Kincaid – Week Four Recap

I kept going to the library and studio this week. On Monday morning, I illustrated the first page and a half of the introduction portion of the Arlys stories. In the afternoon I went to get my second Covid vaccine dose, so I didn’t get to go to the studio. My body had a really intense reaction to the vaccine, so I took Tuesday off. Wednesday morning, I finished the introduction at the library. In the afternoon, I went to Wildwood Community Park to sketch. Thursday morning, I went to Laumeier Sculpture Park to photograph and draw the sculptures, and drafted the first chapter of the Arlys stories at the studio in the afternoon. Today I worked some more on the first chapter, and did some sketching (at the library and studio respectively). (I’ve also recently learned that live sketching can also be called drawing plein air, which is a term people who aren’t fancy oil painters can also use.)

The first chapter of the Arlys stories will be thirteen pages, which will take me at least a couple weeks. It’s about her early childhood, and there’s not a distinct plot, which I don’t see as a problem. There are stories about her relationships with her cousins, friends, and family. It starts at birth and ends when she’s about six or eight years old. (Unfortunately I don’t have anything to show yet – but next week I will.)

Every day before I started a session on the Arlys stories this week, I did a thirty minute warm-up sketch to loosen up, which really helped. When I go out to do live sketches, I don’t always get to draw everything I see, so I take a lot of pictures of things I want to remember. Most of the time, I used these pictures as warm-ups. Both of the pictures I attached below are warm-ups of sculptures at Laumeier.

This week, I tried to focus on focal points when I was live sketching. I would try to indicate a focal point by inking it thicker and in more detail than the rest of the picture, which makes the values more distinct. Additionally, I tried to use less paint and let more of the paper show through. It helps simplify the coloring process, and I think it makes the piece look better. Even though the sketch of the eye sculpture wasn’t done on location, I think it’s the best example of how my skills have progressed this week.

In the world of poetry, I managed to memorize half of Sonnet 81 by Shakespeare this week. In the sonnet, Shakespeare is writing to a lover about how once both of them are dead, the lover will be immortalized because of Shakespeare’s sonnet about them. The language is tough, but I will stick with it, and hopefully I should memorize the whole sonnet next week. I also started skimming through Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks.

I had an Arabic lesson last Saturday, and my next one will be tomorrow. We’re working on verb conjugation, specifically the future and past tenses. I can only make simple sentences with these verbs, so it hasn’t been too difficult so far.