Where I'm At

For years now, I've been getting older.

We're all going through it, right? Though before I turned 40, I didn't give it much thought. Now I get out my mirror for a self-portrait and have to decide how many wrinkles to include. How dark to make the darkness under my eyes.

Include it all, I say! Because aging is what I plan to keep doing, as long as possible.

Acceptance is one thing. But how can I embrace the fact of getting older? Well, one way is to look at this drawing I just did, look beyond the wrinkles and see an accomplished artist with a strong line and a strong sense of rendering. There's real feeling here, the result of years of honing my skill, through many hundreds of drawings. And I can only get better, as I continue to work on my art (and my writing.)

So is it aging or is in improving?
I guess it's all in how you decide to look at it.

OMG, my daughter can draw!

Madeline and I drew these cats. Two are copied (which makes us copycats) from Nick Bruel's (http://www.nickbruel.com/) wonderful Bad Kitty books. (and he is a very nice guy in addition to being such a great writer/illustrator, I know because I met him here in Asheville!)
She starred the ones she likes best. I like the two that seem to be sitting on top of each other best.
Those cats have attitude.

Bad cats are fun to draw. Playful cats are fun to draw. Curious kitties, fancy ones and very alert cats, like the ones Madeline drew here. These rather serious cats right here:

Fabulous!

Sometimes you have to wonder why you would draw anything but cats.

I'm just glad Madeline and I can be artists together.

Artist On Vacation

We were in Florida for a week. It was way too hot, of course, but thankfully I brought some drawing materials.

And I asked this fourteen-year-old girl, our friends' daughter, if she would pose for me. We sat in the SandBar at Club Med for over an hour. She seemed to like the completed drawing. And I got to draw someone other than myself.

A vacation from self-portraits!

I asked her if she read blogs. Yes, she said, mostly political ones.

Isn't that great?

So, go ahead, artists. Ask someone if you can draw them. They'll probably enjoy it. And you might just learn something new and unexpected about a person.

An Italian Journey

This is from 1999 and I think I was looking at Lucian Freud alot. I was also living in Brooklyn and visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, MOMA, all those amazing places that now seem mega-miles away.

I was probably ten years old or younger the first time I visited the Met. How lucky I was to see all those paintings by Van Gogh, Degas, Monet, El Greco, Matisse, and on and on and on. I remember seeing a Monet from across the room, how it glowed! Of course I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to make something that beautiful.

The good news is I'll be in NY in August for a visit. I will visit as many museums as I can and try to absorb it all. I just googled The Met and here's one of the exhibitions that will be up while I'm in NY:

An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo

Yeh, baby!

I'll be taking my Italian journey. I guess it's been my Italian journey all along.

Subway Drawing

I admit it. I miss New York. Yes I complained about the constant noise, nerve-jarring commotion, hectic pace and the subway.

What? I complained about the subway? Hard to believe. Because the subway was like one endless free figure drawing class. I'd steal glances or find people who were sleeping, reading or too spaced out/tired to notice. Or I'd just look at the whole car and assume an expression of someone who's attention was somewhere else, and try to draw the whole scene. There's so much going on in every car: musicians, poets, sleeper, dreamers, angry old people and crying babies. People from every corner of the world.

One time a young man approached me (and everyone's in their own private tiny cramped space on the subway and does not want to be approached--- there's probably at least one crazy person per subway car and you never know)

You an artist? he asked me.

Yes, I am. I said, hoping he wasn't going to yell at me for staring at his girlfriend or something.

Want to draw me?

Sure!

And there he is. Abe. 23 years old. February 14, 1998.

I drew him. He smiled. I offered to give him the drawing.

No, he said. You keep it.

Valentine's Day. I guess Abe wanted to give me a little something special. Thanks, Abe!