Happy New Year from the Foxes

Posted on by January 2, 2021
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Happy New Year, everyone!!
This is a print of a woodcut by Utagawa Hiroshige that depicts the New Years Eve Journey of the Foxes to the Changing Tree.
I like it so much! The foxes are carrying foxfires (magical, not actual fires) along the way. The Met says “the foxes have set a number of kitsunebi (foxfires), which farmers count to predict the upcoming rice harvest.” You can see in the background hundreds of foxes progressing with their magical fires to the old tree through the fields–so, a good harvest on the horizon!

I know that in Japanese folklore, foxes are able to transform, to magically shape shift to make use of what is around them.

So…for 2021, I wish for all of us some magical and useful metamorphoses, and a good harvest on the horizon!

Ms. Seitner’s First Grade Classes

Posted on by December 16, 2020
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I was so happy to be a Zoom guest in Ms. Seitner’s first grade classes at Léman Manhattan Preparatory School this morning! We talked about how books are made, from idea to a printed and bound book, and then we all drew crows. The crows were so spectacular, I wanted to share them–even the TNT and missile truck with a bird in peril on top of it!
The children asked excellent questions, and we got to talk about how a combination of hard work, persistence and PLAY were crucial for thinking of and making a children’s book.
#crowmadeafriend #holidayhouse #crows #rainbowcrow

Round Inkblots and Birmingham Pen Co. Ink

Posted on by November 30, 2020
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After teaching my inkblot class at the Creative Center’s Creative Aging Conference http://www.thecreativecenter.org/tcc/training_institute/training_institute/ on November 13, 2020, I was so inspired by what the participants brought to the inkblot table that I spent the whole next day making inkblots. I made round ones…because. To make inkblots in a circle, fold and unfold your paper (see below about suitable paper), then place your compass point on the fold, approximately halfway down the fold, and make a light pencil circle. You can also draw around a round plate or lid, placing it so the fold line goes down the center of the plate (you can eyeball this, but try to get pretty close). Then drip ink and water within the circle: drip around the inside edge of the line, drip a bit in the center. Then fold your paper, and carefully smooth around the edge of the circle–you can see through the paper a little as you squish and smooth the ink. And voila! a host of inkblot planets or mandalas to draw into, admire, contemplate, collage into.

The most entrancing part of this whole inkblot experience is that I treated myself to a selection of Birmingham Pen Company inks. They are fantastic, seductive, wonderfully rich, high quality inks. They didn’t ask me to write this, I just felt like I should share this as an inkblot aficionado. For these inkblots, I used their colors Arugula, Gerbera, Aluminum Oxide, Locomotive, Celestial Blue, Daisy Lace and Polar Bear. I love the names, but I particularly love the complexity of the dark colors Locomotive and Aluminum Oxide. Gorgeous. #birminghampen #birminghampencompany

Paper suitable for inkblots: These inkblots were made on Rives BFK, which is a medium weight printmaking paper. You can also make them on lighter weight drawing and printmaking papers such as what is in a Strathmore drawing pad. Maybe the best way to explain what paper to use is to say what NOT to use. Construction paper, manila paper, copier or printer paper, rice paper, sumi paper and newsprint are NOT suitable for use as they are too thin or too fibrous and will just be frustrating.

You can buy a copy of my book INKBLOT: Drip, Splat and Squish Your Way to Creativity at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Independent Bookstores.

Creative Aging Conference 2020: Remote!

Posted on by November 30, 2020
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The Creative Center at University Settlement hosts a conference on Creative Aging every year for artists who work or want to work with our honored elders, as well as administrators, artistic directors, and programming directors of various institutions. To read more about that, click here: http://www.thecreativecenter.org/tcc/training_institute/training_institute/  We had originally been scheduled to be live at University Settlement on Eldridge Street in March, but then–you know what happened. So we rescheduled for November, and Creative Aging 2020 was actually awesome.Thank you to my wonderful pal Robin Glazer for inviting me again and Sophia Heinecke for organizing and facilitating everything so effortlessly-seeming.

Conference attendees participated remotely from all over the world. They were generous, thoughtful, fun, deep thinking. I always learn so much from these sessions, but somehow the intimacy of this setting (I didn’t know Zoom could be intimate) made the experience even sweeter.

I took these screen shots of some of the inkblots made by participants. Aren’t they wonderful? I wish I had taken a picture of all of them, but they flipped by too fast, and I confess I was just looking and admiring:

I don’t know who did this raccoon! Their name did not appear in the lower right hand corner of their Hollywood Squares window, but I LOVE it.

Emerson Chang did this one. I think it looks like a flying squirrel or a biology class frog.

Cecilia Ines Tavarez did this wonderful elephant, and introduced me to the idea of painting into the inkblot instead of always drawing into them with colored pencils. Beautiful.

It doesn’t look that messy here–but it WAS.

Just a few of the many round inkblots I made. I drew a circle with my compass, and put the ink and water kind of within the circle. If a little went outside the line, I counted myself lucky. 🙂

I was so inspired by all that we did and talked about that instead of cleaning up my post-zoom-class-messy studio, I made inkblots. Round ones. LOTS of them! More about that in the next post.

INKBLOT: Drip, Splat and Squish Your Way to Creativity can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Independent Bookstores.

Cliffdale Farm and the Deer

Posted on by November 30, 2020
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These are terrible times. People are struggling to live, to work and put food on the table. When I walk down to the farmers market by Columbia Presbyterian hospital, I walk by two food banks providing fruit, vegetables and canned goods to a line of waiting people. They were not there before the pandemic.

Our beautiful country is divided, with little hope it seems of uniting. Friends and families are separated not only from the pandemic but because they can no longer talk about the news of the day.

However, the seasons proceed apace, and stun us all with their beauty, no matter what our political affiliations are. Here I am at Cliffdale Farm (a part of the Teatown park complex), walking and looking at fall color. I have been meditating on the idea of positive thinking, how a day can change its colors depending on what I have in MY head.

On this walk, I was walking one way on the long loop while Daniel ran the other way. I was attempting not to get lost (I have a wander-y mind), when just past this field, a young buck deer stood in the path in front of me. He stared at me, turned silently and slowly, and then looked back at me over his shoulder…”come”…and I followed a little bit, holding my breath. He walked a bit more, lifting his white plume of a tail slightly, then dropping it and turning to look at me again. His eyes were so large. I went further down the little wooded path. I followed along after him for a few minutes until he trotted quickly off and I realized I didn’t recognize the path. I was lost! The deer had led me astray–or did I lead me astray? Anyway, I laughed out loud in the woods with no one to hear me but the birds, and retraced my steps to the field that I recognized and went on my way. I am not sure there is a lesson here, and I don’t want to sound too wifty, but I felt like the universe had put that deer in my way to teach me something. When I figure out what it is, I’ll let you know. 🙂

The Importance of the Studio in a Global Pandemic

Posted on by September 29, 2020
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This unprecedented pandemic has made our interior spaces really important. I have been so grateful that my studio is now in my home. If my studio was still on Warren Street or Vestry Street, I would not have gotten to go there very much after everything shut down in March. So here is where I have spent hours and hours in the past months–and it has been really fun, I will admit. But only when I can forget about everything else that’s going on outside the window. Lots of time I can work all day and escape totally, and sometimes I haven’t done anything and wonder where the time has gone.

The studio space where I paint costumes in LIC, for the costume shop Parsons-Meares, LTD, is getting a start back, too. Everyone is careful about masks and social distancing. Here’s the paint room, and Mary, Ginny and I mixing colors for some Nutcracker flowers we get to paint for the Colorado Ballet (thank goodness!):

 

Margaret Neilson Armstrong

Posted on by September 29, 2020
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Margaret Neilson Armstrong was an illustrator working around WW1. She was best known for designing book covers, and designed over 200 in the Art Nouveau style. She was considered to be one of the most accomplished and prolific book cover and binding designers in her time. She used a lot of plant and flower reference in her work and was an accomplished botanical illustrator as well. It is these beautiful watercolors I found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I FINALLY got to visit recently! Some were in the How the Met was Made exhibit and some were in that little long hallway room to the left after you walk up the Grand Staircase where they have paper things–prints and drawings.

I am enchanted by them, the delicacy of line, the color, and even the sense of light, especially in this one of White Valerian. I am not sure I have seen many botanical illustrations where the blossoms seem luminous.Finally, I love the little pencil lined rectangle in the background. Almost my favorite part. I think it is how she denoted what part of the drawing was to be captured and placed in a book of botanical drawings, but there is an artfulness about it that I love.

Of course seeing botanical illustrations like these always makes me want to BE a botanical illustrator, but I am not sure I have the persistence or patience.

Here’s the certificate course in botanical illustration that I moon over, for your delectation. Maybe someday I will do it!

https://www.nybg.org/learn/adult-education/botanical-art-classes/

And, if you are still not willing to go to a museum, or the ones in your town are not yet open, you can make your own museum exhibit with my MUSEUM VISIT: A Color, Punch Out and Play Set:

To buy a copy of Museum Visit, go to: Amazonasaurus: https://www.amazon.com/Museum-Visit-Color-Punch-Play/dp/076497680X/ref=sr_1_14?dchild=1&keywords=margaret+peot&qid=1598035731&sr=8-14

or Pomegranate Publishing: https://www.pomegranate.com/aa975.html

GIVEAWAY! A Museum Visit Giveaway Because I Miss Visiting Museums

Posted on by September 2, 2020
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I miss museums! I want to wander in them and draw, think, watch people looking at art. I want to get lost in learning about a time or place: I want to dive into the detail of Mughal period miniatures, walk along the length of a chinese scroll painting. I want to sit at the big round table in the Japanese wing of the Met and listen to the water fountain. I miss far reaching retrospectives, generations-sweeping looks at science doodads and inventions, or clothing, or musical instruments. I want to go look at the dollhouse at the City Museum of New York. I miss pottering around any museum and thinking about art making and all of its wonderful hopefulness.

Because I miss museums and assume you do too, I am giving away a copy of MUSEUM VISIT: A Color, Punch Out and Play Set. All you have to do to be entered in a drawing to win the set is tell me in the comments below or on facebook what you miss most about museums (or tell me what your favorite one is, what painting or object you go visit with is). (The giveaway is limited to folks who live in the United States (sorry!!!)) Then I will put all your names into a hat (well, actually, an on-line randomized drawing thing) and draw one name on SEPTEMBER 1, 2020 and send that lucky duck a set to play with. Then you can visit your own museum, into an exhibit you have curated (and colored!) yourself! The set is gorgeously printed by @Pomegranate Publishing for Pomegranate Kids.

If you win the drawing, you’ll get a folding play set with three galleries to set up and color, 8 cardstock pages of art and natural history objects to punch out, color and set up (they have little stands) in the galleries, plus a booklet with tips on curating your own exhibit. AND, as a special gift to the winner of the drawing, I will send you two paper museum goers that you can cut out, color, and send to the museum you set up.

There are some great online museums to go visit, collections from all over the world that have been put on line for you to wander through. Here’s a Travel and Leisure article with some links: https://www.travelandleisure.com/attractions/museums-galleries/museums-with-virtual-tours

And to buy a copy of Museum Visit, go to: Amazonasaurus: https://www.amazon.com/Museum-Visit-Color-Punch-Play/dp/076497680X/ref=sr_1_14?dchild=1&keywords=margaret+peot&qid=1598035731&sr=8-14

or Pomegranate Publishing: https://www.pomegranate.com/aa975.html

Drawing Water

Posted on by August 21, 2020
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I have been working on a children’s book about a time when the pond that I grew up next to dried up in a drought. And so I have been looking at a lot of pictures of how people draw water. Fortunately, before the pandemic closed all the museums, I got to see the retrospective exhibition of the work of the artist Vija Celmins at the Met Breuer. This is an example of her work, graphite on paper, mounted on canvas:

An example of the work of Vija Celmins, a picture I took at the Met Breuer exhibit which was a KNOCKOUT

And I have been looking at how people draw water in cartoons (thanks again to Josh Bayer’s wonderful tutelage)–really a fantastic world of creating the illusion of things in black and white that I never really focused on before. And while I cannot hold a candle to Ms Celmins’ work, I have been having fun trying to make the illusion of water with my pen:

Above and below the waves:

Reflection:

Dripping:

 

 

Reflection Portrait

Posted on by August 21, 2020
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When I was in North Carolina visiting my mother in February of this year, I drew myself in the mirror every night just to keep my hand in. The pandemic was creeping closer, but no one was masked or as freaked out as we all became just a couple of weeks after I got back to New York. The portraits got more and more pensive as the news got worse and worse. Here’s one of them in pencil:

Then I inked the pencil drawing:

I wanted to try to create the illusion of a reflection in the mirror, so I scanned the drawing when I got home and put it into Photoshop, added some background mirror color and some spatter to try to make it look like the mirror was wet and covered with condensation:

And finally, I printed it out onto Rives BFK, and painted some Daler Rowney Pro White on it to make the reflection, both with spatter and also with a brush. I used Copic markers to put the shadow behind the head and shoulders: