Adventures in Chinatown

Chinatown Eaves

 

Spent the afternoon exploring the Chinatown district of San Francisco today.  It was beautiful and gleaming and decaying and  seedy.   Old next to new, the air reeking of cigarette smoke and the rhythm of mandarin and cantonese ringing.

I wandered in and out of the shops fingering the wonderful silks, laughing at the tacky key chains, and having fun. 

Peking Duck

Decided to try peking duck for lunch.  Although I am not a huge duck fan, I have to tell you that it was amazing!  They slice it tableside and it’s served with these light as air, steamed bread/pancakes. 

 The slices of the duck are dipped in a hoisin sauce, placed in the bun and some shredded scallions are placed on top.  All you have to do is eat.  the entire idea is that the bun is simply a crispy duck skin delivery vehicle.  It’s delicious but very greasy/fatty so a little goes along way.

Walked along Market Street afterwards and then ducked into a great japanese mochi bakery.  Very tasty but some of the flavors are pretty exotic.  I’ve had a virgin version of a mixed drink that had yazu in it so I am slightly familiar with the taste.  But there were wine and yazu jelly stuffed with perilla (sesame leaves).  the taste was great but the texture was – well foreign.

There Are Days

There are days that cause you to hold your breath in wonder and those which make you catch your breath for other reasons.  For some reason it feels like the last six weeks have been like that for me.

Sadly, one of the first things that seems to suffer is my ability to post.

I’m currently visiting friends and simply enjoying San Francisco again.  I was here last year and every time I visit I love this place a little more.  I had lunch with friends who urged me to move out here.  Of course the problem is the outrageous cost of living here.  I doubt I could ever do it, but it’s fun to dream.

Tomorrow SF Museum of Modern Art, I wonder if that Matisse will be back up (the Conversation)?   I really want to see it in person.  It’s a friend’s favorite painting and I really want to see if I can understand the attraction of it.  I am a firm believer that an individual’s taste in books, music and art can reveal so much about them.   But, when dealing with modern art, how to translate what a love of a work really means?  I wonder what my friends think when they see the Sesow paintings or some of the odder political posters up?

Well back to San Francisco, King Tut is also in town so I will probably head over there this week as well.  Wonder if he’ll serve tea?  It’s funny because every time I see a banner about the show  I have Steve Martin with his SNL skit and song flashing through my head.

One other note, my love affair with with Japanese pastry (i.e., all things mochi) continues.  Although the strange jelly I bought at the store was -well odd-for the most part I’ve been enjoying the sampling of mochi I bought in the Japanese bakery on Market today!

It’s odd but every meal so far has been at an asian or asian fusion place.  Tonight I ate at the Slanted Door on the pier and the view of the bay bridge was beautiful.  The conversation was good and the food was amazing.  Although they claim to be a Vietnamese place, the only thing on the menu (at least to me) that qualifies are the spring rolls.  These are fresh and delightful but to be honest they are or can be the just as good home made or at a Vietnamese place back home.  I do recommend that if you eat there, you try the lamb sausage and oyster dish as a starter and if you’re a carnivore go for the ribeye.  The brussel sprouts were nice but I prefer the ones in DC (at Hank’s) far better. Finish your meal with the classic creme brulee.  Trust me on this.

 

 

 

Just Have a Few Things

to celebrate.  Good times, good friends and comrades who are trudging (and skipping and hopping) this happy road of destiny-together.

For some reason I just wanted to post that I am so grateful to the people I work with and know, to my friends, my family and my loved ones.

Found out my dearest friend got the job of his dreams and it’s so well deserved-it’s a gift (I think) to be able to rejoice in someone else’s accomplishments don’t you think?  Lucky him, lucky me

Sunset in Virginia

Life is good. Decided to post my favorite photo of the Alexandria historic district-it was taken at that gorgeous moment of thick syrupy.

This photo always reminds me of Jane Kenyon’s poem, Let Evening Come.

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Funniest How to Instance Ever-warning not art related

I just read one of the funniest posts ever on how to raid in the game of World of Warcraft.  Seriously, when you get to rule 6, if you’re not laughing really hard then either you don’t play MMORPGs or you don’t play WoW.

For those who have slow interweb connections here is the paragraph by Mortigan the Lock that made me belly laugh:

6. If you get aggro, run TOWARD your teammates, not away from them.  It’s the surest way to get rid of that unwanted boss who’s taken serious notice of you.  Ideally, run toward (and right through) a mage.  Mages are a big, big help with getting rid of aggro. If you’re cool enough to be a warlock like me, you can even strategically position yourself right next to a mage throughout the fight, and Soulshatter as needed.  Be sure to turn toward the mage when Soulshattering, so that you can watch the look on his face when the boss 1-shots him.  If you’re a mage, disregard everything I’ve just said, and take one for the team.

Hope you enjoy!

Sunday Drawing Class

Dying Slave Boy

As if my life weren’t busy enough with Friday evening classes with Robert Liberace and the occasional Saturday class with Seth Heverkamp, I am also taking a Sunday drawing class with Artist Jin Chung through the Alexandria Art League.

This last Sunday the model couldn’t make it so Jin brought in two casts.  One was of a greek or roman slave boy who was dying and the other was a rough one of Brutus (of the I killed Caesar fame).

I was surprised halfway through the drawing when Jin told me it was a boy and not a girl I was drawing (it does explain the adams apple-sigh).  Yes I guess it should have been obvious but I was sitting at an angle to the cast.

Cast with Drawing

Number one I made the mistake of thinking this would be easy, yeah not so much.  Yes the ‘model’ doesn’t move but I could not seem to get the facial proportions correct.  I redrew the nose, chin and lips several times but as you can see from the picture it’s all off.  I dislike my drawing intensely.

I used vine charcoal on Strathmore charcoal paper and it was messy but I have found I rather enjoy charcoal in this class.  No idea why since I usually hate charcoal and feel like pigpen using it.

So I have vowed that my cast would not defeat me-I plan on printing the photos out in a grayscale and using those ala Bargue to do my cast drawing.  Can you tell I’ve been playing more World of Warcraft than is good for me?

Friday Night Class 25 Sep 09

Joe, 25 Sep 09

Good class tonight.  I decided to not be cautious and to see if I could apply what I am learning from Robert Liberace as well as the classes with Seth Heverkamp.  Something worked because I was rather pleased with the result.I liked my painting!

I started off with the basics, accurately render the stance of the model by drawing very slight/quick reference lines.  I try to capture the angles of shoulders and hips, figure out which leg is bearing the model’s weight and try to make sure all of my angles are fairly close to what I see.

Once my structure is in place, I work on my darks.  This means that I paint the shapes of the darks using a large (in this case a #6 filbert)  bristle brush and a slightly thinned mixture of odorless mineral spirits (gamsol) and burnt umber.  This step is important. If the shadows are correct then the painting will come together.  If the initial drawing and the shadows are wrong and I add the flesh/light tones then I will be spinning my wheels and will waste time trying to correct a flawed structure.  Frustrating at the very least.

See I am learning.

Ok once the shadows and structure are good, I work them a little more.  What I am trying to do is too not be too fussy but insure the angles are correct and that everything correctly relates to each other.

Once I was satisfied with the shadows, I added a light (in this case burnt sienna, warmed with a touch of cad orange).   I continued to refine the darks and lights-you model what you can-then rinse and repeat.

I really felt like I was on a roll and I can see where the three lessons with Seth Heverkamp is helping.  I guess hearing Seth talk about not being afraid of the paint (I usually paint too thin) and having enough on the painting so I can manipulate the paint is slowly sinking in.

I used titanium white, burnt sienna, a touch of ultramarine blue, cadmium orange, and some red (a dab) I ninja-ed from Kate, a fellow student.

Class with artist Seth Heverkamp

I have another painting class tomorrow with Seth Heverkamp at his northern Virginia studio.   I am really excited about it because we are going to work on a technique I learned in an previous class taught by Seth.  I will post the results when I get home.

Drive

I’ve been attending a fairly intensive training course for my day job.  Between the commute (about 2 1/2 hours round trip) in very heavy traffic, homework and continued unpacking I haven’t had much time to post.  I apologize.

So, I thought I’d post this picture I took last summer near Hingham MA while out during with friends.  Enjoy.

Drive

Some Eye Candy (a Liberace painting demo)

Number one, happy 09-09-09!  Someone mentioned this at the office today and I wondered if it was as auspicious for Asians (especially the Chinese) as  08-08-08 was.

Since class doesn’t start again for another few weeks, so I thought I’d post these pictures from a class demonstration Robert Liberace gave last July.  The pictures are from an cell phone camera so they may be a little dark or grainy.

I will just post them in order, with the commentary in the title.  I checked the time that the photos were taken and it looks like the demo happened in an hour and 20 two 20-minute sessions according to a fellow classmate.  The results are pretty amazing.

Hope you like this.

Demo begins

Rob applies and then evaluates the light color, focus is on only painting the lights and darks/shadows at this point

Rob started using it in the light areas. Note how bright it seems.

Most of the basic light tone has been laid in.

Rob started modifying the light paint with half tones to help create the sense of form and shape.

You can see the modeling from the half tones very clearly in this picture.

You can see the detail that Rob added, this is about 1 hour and 15 minutes into the demo.

Another close up at the hour and 15 minute point.

The completed painting.

Saturday Class

Full Figure

I signed up for another class with artist Seth Heverkamp at his northern Virginia Studio.  The class was great as always.  We warmed up with one- minute poses and then had a very quick 15 minute demo by Seth.  Then he unleashed us.

The technique we used this time was establishing the figure using the same techniques as our one-minute sketches.  Initially,  we were supposed to make sure we captured her attitude and posture.  Period.  Once we nailed it we went into a more detailed figure ‘drawing’ using burnt umber.  When that was reviewed we could add color, insuring we only painted out darks and lights.

For this class we were only supposed to use cadmium orange mixed with titanium white and some of the burnt umber already on our pallets.  Sadly for me I had no cad orange and  like an idiot I used my transparent indian yellow from old holland (man I love that color).  Lesson learned, indian orange turns yellow when added to white.  I hated the results and wanted to cheat and paint the knee instead.  Seth discouraged me (rightly so).

Close up

One of my classmates was kind enough to lent me some cad orange and things immediately got a tad better.  I didn’t hate it so much.  I kept working on it-the finished study is okay.  Nothing great.  I had a hard time with her legs and I don’t think I ever got them right.

I really liked how her left arm, breast and chest came out.  In person you can see what it is and it’s painterly to my eyes.  By that I mean that I can see what it is but I can also really see how the paint rendered that area.

If you look close you will see that I put in some ultramarine blue with white for the area of her armpit and pubic mound when Seth wasn’t looking.

Lessons learned:

With less than 2 hours of actual painting time  you can not afford to work on the entire figure–pick a specific area and focus on it

If a part of the anatomy is in shadow but has reflected lights (from lighting our easels) don’t paint them with the light, leave it in shadow

Bring cadmium orange to all figure painting classes

Even if you hate the results while you  are in class, keep going.  You may end up liking the end result, if you quit you’ll never know how it really would have ended

Don’t eat paint (ok I didn’t try this but I thought I’d throw it in cads are heavy metals and toxic if ingested) don’t eat flake white either-it’s lead!!

Seth will be teaching another class at his studio on September 19th.  Contact him (seth.haverkamp AT gmail.com) if you’re interested in attending.