As a Graphic Design major, I was required to take Object Drawing as a core course. It was really quite different from the drawing courses I had taken during my freshman year where we drew mostly from nude models. In object drawing, we concentrated on manufactured items -- bottles, blocks, funnels, etc. -- and we all drew from a limited selection of objects. I remember this class had a slow, methodical, analytic pace. I was sometimes impatient to get on to the next more complex object but our teacher did a good job getting us to slow down, focus, and think about what we were drawing.

  

 

Sketching

 I'm trying to get into the habit of sketching. I carry a small sketch book and pen with me so I can get some sketching in while waiting for the bus, standing in line at the Post Office -- sitting in the subway in this instance. I drew these two Red Line passengers during the 15-20 minute ride from Downtown Boston to Harvard Square. These guys were such good sports for letting me draw them. I try to be discreet but after a while, my subjects get the feeling they're being watched. 

I'm noticing a lot of hesitation marks when I sketch. Maybe I'm just building up surfaces or maybe I'm just rusty. It will be interesting to see how my drawings change over time -- if they do change, that is. Only time (and drawing) will tell.

 

Here we are

Well it sure has been a while since the last post.  

I want to try something new. I thought I'd post one of my drawings every week. I've always enjoyed drawing so I thought I'd share some of my work. I've also been going through my files and have unearthed a few old chestnuts -- please don't mind the mixed metaphor.

I did this drawing in my sophomore year at RISD. I think I copied it from a newspaper clipping from the 1930s. It's graphite pencil on paper, measuring about 9 x 12 inches. 

When I went to RISD we used to have a room called the the Clipping File and it was a treasure trove of visual references clipped from newspapers and magazines. I'm trying to remember the organizational system the keepers of the clipping file employed but it's all a mystery now. I do remember the folks who worked there insisting on re-filing everything themselves -- they pretty much didn't trust us students to file our clippings back into the appropriate files. You could check out the clippings, much like a library book. And you returned it when you were done, or when it was due. 

Now we have Google Images. I harvest images from my searches -- I like to keep my own digital clipping file; nothing spectacular -- just a few folders containing images birds, hedgehogs, dogs, hamsters, sailboats and arrows. I do miss the Clipping File. Sometimes I would just walk in, stroll by a stack of hanging folders and start browsing. I never knew what was going to catch my fancy and spark my imagination.

"Hope is a thing with feathers"

I designed this card earlier this spring. I wasn't thinking of Emily Dickinson's poem. This is just an instance of a happy coincidence. I'd like to share the poem with you:

Hope     

Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul, 
And sings the tune--without the words, 
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 
And sore must be the storm 
That could abash the little bird 
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land, 
And on the strangest sea; 
Yet, never, in extremity, 
It asked a crumb of me.

--------------

We are certainly about to enter into the "chillest" of seasons. I'm going to try my best to let this "thing with feathers" keep me warm in the coming months and make sure that I am always straining to hear its tune despite the storms that are bound to ensue.

Illustration Friday: Enough

Fur: Enough. Folds: Enough. Cute: Enough. Love and Affection: Never Enough.

On a technical note, this pen and ink drawing was made by slowly building layers of cross-hatched lines. It's very easy to get carried away. The tough part is deciding when enough is enough.

Illustration Friday: Forgotten

This is Stu Flynn. He is in no way forgotten, but he certainly looks like he is desperately trying to remember something. Stu is, in fact, the unofficial mayor of 46 Waltham Street, a building housing a lot of artists' studios here in the South End. He patrols the first floor when he's not working at M. Flynn, where he's actually got quite the discerning eye for jewelry and handbags -- just one of the many reason the ladies love Stu Flynn.

Illustration Friday: Wrinkles

Oliver's wrinkles make him look perpetually a.) perplexed, b.) forlorn, c.) guilty or d.) all of the above.

This drawing is one a series of dog portraits I've been working on this year. This winter I started drawing dogs in pen and ink and found a way of drawing that makes the finished product look like an etching. On lighter colored dogs the effect looks almost like dry-point etching. I'll be using the drawings in a calendar that will be one of my many new product offerings at the National Stationery Show in May -- just a few weeks away.

I take my inspiration from the dogs in the my neighborhood -- any stroll in the dog parks looks like a Westminster Dog Show parade. I want to thank the dogs and their owners in Boston's South End and Jamaica Plain for their patience and forbearance.

Illustration Friday: Multiple

One way to understand an object you're drawing is to draw it from multiple points of view. From a purely analytic standpoint, you come to realize that complex objects can be broken down into simple components that come together in a fairly logical way. The class started with a really simple object -- a cube. Over the next 12 weeks we progressed from the cube to a cylinder, a wine bottle, a funnel, etc. Each time we drew the objects from different points of view, at the same time designing a pleasing composition. The class was a little dry for my liking but it's the equivalent of eating spinach and broccoli -- maybe it's not your favorite thing but it's certainly good for you.

Fifteen years later I was working with a photographer on a product shoot for one of my clients. I drew an open medicine cabinet full of toiletries and medication. It was a quick sketch just to show the photographer a general idea of the point of view and what my layout was going to look like. When the photographer and I spoke to finalize the details of the shoot, he mentioned how much he appreciated my drawing -- especially the attention to the single-point perspective I used to delineate the shelves. I have my drawing class to thank -- it was great to be able to draw a complex picture using a multiplicity of elements that I was able to put together in a logical fashion. More importantly, because of the intensity of the class, I was able to, years later, be able to capitalize on what I learned intuitively, like it was second nature.

Illustration Friday: Theory

My freshman year drawing instructor said to draw the model in a structural way -- showing the contours of an imagined armature. My biggest concern was to avoid a robotic look. Somehow I wound up with a drawing resembling a depiction of acupuncture theory (of which I knew almost next to nothing). I don't know much about traditional Chinese medicine but 1 billion Chinese can't be wrong, right?