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quick sketch after Erich Heckel’s “Wolken”

Day three hundred and nine: A very quick day trip back to the NY print fair brought me face to face with what might be my favorite German Expressionist woodcut. I’d never seen it before, but when I was going through a box of prints I immediately liked. By Erich Heckel, and titled “Wolken” (meaning “Clouds”), it depicts what appeared to me at first as an exploding volcano beyond a sea. Then I noticed a white bird in the upper center and fish-like creatures in the waves. Later I began to see that the whole “cloud” above the water seems to form a giant dragon, with its angry head to the right looming to the right. This sketch is a poor copy, is nowhere near as dynamic as the original, but it captures, I think, the general composition. With only a handful of known impressions, I’m unlikely to see this print again, except perhaps someday in a museum.

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2011 11 05 artist tribute
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study after Burgkmair’s etching

Day three hundred and eight: Looking again at early etchings, this sketch is based on a detail from one by Hans Burgkmair the Elder. As far as historians know he only made one etching around 1520 of a scene with Venus and Mercury. I saw an impression of the print at the fair yesterday, and another impression today in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The original steel plate Burgkmair etched is extant, and is conserved at The British Museum in London.

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2011 11 04 artist tribute
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NY print fair

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Day three hundred and seven: I made this sketch on my iPhone while riding the train from NYC to Philadelphia. I spent the entire day at the New York Print Fair, pouring over piles of prints in booths that look very much like this one. Prints on the walls, prints in boxes on tables, and even more prints under the tables. It was terrific fun chatting with dealers, seeing old friends, and meeting new ones. I have to run the PMA’s study room tomorrow, but I am thinkings about going back up on Saturday…

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2011 11 03 quick study Comments (0) Permalink

untitled (my brain hurts, but I have to sketch something)

Day three hundred and six: Today at work I was asked to track down the “precise title” of an artwork that has, for two decades, been titled “untitled.” A colleague and I joked how often we see artworks called “untitled” followed by parentheses and a descriptive title. So when, for lack of mental focus, I scrapped a sketch after a Hans Holbein drawing of a unicorn, and began mindlessly doodling with Caprica riding the thumb holding the digital pen, I knew exactly what to call this abstract muddle.

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2011 11 02 quick study Comments (0) Permalink

strange face after Dürer (with doodle landscape)

Day three hundred and five: Still looking at the same etching by Dürer, this peculiar, melancholy face appears near the upper right of the picture. What I am really fascinated by, however, is the tiny landscape Dürer scratched into farthest reaches of the corner. While it is not unusual to see a distant hill or cliff made from the barest of tiny lines in one of his engravings, I’ve never noticed one so geometric and hastily sketched. These two elements — the face and the landscape — are not next to each other in the actual print, but I set them together here as a study. I like the way the man appears to look at the landscape in my version, seemingly studying it much like I have been.

2011 11 01 artist tribute
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study after an etching by Albrecht Dürer

Day three hundred and four: I have a new favorite print by the 16th-century German printmaker, Albrecht Dürer. It’s an early etching, and one of the handful he made in what was, at the time, an entirely new print medium. I saw an impression of the untitled print for the first time at work today. The somewhat disjointed composition is unusual, with no apparent narrative or easily interpreted iconography. Perhaps Dürer was practicing his hand with an etching need, and experimenting with several figures on the plate. One face in the detail I’ve imitated here seems to hover in a black void with no body. Its ghoulish grimace and empty eyes — just above the man ripping at his own hair — seemed particularly appropriate for a Halloween sketch!

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2011 10 31 artist tribute
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study of a window

Day three hundred and three: When I look out the back window, I see another window across the alleyway. It’s not a stunning view of the skyline or a park, but I like the way it looks: the geometry of the panes, the bricks below, and the patterns of the weather-worn stucco.

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2011 10 30 quick study Comments (0) Permalink

study of a view in Padua, Italy (#2)


Day three hundred and two: Encouraged by the response I received for yesterday’s sketch, I decided to try the same scene in pastel. Ha! It took seemingly forever. Of course, since much of the complicated architecture is mirrored in the water, I had to make everything twice. And upside down. So in the end I rapidly filled in missing elements with a very sketchy hand. But at least this time I’ve captured a sense of the magical colors I saw in Padua exactly one year ago on October 29, 2010.

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2011 10 29 quick study Comments (0) Permalink

study of a view in Padua, Italy

Day three hundred and one: One year ago I was in Padua, Italy, and snapped a photograph of the Monastery of Santa Giustina and its reflection in a pool at the nearby park. For lack of energy at the end of a long week, I made only a rapid sketch of the scene. The original photo, taken just before sundown is simply lovely, and may be worth a more in depth attempt in color pastels at some point in the future.

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2011 10 28 quick study Comments (0) Permalink

night sky with milky way

Day three hundred: In the mood to explore conte crayon again this evening, it occurred to me that it might be a good medium to create a dynamic night sky. Black conte crayon naturally leaves little tiny spots of paper, which I thought might appear like stars. So, I found a photograph of the milky way, and started to see if I could recreate it. Admittedly, the conte crayon made a realistic representation of the stellar phenomenon extremely difficult. So I did my best to capture its mysterious effervescence, even if the stars didn’t end up in quite the right places.

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2011 10 27 quick study Comments (0) Permalink