Maintenance

I'm switching admin privileges to the Google account associated with my business email and taking off my personal email.  But it's the same me. Hopefully I haven't caused any problems or confusion. Have a nice day!

-A.R.

St. George Google Doodle

It looks like St. George's Day gets the Google treatment:

Here's an article from The Independent: Google Doodle flies the flag with tribute to St George's Day 2013

Though the lettering is not, as the article claims, derived from the Bayeux Tapestry. Those are called historiated initials, and they are a feature of illuminated manuscripts.  You can see the tapestry for yourself:

An image that has been floating around the internet lately that really was created in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry would be this brilliant piece of Star Wars fan art:

link to original image: http://jibasse.deviantart.com/#/art/Nerdy-Bayeux-Tapestry-366253120?hf=1

So, as I was saying, Happy St. George's Day; and don't forget, a little bit of medieval cultural literacy goes a long way towards a proper understanding of internet humor.

Museums and Libraries Online

If you're a busy mom like me, and only have time for research while your children are sleeping, there are great resources out there for exploring the great art museums and libraries of the world. Here are two I've been playing with this week:

Digital Public Library of America

Google Art Project

Next week I'll post some of the images I've compiled from these sources. For now, check out the Sobieski Book of Hours (1420-1425) http://g.co/artproject/dxec

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Well, that was a pretty ominous last post!  Here we are almost a year later and I haven't written a single blog entry. I went into labor a few hours after Easter dinner and had a brand new baby boy by morning of the next day! Then I was hospitalized with a serious infection for 2 weeks. After many antibiotics, and many prayers (including the anointing of the sick from our priest), I got to come home and my dear husband helped me work my way back up to caring for our two little ones. So, I'm not dead, just insanely busy and grateful for every moment of it!

I'm especially grateful to the ladies who write the blog Like Mother, Like Daughter for sharing their insights about life which helped me think through the priorities and logistics of caring for my growing family this year. I thought I'd kick off my return to blogging by jumping into their blog link-up. Their weekly theme is called {pretty, happy, funny, real}, which is a great way to categorize what I've been up to lately...

Pretty:

Needless to say, my hospital experience was pretty eye-opening. I realized that I have a vocation to fulfill, and first and foremost it is not as an artist, but as a wife and mother. Since my recovery, I've been making a special effort, in addition to the normal household tasks (which seem to require a superhuman amount of strength some days), to build our family culture.

We celebrated the Feast of St. Joseph this week for the first time. I decorated the table and made pasta e fagioli- a good Lenten recipe from an Italian friend. All of the beautiful things on our table were generous gifts from friends over the years, including the real lily plant that we happened to have on hand! St. Joseph is traditionally shown holding a staff blooming lilies.

Happy:



Happy St. Patrick's Day! Which we also celebrated this week since I'm really part Irish and not any Italian. This is the pen and ink drawing of St. Patrick I made last year. I also filled small biodegradable planting pots with a little of the clover I've been growing on my balcony over the winter. I had my daughter give one to her friend next door.

This baby loves books, and that makes both of us happy!

Funny:

Two children in a box. What more is there to say about that?

Our checklist for which objects sink or float in water. I've started doing some homeschool activities with my preschool age daughter and having a lot of fun in the process.

Real:

Some days are difficult, like waking up several times in the night with a baby, and then waking up again before dawn because he's wide awake now and ready to start the day. But facing that hard reality and forcing myself out of bed, I was greeted with the beautiful cosmic reality of the planet Venus rising over Seattle just before the Sun. (That single large star low in the sky).

Here is another photograph of the night sky from our summer camping trip. I just got these photos recently because I do these the old fashioned way with an SLR on slide film, and it takes me months to work my way through the roll. There's nothing like being out in nature to clear the mind, especially contemplating the stars at night. This is a long exposure that shows how the stars appear to move over time because of the Earth's rotation.

So there you have it. I've given birth, contemplated my mortality, helped children and plants to grow, celebrated feasts and changing seasons, and observed the procession of the heavens. A painfully beautiful year full of God's grace and providence.

Good Friday

Christ on the Cross by St. Alphonsus de Liguori

Raphael's Crucifixion

Since it's Lent, I'll draw your attention to a wonderful article on Raphael's Crucifixion and the Mass by David Clayton, featured on New Liturgical Movement: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2012/03/mass-portrayed-in-raphaels-crucifixion.html

The only thing I have to add is what one of my priests mentioned recently in a lecture about the Tridentine Mass. There are 3 spiritual levels to this painting, which recalls the 3 steps the priest ascends to the altar

My apologies for lack of posts lately. I'm about to have a baby any day now so I've been conserving my energy and activities.  I have managed to complete one sample illustration to be submitted to publishers with a friend's manuscript for a children's book on the Parables.  Hopefully I'll be able to post it in the future.

Figure Drawing Resources

Drawing and painting skills used to be passed down from master to apprentice throughout the centuries. Students were thoroughly trained by drawing first from plaster casts and sculptures, next by copying the works of great masters, and finally moving to the live model. Today's art students are hard pressed to find a school that will teach good foundational skills before expecting them to churn out original concepts. But, for a person with a mind to learn the skills of the great masters, there are great resources out there:

1) Take a class at an atelier!  If you're lucky enough to live in or near a major city, chances are you live near a workshop taught by one of the rare few descendants of the atelier/academy system. Nothing beats experience with a live model and a live instructor that can point out how to improve your work during the process. There is a list of recommended ateliers, schools, and classes at the Art Renewal Center website: http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/ateliers.php
I've had a very good experience taking a couple of classes at Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, WA.  This school is affiliated with the Aristides Classical Atelier.  (Also, any book by Juliette Aristides is a great read.)

2) Learn some anatomy! As wonderful as it is to be able to take a good figure drawing class, sometimes the vocabulary words can come flying fast and furious at a time when you're trying to use the right side of your brain for visual problem solving.  It's really helpful to supplement drawing experience with good old-fasioned memorization of important muscle groups and bone structures.  Parts of the skeleton stick out as permanent "landmarks" on the body which can help you understand the weight and motion of the body and how to place other related features.
If you want to learn anatomy the way the great masters did, pick up a copy of "Albinus on Anatomy" co-authored by Robert Beverly Hale.  It's full of 18th century anatomical engravings. Also highly recommended is "Artistic Anatomy" by Dr. Paul Richer, translated by Robert Beverly Hale, one of the best anatomy resources available to 19th century artists.

3) Take lessons from great masters in books!  One of the important components of a classical drawing education is making master copies...that is, copying the works of great masters to understand how they saw things and solved problems.  A great way to do this is to grab a sketch book and an oversize library book and have at it.  If you want to save yourself some research time, find a copy of "Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters" by Hale (again).  Another very popular resource that many artists studied during the academic period is the Charles Bargue Drawing Course. Bargue's course involves copying various exercises and drawings.  I did a few for homework in my portrait drawing class and I found it to be a lot of fun!  A Bargue book can be pretty expensive, but I've seen a few pdf versions floating around on the web for free (which I don't feel bad about since Bargue has been dead for more than a century).  I'm not responsible for any computer virus you may accidentally download; just remember to use a good virus scanner on the file before opening it just in case.

4) Go to a museum! If possible, bring your sketchbook and and make master copies there.

5) Get good at finding used books!  As a busy mom, my schedule doesn't permit me the leisure time to go to an art museum by myself during the day to spend time sketching, so I'm mostly dependent on methods 2 and 3.  To cope with the fact that art books are usually crazy expensive I try to exercise some creativity:

a) I take regular trips to the library with my toddler, so I'm able to check out one or two books (I can't carry too many of the kind I need at once) and then we go have "story time" in the children's section.  Even better than scouring the random selection on the shelves, if your local library is connected to a city-wide system, figure out how to request specific books from other branches! I found a lot of great M.C. Escher books that way.  The best part about this is that you can give the books back when you're done so they don't just take up space.  It is handy to have a few reference books at home permanently though, in which case...

b) I used to live near a used book store that kept a great stock of art books for very inexpensive. I like paying less than $10 for something that would cost $50+ on Amazon while supporting a local business.

c) Sometimes I scan the book sections in my local thrift stores.  I found a copy of Hale's "Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters" for $6 at Goodwill. It smelled like somebody's basement at first, but was otherwise very usable.  It was a great find for my reference collection.

d) I have an Amazon wish list, so that when relatives ask me what they ought to get me for Christmas or birthdays, I can direct them to books that would be very useful for me.

Here's a list of the books on Amazon.com in case you want to skim the preview pages, read reviews, and add them to your list:

Albinus on Anatomy
Artistic Anatomy
Charles Bargue and Jean-Leon Gerome: Drawing Course
Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters
Lessons in Classical Drawing: Essential Techniques from Inside the Atelier

Advent

I hope everyone is having a blessed Advent season.

Here's another photo of the advent wreath I put together for my family:

More blog entries to follow soon, I promise!

Rainy Day

In Seattle, one must maximize the amount of outdoor time during clear weather. During the past few days of clear weather, I was able to spot Jupiter through a telescope, use up the last of my roll of film on the night sky, and take my toddler for a walk on the beach to play with the sand and look at birds.

Now it's rainy again, and I'm waiting for my film to be developed so I can determine from my notes which exposure times work the best.  In the meantime I've taken my astronomy book back to the library and exchanged it for one on calculus. There is also very comfortable seating in the children's section where I read several stories to my little girl who adores books.  She looked very adorable carrying a calculus book up to the checkout.

One night a week my very supportive husband makes it home by 6 so I can have the whole evening to myself for art projects.  I'm currently working on a drawing involving more saints and I will post it as soon as I'm finished.

When that is complete, I plan to update my Zazzle store!

Astrophotography

I've started dabbling in astrophotography (taking picture of stars and other objects in the night sky).  Pictures of the night sky awe me like like nothing else outside of the liturgy.  I realized recently that I have the bare minimum equipment necessary (SLR camera, tripod, cable release) so I gave it a shot using the last of a roll of old low quality film:

This is the "Big Dipper" of the constellation Ursa Major. Not bad for the film I was using and the light pollution from the apartment building across the street.  I currently have a roll of Fuji Provia slide film in my camera, and I can't wait to see the most recent exposures. I'm experimenting with leaving the shutter open for progressively longer periods of time to see if I can capture the rotation of the stars relative to Earth.

Medieval universities taught the "seven liberal arts".  First, the trivium: grammar, logic and rhetoric. Then the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. It's a little peculiar to our notion of liberal arts today; notice that 3 of these subjects are math related, one is a science, and one is an art, whereas today we tend to think of the humanities.  But the point is, this curriculum was designed to teach critical thinking skills. If a person could complete all of this, then they would finally be qualified to start learning philosophy.

Just think of how much better educated we would all be if we were grounded in these subjects. Instead of being taught what to think, for example, by a professor pontificating about his own pet theories that he expects everyone to accept unquestioningly, what if we learned how to think by making observations on a subject based on evidence, thinking logically and critically about what other people have to say on the topic, and learning to formulate a logically coherent and articulate response?

Anyhow, sometimes my husband and I strongly consider homeschooling our kids.  We like the idea of being free to give our children a formation in how to think instead of what to think; being able to teach them about things that are worthwhile and interesting, and being able to keep them engaged and active on their own level according to their own interests so that they never stop loving to learn.

I only have a few months before our second baby is born, so I'm aware of the need to enrich myself as much as possible so that I can invest as much as possible in our kids.  I've been watching videos on calculus and complex geometry and listening to a lecture on music from The Teaching Company.  So I thought, hey might as well add in some amateur astronomy while I'm at it.  My own personal quadrivium studies at home! I currently have a library book checked out called "The Star Guide" by Robin Kerrod, and it even comes with a planisphere (rotating star map). It's fun and reminds me how much I loved reading about astronomy as a kid.  I'm really looking forward to sharing things like this some day with my toddler daughter and whoever this new baby is!

St. Francis, St. Patrick, St. Thomas Aquinas

Hello again! I recently had the chance to make good scans of some pen and ink projects I completed over the past few months.

Here's a "master copy" of El Greco's St. Francis Recieving the Stigmata. I used pen and ink plus ink wash:

Here is the completed St. Patrick drawing. I used cotton vellum paper to trace up the celtic knot border, pencil drawing of St. Pat, and text and make them one finished image:

 

And finally, here is St. Thomas Aquinas, the same as before, but a better quality scan:

They are all formatted to the same size so that I can add them easily to my portfolio website the next time I make updates.

Portrait Drawing

It's been a busy few weeks! Here are the results of a 5-week portrait drawing class that I just completed at Gage Academy of Art.  We learned a lot about anatomy and proportion. Each pose was 2-3 hours long. I used charcoal pencil for the first two and pencil for the rest.

My skills really improved with each class. We also had to draw a self portrait each week for homework, and this is the one that turned out the best:

Gregorian Chant

It's a rainy, cold, gloomy day here. People are even wearing coats outside in July.

I'm inside with a cup of tea, a blanket, and some lovely Gregorian Chant:



I've been very busy taking a portrait drawing workshop. It's only one evening a week for 5 weeks, but the homework is pretty intense and takes up my usual free time. Once I'm done I'll be able to post pictures so you can see my progress.

WikiPaintings

I was using both Google and Bing to search for images for another project, and I accidentally discovered WikiPaintings.org  a beta Wikipedia of sorts containing images of famous public domain paintings, each available at various resolutions.  I was immediately able to find some great International Gothic and Renaissance art under the Christianity section. For example, Christ Handing the Keys to St. Peter, painted by Pietro Perugino:

St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata

I'm doing a little research for a drawing I'd like to make of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. I'm trying to see if there's a traditionally accepted iconography...figures, objects, postures, symbols, etc. that help tell the story, teach sound doctrine, and are consistent throughout Catholic art.

I came across three examples by three artists that I very much enjoy. Going chronologically we have...

 Giotto (c. 1295-1300, Italian)

Van Eyck (c. 1430-1432, Netherlands)

El Greco (c. 1585-1590)

In each, there are definitely similarities. St. Francis wears the Franciscan habit of course, he is generally kneeling, displays Christ's wounds in his own praying hands, and is confronted by a vision of a 6-winged seraph bearing a crucifix.

The differences are striking as well.  Giotto is painting during the Gothic era, and his image bears a Byzantine influence common to Italian painting at that time. St. Francis and Christ look almost like icons against a guilded background. But the figures move in space, and there is a suggestion of landscape.  Jan Van Eyck's work exists on the border of High Gothic and the Northern Renaissance. The folds in the saint's habit are magnificently angular and stylized, and the proportions of the figure are a bit awkward, but everything is rendered in crisp, exact detail.  

While Giotto's Francis has his arms spread wide with a bold desire to embrace Christ who is nearly swooping down on him, Van Eyck's Francis holds his hands in a more calm, private gesture. The primary reality is the world around him, and Christ seems by comparison very small and almost out of place.  However realistic, his work is still symbolic, using imagery that suggests Christ's suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane.

El Greco's Francis seems to float in a darkened world. The reality of heaven breaks in upon the darkness and pours light over Francis who greets his Lord with a devoted expression. Art historians argue over whether El Greco's works display a bit of Byzantine influence as well, but we do clearly see a Mannerist influence in his elongated figures and the overall ambiance is definitely Baroque; the style of the Counter-Reformation.

From this exercise I can get a better idea of what details are essential to illustrating this episode in St. Francis' life, and what different emphases and emotional responses can be communicated through different styles.  Though I've normally a big fan of Van Eyck, I think his version is the weakest.  I love Giotto's idea of St. Francis embracing his wounds with wide open arms, and practically getting bowled over while being zapped with heavenly light.  It really gets close to the spirit of that great saint and his radical love for Christ.  I also love El Greco's dramatic rendering...here I think we get closest to the nature of St. Francis' vision. The world melts away and he is entranced by the Lord.