Slow down New Year

Laughing with the girls
Skype sketch
conté and charcoal on bond paper
8 x 10 inches
Barbara Muir © 2010

I said Happy New Year to someone yesterday and I might
as well have been wearing white pumps in January. (Our
tour guide in Siena in December wore white pumps,
black tights, a white ski jacket coat, black cinch belt, and
a black scarf, topped with a grey fake lamb fur hat. She
looked great!) But anyway I get the point and feel it in
my bones. The year is racing away.

Today I began undoing the Christmas greenery, and drew
this little sketch of my niece. She's the bigger girl, and so
beautiful in real life that I never adequately capture her
beauty. Her skin is radiant and transparent at the same
time -- luminous.

Some day I'll get her to come here (She lives in L.A.) and
pose, and then we'll really have a gorgeous painting.

Have a loving-your-family-near-and-far day.

In the Skype mood going through the door

Leaning in on the joke
Skype sketch
charcoal and conté on bond paper
6 x 9 inches
Barbara Muir © 2010

School and my commissions all begin next week,
so I have needed this time to think about what
I want to do with my own work independent
of all that. I am leaning heavily towards
producing very large Skype paintings. Going
through my reference shots from Skype
tonight I found a super shot of a friend of mine
in Nova Scotia leaning into the frame the way
you sometimes do on Skype, and thought I'd
draw him.

I've done big faces before, and I really love the look.
So watch out. Is the computer screen like the new
frame? I am thinking about that too. How to
present my beauties. Anyway this friend has been
using a metaphor for artistic progress with me
for a few years --"going through the door."
Every time something exciting happens to me
he laughs like he is in this picture and says,
"I told you you were going through the door,".
So maybe envisioning these large portraits I am
once again putting my foot out into the wider world.
I think that's what he means. I always laugh when
he says it, even though I'm not entirely sure what
he means. He's just funny because he lives in the
Maritimes soaking in all of that clean air.

Have a putting-your-foot-out-the-door day.