Flower Drawings

I started some pencil drawings of flowers around the house. I really enjoyed the drawings. There is a nice balance between capturing the 'real' image and making something up that works for the drawing itself. The flower petals are a case where describing the exact image of them is ridiculously detailed, therefore a shorthand is desperately called for. Drawing them I felt a nice balance between observation and making interesting marks on the paper.

Spain Rocks!

So, my first non-californian rocks! See here the CA rocks. Spain Rocks!

Wasn't too inspired by the rocks around Wien, but in Spain there were all kinds of cool rocks along the beach. I suspect beach rocks are more varied then river rocks. Must be some geological reason for this?

The drawing are done with felt-tip markers. I have a limited set of colors, maybe 16 including black. I actually like the limitation, it forces you to 'bend' a color to your will so to speak. It also shows that you don't have to duplicate the colors around you, but instead it's the balance of colors that counts. Isn't that what impressionism started? Isn't that what Matisse tells us?

Spring on a Really Nice Table

I went to the Liechtenstein Museum in Wien today. It is Prince von Liechtenstein's old palace, which is now open to the public to show off his collection of paintings, sculpture and furniture. Actually the princely family lives on.... there was a black and white photo of the prince and his wife (looks like a 1980's photo) together on a sign rambling on about the palace and the collection and how the prince and his wife were so pleased to give their old palace over to the city of Wien as a museum. Very nice palace, very nice art collection - all old stuff, like Rubens, 18th century art mostly, lots of baroque.

I did a drawing on my iTouch (electronic finger painting) of a girl with flowers from a beautiful wood veneer inlaid table. I thought this girl would be the right thing for the season.

Below is a 'video' of the drawing being drawn.

Another iTouch drawing/video of a real Tulip, not found in any museum but instead at home.

iPad aus Papier

Ya Richtig. I had one before they made one! It's about 5 euros, fits in your pocket, the pages are touch sensitive (you rub the page with a iPen or iPencil or iMydirtyfinger). It needs absolutely no battery. It accepts text inputs. You can flip through the 'pages' by swiping your finger from left to right, or from right to left. Totally intuitive interface.

An ink drawing of the Marie Theresa statue in front of the Kunsthistorische Museum, and a figure from a painting in the Kunsthistorische Museum (loved the hand pointing upwards to God, and how the shadow casts over the upper arm and torso).

Actually I'd love to have an iTouch and make electronic finger paintings (or even an iPad for the sake of its larger screen). See here for drawing examples. But for the meantime, my paper iPad does pretty good.