We Lived On The 5th Floor, No Lift
Inspiration is a random thing. Sometimes my head does the work first and my hand has to execute its vision. Other times, my hand does whatever it wants and I only understand the idea once the drawing is done. In this case, the process was the latter, with a memory of my life with my alcoholic ex seemingly popping out of nowhere.
Here’s the initial pencil sketch:
And the final artwork:
I ended up changing the woman’s outfit to something reminiscent of Julie Newmar’s Catwoman to get clearer silhouettes.
India ink on 12 sheets of paper, 21 cm × 29.7 cm each.
Crayon Canon
I had planned on going to the Louvre for a day to sketch both its paintings and the people looking at them, but then I got sick. For about 10 days, I couldn’t do much, but also couldn’t do nothing, so I adapted that idea to my energy level (low) and the artworks at hand (infinite, but browsing the internet will never replace the real thing).
The result: 30 sketches of iconic paintings of Western art history, drawn using thick children’s crayons on brown A5 card stock. Some I genuinely like, others look a little awkward or intentionally goofy even though they’re not — let’s blame the virus.
Here are some of my favourites:
Arnolfini Portrait
American Gothic
Saturn Devouring His Son
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
The Floor Scrapers
The Luncheon on the Grass
Other Things I Enjoyed in September
Not much, to be honest. September for me was mostly a lot of non-art related work for very little money, lack of sleep, trying not to go crazy because of the daily noise pollution in the cursed building I live in, and feeling like my life is a hamster wheel where I keep on chasing people per email to no avail.
When the two main issues I’ve been hamster-wheeling about for over a year are resolved, I’ll pop the metaphorical champagne. I am tired. And then there’s the whole “the world is going to shit” thing, which I intentionally do not bring up here because this newsletter is supposed to be a little bit of respite from that, but fucking hell.
So I’ll share two good things:
I highly recommend falling down the rabbit hole of museums’ collections online. You’ll stumble upon some wonderful things.
Hot tip: replace Doomscrolling with Museum Scrolling
I finally got my hands on a copy of Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died (have I already mentioned how much I love Parisian libraries?) — she treats difficult topics with intelligence and a great sense of humour, which feels particularly good right now, and I was very impressed with how she managed to narrate childhood memories in a way that authentically feels like a child’s point of view without being corny at all. Hats off!
And that’s it for this month! Thanks for being here. If you think this newsletter would be of interest to somebody else, feel free to forward it to them.
Till next month, take care,
Cath
