This is the end, my friend. The end of my blog on this platform. I have moved over to Blogspot. Join me there at http://yvonnerezek.blogspot.ca/
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I don't know why I couldn't post images from Heritage Days last August. Honestly, I tried a few times. Today, I tried again, thinking once more that if I had any problems with Weebly (the blog software I use), I'd just give it up and move to Blogger... Lo, and behold. The mere whiff of a threat to pack it in, and Weebly behaved. Sheesh. Okay. Here is the sketch - a two page spread. Maybe, if Weebly is good and does what it's told, I'll do a little better with my updates.
Cheers everyone. And Happy New Year. Heritage Days is much more than just a gargantuan feeding frenzy. It's a celebration of cultures and countries, of crafts and art and music and dance. And, of course, food. I took my growling tummy there yesterday and grazed my way through a few pavilions before sitting down to try to capture some of the movement and energy of the place.
Drawing people is ALWAYS a challenge and drawing crowds of people is a mega-challenge. There is really no way to do it other than to keep it really, really simple. A bunch of circles for heads, a few vertical lines for bodies and legs and a few dots of colour in the multitude of skin tones. I'd like to upload my sketches, but I just discovered that Weebly, the blog software I use is being a dick by insisting I upgrade. If I can't work it out, I may have to switch to Wordpress or Blogger. Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you are on Facebook, I've uploaded them there. There is a cafe in Goldbar that I always mean to go to but have never gotten around to it, until today. The Blues Java Bar (or Blue Java Bar - both signs are displayed outside) is a funky little coffee house that kind of reminds me of Cheers. You know. The bar where everyone knows your name. Only this isn't a bar and the regulars are retired folk from the neighbourhood. Or at least, that was the kind of crowd (if 5 people is a crowd) on a sunny, sleepy, Monday afternoon. The ambience is kind of African, hippie, homey, rural kitchen. Totally relaxed. My kind of place.
Of course, there have been many pots since my last blog update in 2013 but sadly I didn't photograph most of them. These are my most recent (all sold) made just before the Potters' Guild closed for the summer. They represent a new direction for me, or rather, a return to a style I have always loved but didn't have time to develop. Each is about 12-14" in diameter and carved through a layer of coloured slip. It's a time-consuming process that doesn't fit well into a weekly evening studio session. But now that I am retired, I have days to devote and I can hardly wait to get back into the Guild in September so I can carve more pots.
Two are glazed with a stony white glaze giving them a soft, elegant feel. The other is glazed with an amber celadon giving it boldness and depth. I wish I took better pictures of objects but I don't have a proper lighting setup. Something else to learn and do, I guess. I came across these tonight in the midst of a project I've just begun - indexing the contents of my sketchbooks. I've only got three sketchbooks partially done but what fun it is to look at work I've forgotten. Or to finally locate a sketch I've looked for but which was buried somewhere, I just don't know where. Hence, part of the purpose of the project! But just look at these! They were made from the passenger seat of the car last summer on our return trip from north Ontario. I'm stunned by the delicacy, the quiet airiness. If anyone else had drawn them, I would say they are exquisite. Okay. They are exquisite. Enough of false modesty. I've been making drive-by drawings for a few years now. They've changed. I no longer attempt to capture the image as I see it. I can't at 110 kilometers an hour. The image is gone by the time I've decided to draw it. Instead, my eye takes a picture. Really, like a camera. In just a few seconds, I've memorized the essential bits, internalized the essence of the scene. And from there, I improvise. There is enough similarity in the landscape for a few miles, that I simply steal a rock from here, a tree from there, a cattail from another ditch, to complete the idea. These little sketches then, are responses to the environment we whiz through so quickly. They are visual haikus. Made in Strathmore Visual Journal Drawing sketchbook with Pigma Micron pens. A return to the blog. New title. Refreshed, updated look. In the two years since my last blog post, Weebly, the blog software I use, has changed its backend and how the dashboard functions. So, re-learning how it's done. There will be bumps. You will likely receive unintended blog mistakes. So, oops. Sorry in advance.
I make things. Pots. Sketches. Drawings. Knitwear. My interests vary, ebb and wane. I'm never committed to one thing to the exclusion of others, although my longest lasting love affair is with clay. No matter how much I stray into two dimensions or other expressive media, clay seems to remain my lodestar. The craft around which I spin. Then again. I've been drawing since I was a little kid. If clay ever leaves my life, I still have pencils and paper. Stay tuned for updates and images from all my expressive experiments as I "draw on experience". Six sketchers rendez-vous'ed (is that a word in ANY language?) at the Mercer warehouse building this morning for our monthly sketch crawl (it's like a pub crawl without the alcohol) and braved the crowds (man, it was really hot and crowded down there!) to produce some truly wonderful sketches. We're such a talented bunch :-) Then we repaired (such a nineteenth century word) to the Roast Coffeehouse upstairs (my first time there) where we sat in big comfy chairs by the window and sipped our favourite hot beverages, shared our drawings, and talked about ahrt, m'dear, don't you know.... It was fun. Here are two of my sketches. The rest were kind of dreck-y so I'm not showing them.
Hello? Is anybody out there? Apparently, rule 1 of blog-keeping is to post regularly. It keeps one's readers interested. Well, here it is February (Groundhog Day, in fact). My last blog post was in September. Let me count on my fingers now. That's, um, five months ago. Five months. Didn't I say something in my last post about commitment issues? Yes, yes I did. I thought I was referring to keeping up with a sketching project (which I've managed, haphazardly, to stick to). It turns out that it's my blog that I have a hard time committing to. Patient old blog. It's still here, eager to please.
So, dear readers (if I have any left) I thought I'd show you a coloured pencil project I completed last month. I haven't done any coloured pencil work in well over a year, enamored as I've been with the immediacy and instant gratification of (or not, as the case may be) sketching in my sketchbook (not to mention my return to pottery-making back in September - could THAT be a reason my blog posts dropped off?). Anyway, I took a picture of a rose back in 2008 which, out of the 20,000 plus images clogging my Mac, has remained imprinted on the retina of my brain. I've just always wanted to draw it. So, finally, here it is. On Stonehenge black paper (I think). It takes me forever to figure out how to scan, edit, save and upload these images. Every. Single. Time. Between iPhoto, Picassa and trying to find and organize the files on my drive, I'm ready to shriek! Why am I so competent at work and such a dolt at home? Probably because I've used a PC at work for so many years, I still can't convert my thinking to the joys of the Mac. I feel like a heretic. I don't know anyone with a Mac who doesn't just l-o-o-o-ve it! Me? I have a wary relationship with it, even after three years. And adding insult to injury, I'm seriously considering an iPad. Will I never learn? After two hours (yes, I know, it's unbelievable) here are eight additions to my Everyday Matters (EDM) sketches. Despite my commitment issues (will I really go the distance and complete 328 assigned sketches? Scary thought.) I'm still at it. |
Welcome to my occasional posts
My name is Yvonne Rezek. This is a blog about what my hands are up to. Mostly sketches and drawings, some of my pottery, maybe even some knitting.
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