Holiday Quiz

Brownie points to anyone who can guess the exact location of this place. It's where we are going next thursday. Yay!

Not Feeling Like an Adult Today

Creepy creepy creepy.

We have had a wide variety of excellent models in my life drawing class. In all my life drawing classes, actually. Today for the first time, we had one I just plain didn't like, and it's making me feel really juvenile, like I'm 13 again.

He told us all about how he'd been fired as a secondary school teacher (I think this is what he said, but he was speaking german with a strong french accent, so I'm not sure) because he had been very vocal about the overly harsh punishments for students caught smoking, so now he is working as a model. He kept shifting his feet as he said this. We've had some models that are a bit nervous or shy, but this was something else.

Then he told us about some artsy photographs he had posed for taken by Big Famous French-Speaking Artist (of whom I've never heard, but that doesn't mean much.) He offered to show us these pictures on his laptop (which he just happened to have with him) and my Excellent Art Teacher said ok (perhaps EAT has heard of BFF-SA.) So the pictures are dragging on and on and scary model keeps saying "oh, this is the last one" and EAT is starting to itch, I can tell, and making 'we should get drawing' noises and so on.

So when the guy has finally finished looking at a dozen plus naked picture of himself and taking us along for the ride, he takes the towel off to pose, and voila, his penis is purple and standing out parallel to the floor. Hey, I guess it can happen.

He assumed one difficult pose after another and always told us what he was doing. Javelin. 100 meter dash. Bow and arrow. I wouldn't have minded his playing olympic athelete if it made him happy, but he couldn't hold the positions.

In the middle of class we always have a 20 minute break (it's a 3.5 hour class), but he decided not to put any clothes back on. Because I am such a stinky drawer (love that word) and need the practice (and focus) I usually stay in the room. Not this time. There was one last person fetching her purse to nip down to the cafe, and he was sidling up to me. I'm sure it meant nothing. I'm sure it was totally innocent. I'm sure the fact that he has no eyebrows, that his face looks like it's been pealed, that he has no lips and that his elbow does this weird sort of moon crater-dimple-inverted nipple thing when he straightens his arm had nothing to do with it. But I left anyway.

So now my skin is still crawling *and* I'm feeling guilty about it. Honestly. I really don't know if it was me or him.

Blech. Anyway, the only thing that held still long enough for me to draw it was his right foot (above).

Is There Such a Thing as Distechnia?

On the off chance that anyone actually clicked on the two sketches that I posted a couple of days ago and noticed the incredibly bad quality, I have re-posted a couple of new images of the same which are... less bad.









also, i've been rejected again. didn't want to write for their stinky ol' mag anyway...

Some Drawings, At Last.

We had an excellent model a few weeks ago- about 100 years old, very interesting to draw, but alas I was doing really poor work that day and didn't do him justice at all.

This week I did a little better; still not great, but here it is. Again, the model was good, beautiful, Ruebensesque, and tough as old shoes. Really, I don't know how they hold those positions.

Here are two drawings from the same pose, one in pencil, one in charcoal.

But Where are All the Books? Kibuk 2009

The Book Conveyer (above)

On Saturday we went to the Kibuk in Köniz. The theme this year was "Reading Without Borders," and it featured separate stations for different foreign countries. Italy, Serbia, Ireland, France and Turkey, to be exact. There was a roll conveyer that the kids were allowed to ride on to see what it was like to be a book. Serbian snacks to try, Turkish tea, cooking workshops for the kids, and my favourite, a bookbinder to show you how to *properly* repair books instead of throwing then away. (Heidi Ernst, above, working absolute miracles on Curious George, Munschworks, and a copy of Emily the Strange that we had written off) There was a woman telling the folk tales of each station- she was great. But she wasn't reading a book.

In fact, in the Irish station (which even had a calligrapher copying pages out of the Book of Kells and making bookmarks for the kids with their names in half-uncial) there was only one irish children's book; Gulliver's Travels. And when I say 'Irish,' that's by the broad definition- written or illustrated by an Irish person, or having something to do with Ireland. The books on the table were merely in English (and not even books that I've heard of), and since they speak English in Ireland, that qualifies them. Right?

It's almost as if they organised the whole fair and then realised a week before showtime that they forgot to get some books. The offerings in the other country stations weren't very impressive. I'm particulary disappointed about the Irish books, as I am such a fan. *pout*

So.

Five stars to whoever was responsible for organising the fun bits, no stars to whoever was supposed to organise the books.

What happened? Anybody know?

May Have Found the Source

of the problem. This is my WIP. There's a ton more where this came from. I know first novels (and probably all the rest of them as well) are a learning process, but do other people use this many post-it notes? Is this normal?