With my two portraits at Waterworks show

14th Annual Waterworks show opened yesterday in August House gallery in Chicago. The turn out was fantastic! People were standing shoulder to shoulder with barely any room to get to paintings. The weather seemed to be in line with the theme of the show as water was coming down from the sky with great enthusiasm.

I showed two of my watercolor portraits: Meyr and Odelia, and got great feedback on them from guests and participating artists. It feels very good, especially considering that overall level of work at the show was very high.

Urban Sketchers Chicago is a new sketch group and a new chapter of the Worldwide Urban Sketchers movement. Urban Sketchers is a network of artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel to. The mission is to “Show the World, One Drawing at a Time.” Until now Chicago did not have an Urban Sketchers group. For two years I waited – sketched by myself – and waited some more for someone to start the Chicago group so I could join it. Tired of waiting I am starting it myself.

Urban Sketchers Chicago will have its first “Let’s sketch Chicago” meet on Sunday, April 29, in downtown Chicago. We will meet at a starting point – the Art Institute – and sketch, either together or individually, then meet up at an end point to look at each other’s sketchbooks. All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on!

Our sketchmeets and sketchcrawls are free and open to everyone, all ages and abilities. We hope to make our meets a regular occurrence, so for the date and location of the next sketchcrawl, find us on Facebook - Urban Sketchers Chicago Facebook group.

Happy sketching!

Great thank-you and appreciation goes to

Marina Grechanik of Urban Sketchers Israel

Barbara Weeks, a long time Urban Sketcher from Chicago, and

LuEllen Joy Giera, a facilitator of Her Group for WomanMade Gallery

for the support and help they gave me while I was working to make this happen.

Rover and Bessie - oil on gessobord - 6"x6"

Remember Beanie Babies?

Oh, the 90′s… Shelly was perhaps in the first grade when Beanie Babies became all the rage. We succumbed – they were so cute. Irresistible, really. And their names were so clever, like Speedy – the turtle . We collected them for several years, and now we have a box full. A few have peanut butter or other food smears on them, some are dirty from being loved too much, but all are still perfect props, wonderfully colorful and posable. Here, for you, are Rover the dachshund and Bessie the cow – a dear memory of my daughter being little.

In other news:

I will be going on my yearly trip to Israel to be with my parents. I am leaving in 2 days and will be staying there for a month, back in April. So, if I don’t have a good way to scan/photograph images while on the trip – there will be no posts until I return. Or perhaps technology will oblige, and I will post sketches and paintings. I do plan to paint, am bringing two panels with just prime and drawings on them. And I plan to sketch a lot. In fact, I connected with Urban Sketchers Israel and hope to do a sketchcrawl with them if logistics cooperate.

Shalom, darlings!

Here are a few more sketches. I am trying various pens. I am finding that I love drawing with a pen, can’t believe it seemed to be an unattainable skill to me before.

I drew the perfume bottles with your regular Paper Mates I had in four colors (my daughter gave them to me a while back, they are somewhat dry by now.) The coffee pot is in rollerball ink pen my husband brought back from some conference. The Aladdin-like vessel is drawn with my beautiful new Lamy Safari fountain pen, although I am unsure of the blue ink – would rather prefer brown…

The shell I drew with conte and pastels. Though not in pen, I thought I’d include it simply because it is already scanned.

Make Tea not War - SOLD

6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) oil on gessobord panel.

I am a tea buff, as in tea aficionado, tea connoisseur, but otherwise known as a tea snob. In our little tea universe we study and admire tastes, aromas and colors. We understand tea terminology, geography and pedigree. We frown at shredded tea leaf or added flavors. We are purists who mail our precious tea leaves from their countries of origin. Among us tea bags are an insult and Lipton is a dirty word. You get the picture. I am not gone that far on this tea road, but far enough to bring my tea with me when I travel.

And of course we admire teaware. Teaware is an art form in itself, many collect teaware, which can run up astronomical prices for historical and rare pieces. I am not a collector, but I have a few teapots. Different teas require different pots to bring out full flavor.

This little painting is of my silver teapot from England. Not particularly old or historically significant, but it is pretty and I like it for Ceylons or Darjeelings. There is no deeper meaning here, I just wanted to paint a silver teapot. Check out the multiple reflections of the clementine! And because it is an simple painting I thought a line from Monty Python is particularly suited for the title.