Painting Radishes 1

Small Square Radishes, oil on canvas, © 2011 Sukie Curtis

I paint radishes more than I eat them. That's just the way it is! 

I can hardly resist buying new bunches of them at the farmers market, even when I have an older bunch at home. But I've learned that they keep an impressively long time in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, and can be my painting models and muses many times over, though their greens go limp and eventually rot. 

Even then, the life force and the "urge" to live and create new life is so strong in them that in the dark and cold of the refrigerator drawer, old radishes will sprout vigorous new root hairs and even pale, spindly greens. They are built to live and flourish.

And to ravish the eyes: such lovely round, though not perfectly round, shapes! such whimsical, quirky tails! and such colors! 

These days radishes come in more than just shades of red, crimson, and pink; there's deep blue-violet, wild magenta, pale pink, and a blush creamy white. And if that's not enough, you can always make up other colors as you paint them! Why not?

Which reminds me: the collage artist and children's book author and illustrator Eric Carle has a new book out, The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse. Carle calls it "an homage to the Expressionist painter Franz Marc." Carle was inspired at a young age by Marc's work when a teacher showed him his painting of a blue horse. 

Scapes of the Day

A little over two years ago, on June 1, 2007 to be exact, I was inspired by Elizabeth Perry's blog called "Woolgathering" (visit it and you will see why) to start a daily drawing practice. I started with a very small sketchbook, so there wouldn't be any BIG expectations. Just that I would do my best to draw at least one thing every day.

Unlike Liz Perry, I didn't choose to start a blog and post a drawing every day. Her faithfulness to that truly amazes and delights me. She's been doing this for more than four years, I believe. And I don't think she has missed a day!

I knew that I didn't want to worry about my drawings being seen right away. No concerns about an "audience" or who likes what or doesn't like what. Every now and then I have shown certain drawings and occasionally a whole sketchbook to a few people.

Again and again since June 1, 2007 I've realized what a truly revolutionary and regenerative thing it is for me to draw on a regular basis. Especially when I do it so frequently--it's best when I do it every day, though I confess to there being stretches when I forget or take a break--that it's just something I do. And something I do primarily for myself and my own enjoyment, only secondarily for public viewing.

Drawing regularly, with little pressure to impress anyone or to produce anything in particular, helps me to be more playful and more creative in other areas. And some days I look at what I've just drawn and I am totally enraptured by it! Like a mother whose young child has just brought her a drawing, even if a mere scribble, and she (the mother) is filled with love and joy and gratitude for this creative offering. As corny as it may sound, I guess I'd have to say that in those moments drawing allows me to be both the child and the mother!

For a whole bunch of reasons I now feel more ready to post more drawings more frequently. Not every day, mind you! But when I feel like it, have managed to get a good photo (that is often the step that bogs me down), and then just do it.

This drawing of garlic scapes was done last year. More to come!

Scapes

I'm totally smitten with scapes. By which I don't mean landscapes or seascapes (although I do love those, too) but garlic scapes! That's what they call the tops of garlic plants--the last several inches of stem with the buds of would-be garlic flowers--available at farmers' markets this time of year.

Garlic scapes are sold as food, and they are edible (and tasty), but I buy them mostly as art. Because the stems do all kinds of crazy twists and turns and curlicues and loop-de-loops in those last several inches, a bunch of garlic scapes stuck in a vase is a playful bit (or shall I say, bite?) of edible sculpture.

I draw them over and over and over--sometimes focusing on the graceful curving lines, sometimes on the spaces in between, sometimes just on the joy they give me when viewing them. I find them endlessly fascinating.

I swear some mornings the scapes that I've left in a vase of water have grown an inch or two overnight! I really don't know if it's true (I keep forgetting to measure them in order to keep track), but it sure feels as if they get longer and taller.

If you keep them long enough, they may start to smell a bit too strong--not your ordinary floral bouquet kind of scent!--and the papery wrapping around the buds begins to open and there are new details to draw if you feel so inclined.

And when you feel like eating them, you can chop them into a stir fry or simply brush the whole things with olive oil and grill them. The stem when grilled takes on the consistency of asparagus with a very mild garlic flavor, and the buds get slightly crispy! Quite tasty!

Today's two photos are of two different bunches of garlic scapes in our house at the moment. Stay tuned for some sketchbook scape art coming up!

Different kinds of artists

Twelve years ago I took a drawing class. In retrospect I can see it was the official beginning of really paying attention to my interest in visual art, and it was also the first of the many classes I've taken. Back then I used to draw with my children every now and then, and on one particular day I drew a watering can with Bekah. I  liked the drawing enough that I glued it into my journal where it remains to this day. I told Bekah and Anna that day that I was going to take some drawing lessons.

Anna, who was then four, said, "Maybe when you get to be a little older, you could be a artist." (How generous of her, I thought, to have such faith in me.) 

"You probably need to practice more first," she continued. Maybe by your next birthday you could be a artist." (This was very generous, as my birthday was only two months away.) 

Then, as she wandered around the dining room table where I was sitting, she stopped and said, "And when you're dead. . . ." (She paused, and my thoughts immediately leapt to how when I was dead my artwork would live on after me, or that my art would be in a museum, or some grand thing like that.) 

Then Anna continued, ". . . you'll be a dead artist."

I exploded with laughter, pure unedited laughter. I laughed until I cried and couldn't speak a word. I could see that Anna was looking upset. I don't think she had meant to be funny. She was, after all, four years old, and perhaps she was chewing over the reality of death, even the eventual death of her mother. 

Anyway, I like thinking that when I'm dead I'll be a dead artist (I'm sorry, but in my book it sure beats being a dead priest, which is what I often felt like even though I was officially alive). And until I'm a dead artist, I'd like to think I'm a joyful artist, even a playful artist. And a living artist, too.