new friend resuced

across the street the first look at Doug and his new dog "Jazz"

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting my pal Douglas Kingsbury and his new rescue dog  . It was my job to get some photos of him since Doug has had his hands full taking care of this new 3 year old rescue Airedale he hasn't had an opportunity to get it's picture. I can see why since Jazz as they were calling him is very busy and interested in everything almost like a puppy. We went for a walk and then came home to see what sketched beginnings of paintings Douglas had to show and visited with Jazz a little too. He has only been in his new home for about a week. I have to say he was very friendly and I fell in love pretty quickly with his charming good looks and sweet disposition. I think he is going to be a great pet once he gets settled in and learns the signals Doug and his husband Bob are trying to use to educate the dog on how to behave in a busy urban setting. After the date with Jazz who will likely be getting a new name soon that sounds something like Jazz. Doug and I had a nice lunch and went to the free day at the Phillips to see the ballet paintings and sketches and a couple sculptures by Edgar Degas. It was a perfect fall afternoon for friends dogs and Degas. I took the metro to and from Mount Pleasant and did sketches both ways. We walked a lot and really had a fun afternoon. I look forward to seeing more of Doug and his dog in the future since the dog will help ground our world traveler a bit for the next few years.

Douglas Kingsbury and his new dog

he was a whirl wind in the kitchen waiting for his lunch ... and reminds me of Tin Tin the European cartoon guy who had a dog like Jazz! 

He has a very expressive face and body language. 

finally, orange and some blue

Dear readers:

Finally I have permission to share an orange story with you on a subject that got me very excited a few days ago.  Edgar Degas and ballet paintings always remind me of my youth.  In the story I read, and present for you here today, he used orange and blue as his main palette. The article is about the restoration to bring up those colors from beneath years of dust and yellowing varnish. The process and the colorful painting all thrilled me when I read it so I hope you will enjoy it too. Discovering Degas  Thanks to the Washingtonian Magazine for giving me permission to link.

I studied to be a ballet dancer from age seven. I also studied some other forms of dance after I left the ballet classes at age sixteen and learned a lot about movement and performance. One thing that spoke to me when I began studying visual art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY was how well Degas captured the movement and shape of ballet dancers.  I wanted to be able to draw and paint like him. One of my foundation class projects was to divide a picture by a master painter into it's visual planes showing what was the front of the picture plane and the receding, middle and background planes of the space in the painting. Another famous Degas was the one I chose to work from on this project. My project Degas was of a dancer adjusting her shoe in the foreground of a ballet class studio which I got from the Metropolitan Museum of art in NYC.  

At Pratt I also studied modern and avante garde dance for PE credit. The most interesting class was with a choreographer named Laura Dean who taught us how to spin like sufi whirling dervishes. I practiced and achieved an advanced level where I could spin without stopping for 45 minutes in my home studio. It was a great way to meditate and get your heart pumping. The only draw back was  shin splints which comes from doing the same movement repeatedly. In another school project for a film class I used an orange plastic rain suit and a blue sky on the roof of my Brooklyn apartment as the subject. In this film I was spinning in the orange suit against the shockingly bright blue sky. My tribute to dancers in orange and blue circa 1977. I still have the original 8mm film but I have no idea how to make it digital. One day if I find a way to do it I will add it to the blog.