J.C. Leyendecker at SOI

I loved this Leyendecker painting on the second floor of the museum.  I have more photos of the museum that I will post soon.  His handling of the paint is so interesting with all the directional strokes and gestural marks. 

Saturday night break from painting at Babbo's NYC

Good news! I have been selected to participate in "Women in the Heights: Intersections" at the NoMAA NYC gallery space in celebration of Women’s History Month.

Still waiting to hear back from the schools I've applied to for MFA's in painting.  My list includes:

New York Academy of Art

Hunter College

New York Studio School

University of Utah

Brigham Young University

In the meantime, I decided that David and I needed a break from life and spend the night in the city, so we went out to dinner.

Babbo is a restaurant owned by the Iron Chef, Mario Batali, located in the Village.  This was my first 4 star restaurant experience I've ever had and was worth every penny.  Though it was hard to get away from my Saturday of studio immersion time, David and I had an AMAZING dinner.  We had octopus, pumpkin ravioli, beef cheek ravioli, duck and lamb and got to try lily stalk, broccoli rabe pesto, and chick pea bruschetta.  The pumpkin ravioli, or "Pumpkin Lune" was my favorite and possibly the most delicious thing I've ever eaten--I think the octopus came in a pretty close second.  I definitely recommend this place if you ever get a chance.

Pumpkin Lune

Grilled Octopus

Beef Cheek Ravioli

Duck with lily stalk on top of barley

lamb chops with broccoli rabe pesto on top of grilled red onion

After dinner, David and I ran over to the nearest Barnes and Noble, where he was really excited to look up authentic Italian cookbooks.  I kept pushing for him to try and find a book with a good pumpkin ravioli dish, of course.  I got to look at a good Arthur Rackham and a Velasquez book that had amazing close up shots of his paint strokes. Fun night.

Jon

I'm starting this little head study for a painting of this little boy.  He has such a great face and this expression was so beautiful.  Right now the study is 8x8" but I think I will end up doing a painting of him that is 18x24".  He has a little brother and big sister that I will be working on also.  I'm trying to get a few more done before the deadline for the upcoming Portrait Society of America Competition.

New Drawing at the Art Student's League

Last night I sat in on Mary Beth McKenzie's life painting class and drew this model.  His features were fun to draw.  I struggled a bit with this one because the poor guy seemed to need some sleep--our pose was from 7-10 pm and he kept falling asleep as he was sitting.  I think his eyes turned out alright even so. I want to keep going over to the League for the special Friday night open drawing.  I just found out too that the Society of Illustrators has an open sketch night on Tuesdays that costs $15.  Maybe I'll try that out too.

New 3 hour head study at GCA

Here is my grasaille block in after 40 minutes.

My completed 3 hour study.  I would've liked to go another hour to add some more color and soften some more edges, particularly on the forehead.

Here is Rick Piloco's demo.  He spent 20 minutes on the first head to show us a basic block in, 20 minutes on the second to show us adding color in bold strokes, and finally only 20 minutes on the last to show us taking both of those steps and refining the work more.  I thought it gave me a good idea to see how did it as I was.  It was very helpful in deciding colors and temperature shifts.

This is me and David inside Grand Central Station.  It's fun to get to come in and out of this station every time I go to Grand Central Academy.

Sterling Hundley Show at Society of Illustrators

I really loved these pieces up at the SOI Musuem.  His color palette, line work and gestural qualities were really nice.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here are the beautiful flowers that David bought me for Valentine's Day.  He met me for a lunch date and we ate at Ovest where he is the sous chef.  We both had very delicious salads and a great time.

All the girls at the studio in pink for Valentine's Day!

I also made a few dozen cookies and brownies for a bake sale benefit for some local businesses that recently caught on fire.  The bake sale went well and we made about $300 for the fire victims.

Nelson Shanks at Berry-Hill Galleries

I made it down to the show last day it was up--yesterday with just enough time to see the work and get some shots of the paintings.  I especially liked this life sketch of Pavarotti.

I loved looking up closely at the way he painted hands and faces.  This hand below was to me really fantastic.