More from the Met

I did an illustration for enRoute's website a little while ago and this was made accidentally from a scanned page of pencil scratches that I used somewhere along the line for texture. I don't even remember why I wanted the negative, but I sort of like how it looks. Makes me think of cold, cold, clear winter nights in Winnipeg.

Yesterday at the Met

I had a couple hours to kill after a meeting uptown yesterday, so I headed to the Met. With the McQueen show closed, it was pleasantly calm; plenty of elbow room and opportunity to hang out and wander around. I decided to explore less familiar galleries. In the Arts of Oceania section I saw a "dance wand" that looked like a very elaborately dressed, very worried-looking wooden spoon.

Practice for a project I'm working on, slowly. It's an excuse to draw more dancers. That's a good enough excuse as any for personal work.

High Five!

Drawing in class again. Poster ladies (including the amazing Loie Fuller) after Cheret and Grasset, and a visiting professor.

Just because I draw in class, doesn't mean I'm not paying attention.

Modern dancers are arguably the most enjoyable thing to draw.

'On The Spot' with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

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Odds and ends.

I'm filling sketchbooks a lot more quickly these days. I wouldn't say this means there's more I'm willing to post, but I think I'm loosening up a bit. A little while ago I found out that British designer Laura Mackness is using my doodles of her work for her Twitter background. Pretty neat, huh?

For week one of the Drawing Club. Made into patterns for fun.

Here're some quick sketches of a few of the pieces on display at the Met as part of the Costume Institute's 'American Woman' exhibition. The show's concise and well-edited, the display is fantastic, and some of the clothes are amazing! All silhouette and texture and draping. I'm sitting here in cutoffs sort of wishing that people dressed up a little more like they used to.

Patience or Fortitude.

I’ve been doing some research at the New York Public Library for a professor. Tracking down centuries-old newspapers, letters by American Revolutionary War heroes and articles about occult-sounding medical treatments has me feeling a little like Indiana Jones. Or some intrepid woman anthropologist…It doesn’t hurt that the building is incredible, with its maze of rooms filled with masses and masses of cloth-bound books, its spiral staircases leading to narrow balconies and cat-walks, its huge reading rooms with coffered ceilings that make you feel impossibly tiny but somehow cozy. Also, the place is guarded by two lions.

I ate a quick lunch on the steps, and drew even quicker sketches. One of them's looking a little more like a collie than a lion...

but, man, I wish I could draw like Kate Beaton...

I was leafing through a book on Ludwig Bemelmans when I noticed this little picture in the corner of a page.

I love how images can conjure up really specific associations. To me, this one's about the '50s, calisthenics, old school gyms with hardwood floors and benches, medicine balls. Maybe the Ballet Russe warming up. Or a demonstration of rythmic gymnastics. And something I heard on NPR the other day, a rarely performed Prokofiev piece called Music for Athletic Exercises.

I didn't know when I drew those that she's actually the famous Parisian stripteaseuse, Dodo D'Hambourg. Here's Bemelmans' take.

From Facehunter.