Tag Archives: flowers

I Make Good on My Promises

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I finished the rose garden, but I plan on giving it a better name.  My thought is it’s either a  piece of genius, or a piece of fecal matter.  My good friend assures me that it is neither, but she really likes it.

So, here you go!  A drawing of a rose garden that my friend really likes.  As for me?  I’m a terrible judge of my just finished work, so I’ll have to get back to you on it.

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Am I getting loose or am I getting sloppy?  The last garden I drew in NYC, looked like this:

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I’ll be damned if I know.  I just know that if I try to draw something tightly again, it doesn’t seem to work.

Oh well, what next?

 

A Rose by Any Other Name

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Still looks good in a picture with a cat.

 

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Okay, enough about cats.  Do I hear a collective sigh of relief?

I’ve been working on Rose Garden.  I was working on the first version while tired and sick, and it came out awful. Put it away to look at later, maybe it would look better.  No, after time, it still looks awful.

So, I’ve started a new one.  I like it better than the first one, but it surprises me how it’s coming out.  How can that happen?  After all, I’m the one drawing it.

Drawing roses makes me start thinking about roses.  Some flowers are beautiful, but have no scent.  Some flowers, like honeysuckle, smell divine, but look like scraggly little waifs.

No so the rose.  It’s both gorgeous to the eyes, and the olfactory organs.

Its strength amazes me.  It grows and spreads easily, often crowding out other plants around it.  Its thorns protect it.

They start blooming in the early summer and keep going through fall.  In one case, on a fairly warm December 1, I found one blooming as if it were June.

So, though I love other flowers as well…….

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Just give me a rose, dammit!  Give me a rose.

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I Promise You a Rose Garden

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Spoiler Alert!  It will look something like this, but hopefully (there’s that word again, hopefully) much better.    This, of course, is the preliminary sketch,

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Speaking of roses, I just sent a batch of note cards to a long lost friend.  This of course which I know I have posted before.

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The detail and control I had in it, reminds me of the lyrics to the Bob Dylan song
“Oh, I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”.

Only, how do you explain everything that has happened in  your life for the past 30 years?  Especially, the tries I’ve made to make a living in art…..some well thought out schemes, some absolutely useless ideas.  Wow!  Have I ever tried.

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Commissions, portraits, merchandising, illustration…..and so on.  The idea of making art a product.

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I have come to the point, that I realize my life long ambition to be a rich, famous artist isn’t going to happen.  So, I have returned to drawing what I feel drawn to drawing (yeah, you read that right).  Thinking back on it, my own drawings are are what did me the most good in terms of money and ambition.

So, back to the drawing board I go.

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Forsooth, forsythia!

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I’ve lamented and moaned on how fast spring passes.  You’re probably sick of it, I’m sick of it, but I’m going to do it again.  Why?  Because it’s another spring, and by the time I draw the daffodils, the tulips are gone. Damn.

So this spring, I’m going to get away from my usual MO, and draw a few more spring pictures, although we’re quickly passing  into early summer.

So the drawing I just finished….

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Why the bicycle?   It’s just a great spot of color, which I needed there.  It also adds a carefree subject matter to the drawing.

I’ve had many people try to read my artwork, as they would a book full of meanings and symbols.  The truth is, I try to establish a mood, and the individual objects are just there because they add to it.  If there is any meaning coming from the objects, I’m not aware of them, except as the trickster of the subconscious mind may suggest.

In other words, stop trying to make it so hard, and just enjoy.

On another subject, in many apartment moves, I’ve lost or discarded a lot of artwork.  Many I still regret, but the moves were stressful (aren’t they always?)….so,  that’s that story.

One piece I was sure I lost was a drawing that was the first in colored pencil. It was one that I sill love, and feel is one of my best.  Low and behold!  As I was going through my artwork to show at an art fair, I found it. I still have it!  What is old, is new again.  It has on title (or symbolism for that matter).

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Hit the Road, Rox…..

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I’m really looking forward to Spring. I probably said that last year, and the year before…..but it bears repeating.  C’mon Spring.

I thought about it and I miss doing art fairs.  I managed to score a white tent on Ebay, and as time goes on find creatively inexpensive display items. i finally found a niche for a product that actually sells!  Hand drawn greeting cards.  I intended to start with an autumn holiday show,  but I saw an opportunity for a show on Mothers Day.

I started out doing winter seasonal cards, but have now switched over to spring/flower imagery.  The drawing above is a new example. Im a little rusty doing flowers. Ive got to get back up to speed.

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So,it may be a month early, but in my studio, it’s already Spring!

 

The Devil is in the Details

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My father was a detail man.  He was a commercial artist, and his specialty was filling in the designs on the fabric of shirts, pants, diamonds, and just about anything else that was advertised.  I can’t imagine how he had the patience to do such a thing, but, perhaps it’s just that it was income, and you do what you can do.

So, I think I’ve started channeling my father, the detail man.

I really, really used to think detail was boring.  I would do drawing with large flat spaces, and details, as a touch.  After all, that’s what I was taught was good composition.

I’ve switched to loving detail.

And letting the details lead the story…..

 

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Can you find the kitten?

So, at that point, I took a loose idea…..and just let the detail flow.

As my drawing progressed, I realized I enjoyed detail. No longer boring, just put on some music and dance. Or, in this case, detail, detail, detail.

 

More recently, I’ve kept spaces for detail.

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Yes, I filled around each clover blossom on this.  I didn’t mind it.  A few  years ago, it would have driven me out of my already somewhat insane mind.

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A few years ago, this is when I really details really took off…or dragged me down to earth as the case may be.  I wanted to make my artwork more painterly, but I was fighting, tooth and nail, against the medium,

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However, the details started sneaking in. Thanks, Dad.

So, I’ve taken a new direction, in my work.  Let the details rule! Or rock and roll, if you prefer.

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My motto in life has become, “Let It Flow”, both in my dealings with life, and in my artwork.

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