1984 VW Rabbit GTI - Kleine GTI Ad

The first new car I ever bought was a 1984 VW Rabbit GTI. I already was driving a used Rabbit (I don't recall the year) and loved the short wheel base, tight turning radius and responsiveness of the car. Then I saw this commercial and just had to buy it.

I was not disappointed. I used to jump this baby on small hills, drive her over 100 mph, and even won some drag races with her over much faster cars when the drivers had no idea how to shift. I only sold her when the 16 valve GTI came along and was so much better.

I just can't seem to get the video to play, so it you want to see it go here.

Foggy Landscape

I continued to search for photographs that moved me to draw and found this one in a National Geographic Magazine. It looked like it would be lots of fun because of all of the colorful wild flowers and so I had at it with my Pentel color pens. I don't know if I am happy with the result compared to my other works or not. Click to enlarge.




The pinks of the flowers have faded a bit and did not come out quite right in the photograph. I had lots of fun drawing the umbels in the Queen Ann's Lace and trying to put them in three dimensions. I feared hours of work filling in the foreground, but then thought it looked fine without it.

Old Woman

This work has been shown at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, NY. It was completed in 1984 and was done from a photo that my husband Sean took. He was in a park in Syracuse and came upon this old woman. He asked, as he usually does, if he could take her photograph and this is the gesture she made. He shot the picture immediately. Once I saw this photo I knew I had to draw it. So with his permission, here is my pointillism rendition of Sean's Old Woman. Click to enlarge.




She was really a challenge to photograph too because the drawing is so light (you can see my reflection in the glass). Actually, when I was doing this drawing it was quite difficult to tell when it was done and when to stop making dots. I was so afraid I would ruin the effect I was trying to capture. Do you think I stopped to soon?

Portrait of a Young Woman

This was the first ever portrait that I did of a person in pointillism. It was from a sepia photograph of Sean's maternal grandmother when she was a young woman. I had some trouble with her hair and so some of it I did as a characterization, like her bangs, and then other parts I feel I got right, like at the nape of her neck. This is when I decided that old people would be easier to draw though I was pleased with this result. Click to enlarge.

Wild Flowers

This piece was shown at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, NY and at the Everson Museum as part of an "on My Own Time" Show, both in 1984. I also completed it in 1984. It is pen and ink pointillism on paper. Click to enlarge. The actual drawing inside the mat border is 8" by 12".

Verne, my brother, nearly had a heart attack when he saw it because some of the flowers are not in bloom at the same time of year, so this actual bouquet would never be seen. I had a good time drawing it because I love flowers and I chose ones that gave me the best opportunity to use the craft to its best advantage. See how the Jack in the Pulpits have lots of fluted creases to be drawn in as well as twisted petals. Those are divine to do in pointillism. Please let me know your comments.

Perfume Bottles

So, like making all these tiny little dots takes a really long time. You know? It could take hours and hours just to complete one work. I began to wonder how I could make money doing it. Sean said that I could do advertisements in newspapers and magazines. Being the skeptic that I am, I did not believe him. So I decided to draw his collection of perfume bottles to see if I could do an ad for something like that. This drawing is the result.

This is not his entire collection, just some that I selected to draw. I used the pentel color pens for this work. As you can see, the bottles are all made of glass and have glass stoppers. Two have old perfume still in them. I had lots of fun seeing the light’s reflections in the glass and reproducing it on paper, especially in the perfume of the Lalique bottle (with the dove stopper) and the cut glass stopper of the bottle in the left rear. I was very happy with the result. But I decided not to go into illustration for advertising at that time; I kept my day job.

I apologize that the top of this drawing has been cut off by the limits of the scanner. Click to enlarge.

Last night, Sean put my drafting table back in my studio, which was the office we used to share. Sean had moved his office back out to the 5,000 square foot metal building on our property in the fall when he ran for First Selectman (he lost!), so it was only a matter of time. I carried some of my art that was framed, but not hung in our house into the studio from my closet and opened my portfolio and found some unfinished water colors. I am so intimidated by these. I don’t want to ruin them by mucking them up. One of them is of some koi that I started from a photo I took in Singapore. It is a beautiful and delicate work that I have put the first water color wash down on. I just don’t see what the next step is for it. But first I need to photograph some others of my works for the blog. That should keep me busy.

Neral's First Mouse, 1984

When I first moved in with Sean, I was so turned on. But not just in the way you might think. You see, as an architect, he had a full home office with a fully supplied drafting area and that was my turn on. The artist in me was turned on by his many different sized rapidograph ink pens and the rainbow of pentel color pens.

I couldn’t wait to have at them. My creativity was boiling and bubbling, just waiting to explode out into the world. Then of course I had a boring job that didn’t require too much brain power either, so that worked in favor of good art too.

I was also very inspired by my first cat, Neral, who was a lynx point Siamese. He caught his first mouse in our late 1800’s house we lived in! He was so proud; he brought it to me in bed. I threw back the covers and there it was. Yeah, that was the last time I let him sleep with us.

I used Sean’s mechanical drafting pencils to draw sketches of Neral, then I filled in the sketch with tiny dots with a small barrel rapidograph pen as you can see. This only half the picture as it was all that would fit on my scanner. This kind of pointillism is very easy to do, but requires infinite patience and a very steady hand. Click to enlarge.

You can see that I was very influenced by Asian art even at this time. It is evident in my graphic sense as well as in the detail of the work. I continued to be stuck in pointillism for years to come. It is a very deliberate and reliable way to produce quality art.

Sean showed me some applications, notably famous artists, such as Seurat, and portraits in the Wall Street Journal. Of course I had to so some portraits immediately, and did portraits of one of Sean’s great aunts when she was a young woman, and old woman, and a self portrait. All but the self portrait are framed. Then, I got a commission to do a portrait of someone’s child and found that I could not do it. To me, a child looks like a featureless ball. There is no character to portray. So, I had to turn down the commission.

I continued to do black ink on white paper pointillism of cats, flowers and whatever else captured my imagination. Some of these are framed and some have been shown. I will try to photograph some as time goes by.

Tomorrow: I discover color!