Saturday, February 12, 2011

Visiting the City by the Bay and Preping for a Workshop

"The City by the Bay"
Micron Pen on paper

"Beach Blanket Babylon Hat"
Micron Pen on Paper

"A Room with a View: From Parc 55 Hotel"
Watercolor and ink on sketch paper

For Christmas, Bob gave me a trip to the city to see Beach Blanket Babylon, a unique San Francisco experience. This hilarious musical revue is known for it's big hair and hats and political spoofs. The grand finale always includes the hat with San Francisco landmarks, including a cable car that runs up the hill and a TransAmerica Building that lifts to reveal "World Series Champions". We went to city Wednesday by Caltrain and used public transit as we always do. We had a lovely dinner in Italian North Beach. To return to our hotel we hoofed it up a major hill on Green Street to Powell and rode the cable car to the terminus near our hotel. It was about 10:00 in evening and here we were sitting on the open bench along the front right side with the warm evening air blowing in our hair. I had all I could do not to slide down the seat on the steep descents. The city is magical.

Now I am getting ready to assist in coordinating the Ted Nuttal figure workshop beginning tomorrow with a demo and 5 days of painting with a master. He told us to have all our pieces drawn ahead of time so we can spend our time painting. He prefers Arches 300 lb. hot press, and the closest I can come is some Fabriano 140 lb. hot press. None of the art stores in town have any. I will buy a piece from a friend and order online. I had a hard time finding subject matter as I don't create ideal photographs of people. I came up with an ancient wedding photo of Bob's grandmother from the early 1900s, a wonderful picture of granddaughter Jamie "social networking" on my patio, Bob and granddaughter Kelly playing the flute, and an old women in a market in France from my 2007 visit. Still trying to come up with few more. I managed to get 4 drawn on tracing paper and 2 transferred. I'm waiting to get my 300 lb. paper from Jeanne for a few of them.

4 comments:

hw (hallie) farber said...

I've been in California but not in San Franciso. I always like your "Rooms with a View."

I look forward to hearing about your workshop--sounds like a lot of prep work.

Barb Sailor said...

It would appear that you had a lovely visit in San Francisco and you saved your memories so beautifully in you drawings. Nice work!

Autumn Leaves said...

Can't wait to see what you do in the figure class, Mary. Your trip to San Fran sounds divine and I love your sketches. They are unique in their composition and labeling so they become quite standout! Well done!

Anonymous said...

What a great trip! It sounds like loads of fun. I like how you document your travels with sketches.

Your workshop sounds like lots of prep work, but then, I bet you get so much more out of it. I look forward to hearing more.