October 13, 2008

I clean my desk before I start drawing. The beginning and the end of the drawing process are the parts I like best. I am meticulous about the desk cleaning. I remove everything that’s on it. It always amazes me how many things I can manage to collect next to my drawing while I am drawing; pencils, erasers, papers, bottles, mugs, pictures, beads, nibs, felts, brushes. Lately, the portraits I’ve been working on, only took me about an hour to two hours, so, the mess is not that great. Still, I have to have a clean, fresh desk before I start. I wipe the desk twice — once with water and soap and once with a clean rag. The desk has stains on it, mostly from the oil paintings. The stains’ unevenness underneath my drawing paper can sometimes create interesting, yet frustrating, lines. I remember when as a kid I used to place coins under a paper and shade over. This is similar, though instead of coins, I have leftovers from previous artistic sessions. Once the desk is wiped, I select a piece of paper. I love its smoothness, so I often place my cheek on it. Sometime ago, I’ve started taping the edges to create a border around my drawing. The tape I have can be too sticky and quite a few times when I removed it, it peeled off with the paper, so I spend a good amount of time on making the tape less sticky by sticking it to myself first. I can be quite a sight with tape stuck to my forehead, but it works, though my skin’s not exactly happy with me. Once the paper is ready, I select the pencils and sharpen them with a knife. Using a sharpener is not the same. When I sharpen my pencils using a knife, I feel like I’m building a relationship with my pencil, a sharpener it’s too impersonal. I have to be careful with the knife, with a sharpener, there isn’t much that can go wrong. After all this is done, I stand up and I leave my desk as it is to wait for me for a few hours or a day. Once I’ll come back to it, I’ll draw for minutes at a time, get up often and during those times I will end up bringing things I don’t need to my work area that will stay there until the drawing will leave my desk.

This past week's portraits:

Bryan

Warren

Joel

I was looking forward to reading "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. I’ve heard claims that it changed people’s lives. Maybe because of those claims, I had too great expectations for the book. I was disappointed. First, I think the writing for the Witch of Portobello by the same author, was much better and I wasn’t too fond of that book either. For me "The Alchemist" was a quick read, simplistic, puerile and with a lot of statements that got my eyes rolling. Its message confused me too; it’s supposed to be "follow your heart" to achieve happiness in life, but at the same time the boy forgets about the girl he loves to go look for more material things, "a treasure". I do believe that love brings more happiness than money. Second, Coelho seems to praise people who leave every responsibility behind to follow their dreams. A lot of people might not be happy with their situation in life, but they don’t just take off on their "personal legend". Not everyone is alone. But I can see why the book it’s so popular, it’s a "self-help" book disguised as a fable.

Two much better books I’ve also read this week were "De Niro’s Game" by Rawi Hage and "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. The former is probably the best book I’ve read this year. It’s captivating, vivid. Every single word on the page is the right word, the perfect word, the one word that will touch a cord within and send the right emotional message. It’s rare to find a book where the words match the feelings and described actions so well, it feels like music. I am looking forward to reading more books by this author and I hope to find again the same cinematographic style and beautiful language. "The Giver" leaves the reader with thoughts and questions about what it means to make your own choices and your own mistakes, and being different from others, versus having someone making the decisions for you and keeping everyone the same. I think it’s aimed for school children, who should certainly read it, but I didn’t find it to be juvenile.

October 6, 2008

I’ve drawn three new portraits. I am getting better, which is kind of cool and my boyfriend is excited I’m not drawing any of my "weird" stuff. Little does he know what I’m practicing for.

Julia

Alex

Robin

We had our first book club meeting about two weeks ago. I actually felt a bit unprepared and realized that reading the book a month in advance is not such a good idea since I had forgotten some of the characters’ names. I liked how the discussion went all over the place and even though we talked about the book, almost everything in it reminded someone of a side story that had to be shared. I knew everyone there, but three of the girls, and the ones I knew, I feel I know them better and love them better. There’s something about a cozy, poorly lit, small living room that brings out confessions, dreams and fears. I wish we did this more often. To think that’s what they used to do two hundred years ago for entertainment! I think they might have had it right.

I watched the Savages yesterday; rented it on iTunes. I love this service. It’s cheaper than Blockbuster and quite good quality too. Not much happens in the movie in terms of action, but it’s a rare gem of exceptional writing about real people, a brother and a sister suddenly having to deal with their aged father. They are both brilliant people, but both are scared so that neither of them can form a healthy relationship. I didn’t like Wendy, the sister, much. No, I found I have some things in common with her, or I should say had. I think I used to be like that. Maybe not to that extreme. It bothered me to have it shown to me that way. I loved the movie though. It made me think about my own parents twenty years from now and the challenges I might have to face.

I also just finished "Forever..." by Judy Blume. It’s a quick read, it only took me 2 and a half hours to finish it. It felt like the book was a pamphlet promoting “safe sex”, but besides that I did enjoy it. Maybe Stephenie Meyer should read it to see how to write about the challenges and awkwardness of having sex for the first time. The book is about first love. The passion, the intensity, the pressure to lose one’s virginity, the worried and understanding parents, supportive friends and friends who make mistakes, they’re all there to create an authentic, well written story. I will certainly pass it on to my teenager little sister.

I thought "Becoming Jane Austen" by Jon Spence would be a fictional novel slightly based on reality, but I was surprised to find out it was a biography. The first two chapters, when everyone is introduced, are a bit tedious and I found myself losing track of all of Jane’s relatives, who all had way too many children with the same repeated names: Jane, Cassandra, James, Henry, Frank, Mary, Edward... Nonetheless the book turned out to be a fascinating read, though I was already familiar with her circumstances from Claire Tomalin’s biography. To tell you the truth I’m glad most of her letters are gone. She left us six wonderful novels, what more do we want? My boyfriend will tell you I’m a hypocrite right now since I did drag him all the way to Chawton to visit the last cottage she lived in. Still, I don’t think she would have been happy with us reading her personal correspondence and seeing someone’s house it’s different from reading their diary.