100-Day Project 42-47

Red is the thunder in our ears
when we meet.
Love, like creation,
is some other order of things.

….

This life in the fire, I love it.
I want it,
this life.

–from “The History of Red” by Linda Hogan

One of the bonuses of my grid project has been finding new poets when I’m searching for an appropriate poem for the color group.  Linda Hogan is a Native American essayist, novelist, poet, and environmental activist.  Her writing considers the reciprocal relationship between humans and other living things and the places they share.  “The History of Red” is a fierce poem, with the intensity that red brings to the other colors it touches. The passion of those last lines…wow.  You can read the entire poem here:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/244366

 

 

 

You can see all the 100-day project posts here:  https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/category/100-day-project/

Goofing off

Just sitting here waiting for the clock to strike 5 so I can get out of here and start my weekend. I started drawing bugs and this is the result. Can’t seem to find my box of colored pencils at work so was limited to five colors. Darn, where did I put those anyway?

Playoffs

game seven.  face-off.
slapshot   cross-check   penalty
line change.  breakaway…

save   rebound   icing
face-off   blue line   neutral zone
overtime again….

score!!!!

I know LeBron is making Cleveland happy, but the playoff watch in our house in on hockey.  My daughter and I always do brackets, and my only team left is the Blackhawks….they can do it, right?

Tree with scar, Grove Street

I noticed this tree on a main thoroughfare in my town. It struck me that it looked like it was either welcoming with open arms or in some kind of arboreal agony. Then I noticed the long scar down the front. It didn’t have a lot of leaves. Another Montclair street tree may be biting the dust. Anyway, I thought it was cool looking. 

Drawing at the Beach

I took a very small sketchbook and some pencils down to the beach a couple times.  That’s where I drew the waves.  I’m not good at small detailed work, though, so my people impressions were done mostly in parts.

Sunbathers don’t move too much…

…and feet are always exposed and ready to draw.

 

Ekphrastic Wednesday – June 1954/II – Götz

The second of our spring art and poetry explorations…starting with a very evocative work of art by Gotz. I love the rhythmic mirroring of Marcy Erb’s accompanying words.

100-Day Project 38-41

 

How falls it, oriole, thou hast come to fly
In tropic splendor through our Northern sky?

At some glad moment was it nature’s choice
To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice?

Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black,
In some forgotten garden, ages back,

Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard,
Desire unspeakably to be a bird?

—Edgar Fawcett, “To an Oriole”

I didn’t forget my grids when I was at the beach.  When I add neutrals to each color, it reminds me of nature in some way.  Birds often come to mind…

Edgar Fawcett was a 19th century American writer who wrote satirical society novels and science fiction as well as poetry.  Although never loved by critics, he was well-known during his lifetime.  He is largely forgotten today, although some of the biographical material I read online urges revival of a few of his science fiction books.  He was also evidently a prolific writer of sonnets.  The image of the tulip turning into a bird he uses here had an immediate appeal to me.

You can see all the 100-day project posts here:  https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/category/100-day-project/

A hypnagogic state

You know that state where you’re not quite awake and not quite asleep? I got a strange image this morning of a toadstool house. Where did it come from? It was a little house in the forest where elves or fairies could live very cozily. This is what I pictured it to look like. 

How Do You Draw the Ocean?

Sit on the beach…take a walk on the beach…sit on the beach….that was pretty much last week.  The waves are both soothing and mesmerizing.

I kept thinking:  how did artists paint the ocean before the advent of photography?

My own drawing attempts were pretty abstract…

 

My Dad, my hero

Captain Joseph M. Zimel was a soldier in World War II. Some children say their fathers never talked about the war. My Dad talked about it all the time. I have his uniform, his medals, and a Japanese flag he brought back. He brought back his gun but my parents disposed of it after my sister got it out of its hiding place and pointed it at me. (It wasn’t loaded). My Dad was a member of the greatest generation, a self-made man who had to drop out of high school during the Depression to work with his Dad.  He later got his GED and completed a Bachelor’s degree. He was a free spirit and a very lovable character. 

To him and to all the other brave men and women who served our country, I think of you today.