Amy Pollien » drawing

New Work…

admin — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 02:58:13 +0000

And my first landscape in a long time.

Deer Isle Causeway, 18″ x 24″, pastel on board

New work

admin — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:00:06 +0000

Summer is bad for finished work. Company, traffic, software installations, The Garden, family (as opposed to company), and longer days to be outside all conspire to keep me from the easel. Finally, we’ve reached Fall!

Fallen Peony, 18 x 24 inches, pastel on board

New work

admin — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:29:27 +0000

Sometimes I have down time, and when I do I pick up a book by Andrew Loomis entitled Fun with a Pencil. Most of the book consists of page after page of looney, retro figures: cartoons, facial expressions, activity poses, and types of people: laborers, bikini babes, infants, and old men. Right about the time you just can’t stand to draw another fat man with a bulbous nose the middle of the book changes course to perspective drawings.

Loomis begins with the artificial horizon and pretty soon has it filled in with trees and houses set along curvy roads, and another bikini girl posed on a set of stairs. From there the book moves indoors and explains how to lay out a room in 2D.

And that’s how I came to spend the weekend drawing the front room.

New work

admin — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:26:57 +0000

The Apron – 18″ x 24″ pastel on board. My grandmother’s worn cotton apron made an interesting ground for this composition, but it will be a good long time until I can face drawing it again.

New work

admin — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:53:06 +0000

Avocado with Lilies, 20″ x 26″, pastel on board. I feel like I am beginning to learn something about still life painting and what it means; about the passage of time.

New work

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:34:11 +0000

It’s snowing. Snow has been falling continuously since noon and is predicted to continue until late tomorrow night with accumulations of a foot or more. When I was in college in Philadelphia I met a woman who had only recently left her home in Tallahassee and had only seen snow in pictures. She had assumed each six-pointed snowflake to be the size of a dinner plate (just like they appeared in the encyclopedia) otherwise how would they pile up into drifts of ten feet or more in Buffalo? She was very disappointed the first time it snowed in Philly and the small, tired piles on the sidewalks never resolved themselves into crystals visible to the naked eye.

It has been a blessing these past few weeks to be working on images from the summer months while the wood stove sends warmth up the stairwell to my upper room. Trudy would have liked this drawing, I think, and been impressed with sheer multitude of tiny flakes outside.

Old work

admin — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:10:47 +0000

We’re between snow storms on the island, with about 3′ on the ground and more coming Wednesday. The paths are shoveled and the birds are fed and the inside of the house is warm and bright so, cleaning! We’re planning to rearrange the first floor of the house now that The Boy is living in another city so cleaning in this sense means “cleaning out”.

I’ve surrounded myself with piles of old recipe cards from my mother and her sisters to be sent to one of my nieces, boxes of Irish crochet pieces to be assembled into something I can wear or given away, a satisfyingly large bag of trash, and some old paintings.

I gave up on oils nearly five years ago. The switch to dry media was driven by time and method considerations that haven’t changed so I won’t be going back any time soon, but it’s interesting (for me) to see what I was doing with a brush and liquid. This small painting of grapes in a bowl purchased with Morton salt coupons in the 40′s was done about 10 years ago.

Now, back to editing my life. We’ll see what else turns up. . .

New work

admin — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:22:27 +0000

Well, not so new to those of you following along at home. I took the drawing of asters out to the front yard this afternoon and shot a photo in real light. The easel stationing itself easily in nearly 2′ of snow was just a bonus.

Asters in a Blue Jar, 20″ x 16″, pastel on board.

Work no longer in progress, Asters part 9

admin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 01:44:52 +0000

There’s a lovely local saying that goes; “Stick a fork in’er, she’s done!”.

Tomorrow – assuming it stops snowing – I’ll take a proper photo of the drawing in natural light and that will be the final post in this series. My thanks to everyone who has come along for the ride for the encouragement and interesting comments. Onward!

Work in progress, Asters part 8

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:37:28 +0000

Three days ago I thought this drawing would be finished in one more session, and I don’t know what I smoked to come to that conclusion but I’d love to have some more?

My formula for adding “noise” is complex, but regular. Regular hasn’t translated to easy yet, and it’s a struggle to keep the ratio of marks consistent and too easy to fall into a pattern of “outlines vs. squiggles”. I imagine, as I’m working through every square half inch, that I will be more facile after (another) few decades of constant practice.