Posts in Category: drawing
George
George
Meet George!
George Sotos is a founder and a main instructor of The Drawing Workshop, a private art school in Chicago. I found the school by chance Googling drop-in life drawing sessions, came in one evening, talked to George and stayed. You know how sometimes, not too often, rarely in fact, you come across a teacher or a mentor and something clicks between the two of you, and you know he is special. That’s what happened between me and George. He is an amazing teacher, and what’s more important – he is the one I can learn from.
George has been teaching art for 30+ years. He was a part of Tree Studios in Chicago when it still existed, was a faculty of American Academy of Art for gazillion years, and then started his own art school. He developed a methodology of teaching artists to SEE, a unique program, something that I have never encountered anywhere else. George’s methods are not for the fainthearted. He reminds me of art teachers and masters of the old world – praise for the sake of encouragement is not in his tool box. What you get is an abandon of critique, merciless truths, endless corrections, and the clearest explanations along with the vision George has for each of his students. He wants to teach you. It’s priceless.
I am taking two classes with George: Basic Figure Drawing with live model and Developing Visual Vocabulary which consists of sculpting a human skeleton in clay, building it up bone by bone.
#15 of 40. Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook.
Cousin Joe
Cousin Joe
Meet Cousin Joe!
Cousin Joe is the youngest of Aunt Marie’s children and the only one who lives in Chicago. Not only he lives here, he serves and protects. Cousin Joe is a detective with Chicago PD. I am majorly impressed by that. Joe is wonderfully honorable and trustworthy, you can depend on him when the going gets tough (we know – we had to at one point), and he is very kind. I tried bring these things into his portrait, but didn’t really know how. My drawing teacher says that sometimes you just need to hold something in your head without trying too hard, your eye and your hand will find the way to convey it on paper. Excluding the know-how, without intellectualizing, leaving the all-so-important brain activity out of it. So that’s what I did. You tell me if it worked.
As it happens Cousin Joe and his family are the only family of our age group who live close and by proximity available for barbeque party, beach outing, or back yard beer tasting and shmoozing. What’s not to like!
#14 of 40. Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook.
Self
Self
I drew this one pursuing two purposes at once. I wanted a self-portrait for an intro page of my Sketchbook Project. And Linda Halcomb announced her self-portrait non-challenge about the same time. Thank you, Linda!
For more of my Sketchbook pages click on the Sketchbook Project 2011 tab.
For more self-portraits of various artists click here and go to the comments section. Other artists, who participated, have left their links there.
Cousin Barbara
Cousin Barbara
Meet Cousin Barbara!
Cousin Barbara is Aunt Marie’s second daughter. I hear family stories that Cousin Barbara was called Barbie at some point. I can see why. Whatever you want to call her, she is gorgeous, and that’s all there is to it.
Here Cousin Barbara in her full party mode is having fun at Aunt Marie’s birthday celebration, the party that she herself organized and put together. Long distance! Complete with prizes (I won a centerpiece :D) and goodie bags with Italian cookies to take home. Barbara is a lot of fun. But let’s not allow the party air make us forget that Barbara is an astute business woman, a successful entrepreneur and a wonderful mother.
#13 of 40. Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook.
Cousin Pat
Cousin Pat
Meet Cousin Pat!
That would be Patricia, actually, but she never uses her patrician name. Cousin Pat is Aunt Marie’s daughter, the oldest of her three children. So we have three cousins. I hope to introduce you to all of them, brace yourselves.
Cousin Pat understands animals. Horses and dogs are her best friends. As well as anybody who has fur, feathers or scales. If you, dear reader, have wings or hooves or a tail, you have it made with cousin Pat. Oh, cousin Pat tolerates humans as well, but I wonder if it is more like an afterthought with her. I am disappointed that she lives out of state, I think we could have been friends, even though I don’t have feathers or scales. I do have a proper mindset however.
It was very interesting to draw cousin Pat immediately after her mother’s portrait. The family resemblance was fantastically apparent. I could literally feel it in the lines and marks I was putting down.
#12 of 40. Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook
Aunt Marie
Aunt Marie
Meet my Aunt Marie!
On that day of September 4th Aunt Marie was celebrating her 85th birthday. And we all were there helping her. What fun it was! And how tasty! Many wonderful returns to you, Aunt Marie!
Aunt Marie is from Italian branch of my family. This reminds me how at Dr. Goldberg’s outing there was a trivia discussion about what to eat where in Chicago. “Where do you go for the best hot dogs?” We didn’t know and were informed of a hot dog stand on a corner of Devon and Milwaukee. “Where do you go for the best pizza?” and a pizzeria downtown was named. “Where do you go for the best Italian?” That we knew. “You go to Aunt Marie’s!” my husband and I exclaimed in unison.
Dinners at Aunt Marie’s are epic. You start early, at about 2 in the afternoon, so that you can lie down and rest between changes. Really, after the appetizers (mushrooms stuffed with Italian sausage, breaded artichoke hearts, shrimp cocktail – to name a few) you don’t need any more food for 2 days. But then pasta with red sauce, meatballs and sausage is coming which is just too good to pass. And just when you think that you are done eating for the rest of your life, there is tiramisu and cake and fruit, and men are loosening their belts. After all these years I know not to wear tight jeans to Aunt Marie’s. Then we usually go for a walk to get our tummies settled, but upon return we find the rest of the family at coffee and chocolate and ice cream. And Aunt Marie with her usual question “Do you want to take some food home, my dear?”, this is when she usually wears the expression you see here. We always want to.
Aunt Marie, we love you!
#11 of 40. Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook
Leslie
Leslie
Meet Leslie!
Actually many of you know Leslie already! Leslie of Leslie Paints is an artist, an art teacher, an art blogger, and a friend of mine.
I keep thinking how the world is changing before my eyes. I remember times when people wrote letters to communicate, I remember having a pen-pal. I hear people still do the pen-pal thing now, but it has become a sort of creative anachronism. What people really do now is Internet. As do I. I met Leslie in blogosphere and we became friends. End of story. We never met in person, not yet, but I think of her more often, communicate with her more frequently, get more out of our connection than from a number of people I say Hello to in person in the hallway. Communities of Internet age… an interesting subject… I understand it is part of today’s Social Anthropology taught in schools.
If you haven’t met Leslie, go and check her work on her blog Leslie Paints. She is very good. Well, she is a professional. Which makes me very much unsure of myself posting this portrait. How does a novice make a portrait of a mentor… On top of being wonderfully talented Leslie is a generous, sharing, thoughtful person. And she is so beautiful! Which presents yet another challenge. Beauty is so exact and elusive, a millimeter off here or there and beauty is gone in a puff of eraser debris. I hope I did Leslie justice here.
For this portrait Leslie wore a Chicago shirt – in my honor. I truly appreciate the gesture, Leslie. So I had to acknowledge this thoughtfulness by showing the letters on the sketch. It took forever!!! Leslie sweetie, let’s have a plain shirt next time please… 😳
#10 of 40. Graphite, pastel (for letters), Moleskine Cahier sketchbook
Marcos
Marcos
Meet Marcos!
Actually that would be Dr. Marcos Modiano Esquenazi! What a spectacular name! I met Marcos at Dr. Goldberg’s outing. He is a second year resident at Rush Hospital in Chicago specializing in psychiatry. Marcos is a comedian, you can probably tell from his visage. I will not retell his jokes here because this, with exception of some artful nudity, is a family rated blog. But I did laugh until my cheeks hurt.
However I will quote another one of my daughter’s precious reactions: “Who is this?! Is he single?!”
Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook
Peter
Peter
Meet Peter!
I am continuing with the day of the outing at Dr. Goldberg’s. The first person we saw upon arrival was Peter. He was the Master of the Grill. Now, me and my husband, we are smart :D. We have over thirty years of education between the two of us :D. And if we learned anything really worthwhile through all these years and all these schools, it is who the most important person at an outing is. That’s the cook! So we stayed with Peter and tried to get into his good graces.
We learned that Peter has a Masters degree in Psychology, but decided that he likes feeding people better than mucking with their minds. Shows some good judgment! So 20 years ago he opened a meat and sausage store. He makes his own sausages and smokes and cures his own meats. For the outing Peter had for us freshly made Polish sausage and bratwursts grilled to perfection and lightly smoked chicken blackened on a grill. You should have been there…
Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook
In other important news…
Today, September 6, my little blog turns 1 year old. To be honest I am amazed that I kept on with it steadily for this long. I am also amazed with the wild statistics of it. As of this post
10599 times people viewed something on these pages!
655 comments were left!
93 different countries have visited and left their flag on my map!
52 times I made a piece of art and had something to say!
Also something that cannot be enumerated – my wonderful new friends whom I met in blogosphere during this year. Thank you all for your patience, kindness and friendship.
Happy Birthday, Pencil Scribbles!
Pencil Scribbles visitors
Dr. Goldberg
Dr. Goldberg
Meet Dr. Goldberg!
Dr. Arnold Goldberg is extremely distinguished. He is an MD. He is a Supervising and Training Analyst at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He was a director of the said Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis for many years. He is a Professor of Psychiatry at Rush University Medical College, Chicago, IL. He is an author of Misunderstanding Freud, The Prisonhouse of Psychoanalysis, Being of Two Minds, Moral Stealth and author or editor of more than thirty other books and articles. He has more titles than you can shake a stick at … possibly too distinguished :D.
Here Dr. Goldberg hosts an outing for psychiatry residents he is currently teaching. My husband is in the program, and that’s how I got to be there. As many highly accomplished people Arnold is an easy and humble person, full of crackling self-depreciating jokes. At the outing he had us all in stitches with stories of his service in US Army. Captain Goldberg was a part the “Doctors Draft” and served as US Army psychiatrist in the late 50s, between the two wars.
I showed this portrait to my daughter, and here’s her reaction: “He is adorable! Too cute for words!” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Graphite, Moleskine Cahier sketchbook