Desde La Habana {Dibujas y Recuerdos}

…. “Music is a total constant. That’s why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just [...]

Read Full Post »

Drawn on Coffee

One more post before the month is over. I still have a lot of sketches to share and  am working on finding time to do some more collages (wow, the previous sentence needs to have more conviction to it!). Lots of changes going on around the world…. I am just sitting and seeing it all turn. [...]

Read Full Post »

XRay of my Brain II

My second board for the faculty display wall. I now have a list of new art to add to my portfolio tabs, as this was a great opportunity to curate my artwork. It feels great to be done (for now). Happy Halloween!

Read Full Post »

Steven Holl: Sketches, Watercolors, Collages

All images are from a research project completed by my student, Mariam Thomas, on Architects as Artists and their rendering/design techniques. The relationship between architecture and art, and the study of practitioners who are also artists (with the mindframe of artists), whose design process transcends design practices and pragmatism to include enlightment, discoveries and art- wonderings [...]

Read Full Post »

Art Workshops at San Diego Space for Art 09.25.10

10 AM Roy de Vries- Learn to paint with Windsor & Newton Oil Bar    11 AM Valerie Henderson- Hands on Monoprint Workshop    12 PM Lisa Starace- Screenprinting Demo 1 PM Marcy Gordon- Water Color.  3 PM San Diego Guild of Puppetry- Overhead Shadow Puppetry: Tips and Techniques.   4 PM Chris Warren- Laptop [...]

Read Full Post »

New Cashmere Scarf

Ink and Watercolor on paper. September 30,2010.

Read Full Post »

Chiaroscuro Truths (Occhi Blu Capelli Neri)

  The measure of a good book is its ability to haunt us. I have been delinquent; the past few days’ in-between moments, usually dedicated to art and this blog, stolen away by a classic charmer of a book, Jane Eyre. Yet I have been thinking, almost pining, for another book –and the time and the place [...]

Read Full Post »

Queen Califia’s Magical Garden {Continued}

Lately, I’ve favored the watercolor and pencil technique, but want to get back to working with markers. I found these two great tutorials on marker renderings from my blog friend and Urban Sketcher extraordinaire Suzanne Cabrera at An [Open] Sketchbook: can’t wait to share them with my students! { Tutorial 1: Furniture/Fabric } { Tutorial [...]

Read Full Post »

Working with Color

Do you remember Niki St. Phalle’s ‘Queen Califia’s Magical Garden’? Well, I went back with my students for some loose watercolor and pencil renderings.

Read Full Post »

Imaginaire : an evening with Magritte (and colors)

After some meetings today I stopped by the library, Futo coffee in hand, and indulged in my favorite Architecture periodicals: Domus, Architectural Review and Harvard Design Magazine. An article on Surrealist Houses launched an expansive search on the Architecture of René Magritte; will share some of the findings here. I am also thinking about watercolor [...]

Read Full Post »

Chairs, Chairs, Chairs (on Coffee)

Another exercise with  ‘Drawing on the Righ Side of the Brain’.  By drawing the space, not the chair, the proportions were incredibly accurate in all drawings.  The drawings can be read as Nolli Maps of imaginary cities, we can see piazzas, palazzi…we can see perspective, spatial configurations/plans, abstract paintings… I love the ambivalent water medium, [...]

Read Full Post »

Mango (della gelosia)

Read Full Post »

House, MD and Architecture: (medical) misteries and set design

I am a huge fan of House, MD, not only because the writing is refreshing and clever  (Cuddy:  I have a case! House: Beer? )and the ‘hero’ is an anti-herowith serious flaws but a rugged, sarcastic way of caring — I love the show because there is a link between House and Sherlock Holmes – and [...]

Read Full Post »

It’s still your birthday, Cammellino

NaBloPoMo writing prompt of today: Define ‘freedom’. Traveling.

Read Full Post »

Koa and Bone II (and on once being a Situationist)

Koa and Bone. Graphite and Watercolor. May 16, 2010 Some of you may remember my koa and bone set; here it is in ink and watercolor. The ink version is the one that surprised me the most: I noticed that by scanning the back of the drawing, the bracelet/string become more realistic, acquire thickness. The [...]

Read Full Post »

Artuesday : Paintings of buildings are portraits, too… {c’est fini}

I finished my Third Street Homes ‘portraits’  (thankyou Planetary Folklore for the great quote). Since the last iteration I refined ground and sky, went over the watercolor with Prismacolor pencils to give the homes some texture, bumped up the contrast, pushed the darks a bit and, finally, worked on the vegetation and added the framing [...]

Read Full Post »

Remembrance of Things Past, and the danger of too much reading.

This is a mental recollection of an exquisite painting, smaller than 8 X 10, that I once saw in my friend Sophia’s place. It was an oil painting, varnished, and the raspberry on the beach looked so large, lustrous and luminous. You could tell the translucent quality of the skin. This is my humble attemp [...]

Read Full Post »

Third Street Homes- (First) watercolor

Well, here is the finished (first) watercolor layer.   One more iteration is needed, as much as I am ready to move on to the next project. Contrast and shade and shadow, ink and lineweight, and perhaps a layer of color pencil for texture.  What I am looking for is for these homes to ‘pop’, and [...]

Read Full Post »

Artuesday {two days late}

I have been squeezing some plein air drawing/watercolor-ing in between classes, lectures and sketchbook exchanges. This is the continuation of the project started last week. I inked the pencil drawing to use for a future marker rendering, and started to give it some lineweight, while I continued with some washes on the original- now finished- [...]

Read Full Post »

Artuesday- Happy Homes and Guiding Lines

Happy Tuesday. Throughout my four years of teaching Tuesday has always been my ‘work at home’ day, the one costant in the changing tides of quarters, classes and schedules. Today I thought I’d start a special Tuesday section, when I have more time to start new projects. So here is the first artuesday: this is [...]

Read Full Post »

Healing Art

Art is a wound turned into light. Georges Braque (Thank You Lamees)

Read Full Post »

Women, Flowers, Photography and Politics

February 1st, Monday. I like it when a new month, sparkling with possibilities, starts on a Monday, a beginning of a new week. This February finds me physically incapacitated ( I have been down with a bad cold since last week)-  but my spirits are up, because of the things I have been reading, the [...]

Read Full Post »

Offerings

Got out my pastels today after a long, long time. I have a wonderful book on pastels bought when I used to have a studio, but no time to do art:/ Time to dig it up, experiment, and get messy. I have been on a ‘fruit’ roll lately, and  here is a  poem on vegetables.  [...]

Read Full Post »

Persimmons and Patterns

    I have been involved in few art and architecture related events lately , among them a wonderful sunday visit to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles- of which more next.  Meanwhile, Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos came and went, and the persimmon tree in the yard has been heavy with wonderful, golden [...]

Read Full Post »

Berkeley Diaries 3

Looking For Your Face From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your face but today I have seen it. Today I have seen the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable grace of the face that I was looking for. Today I have found you and those that laughed and scorned me yesterday [...]

Read Full Post »