Thursday, September 25, 2008

essential pleasures

(10x14)

(10x14)


Two exercises from my first watercolor class, which I took at Cooper Union--my dad's alma mater--after work. Must've been in 1989 or 1990 ... It was a very good class; the teacher encouraged 1) working big and 2) glazing. I don't do much of either now, but it was a good place to start from, for me anyway. I should title these "Problems with Ellipses."

I've drawn my VSD sketch and better get painting if I'm to make the Saturday posting deadline!

I'm proofreading a great book, Essential Pleasures: Poems to Read Aloud, edited by Robert Pinsky. It's wonderfully slow going as I do as the subtitle suggests.
Here's one poem from the first chapter ... No doubt I'll be unable to resist adding more as the job progresses.

William Butler Yeats, "A Coat"

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

Posted by Picasa

5 comments:

Kari Gibson said...

Oh, we did something similar in our first year at university, except the shapes were different colours and we used oils. It was great for observation and I learned a lot.

Yours are great and I can see how useful they would be.

Oh, I love that poem, I think as artists showing our work we too walk naked. Scary eh?

Teresa said...

Those exercises look like a good idea... may have to give that a try myself! Keep the poems coming!

Suzanne McDermott said...

What a great job! Also good to see the basics. I'm thinking a lot about getting back to basics right this minute!

A Brush with Color said...

What a wonderful poem! I'm smiling--I read it aloud as you said. I am terrible with ellipses--I'm always trying to practice them and I'm awful! The light on those exercises is great!

Sylvia Jenstad said...

I agree.. this is a really cool exercise....