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I brought a few sheets of Bristol paper with me to Denver, not to mention my moleskine sketchbook. I’ve been working mostly in pen on small portraits in my moleskine. But I wanted to do something in pencil with a little more room. At home I’ve been working on a painting of Crystal, but I’m having trouble with the likeness, so I thought that it would be good to try my hand at a pencil drawing of her. Here’s the drawing…

It’s about 7″ x 8.5″ on bristol paper. Definitely the best likeness I’ve gotten for Crystal so far. I only had my mechanical pencil with me; it was sort of surprising to learn how fond I’ve become of using different pencil hardnesses to further a drawing.

- Jeremy

At present, what seems to be the larger brother of the last storm, which dumped two feet of snow on us, is currently pummeling Denver. Expectations are that it will let up some time on Sunday. Julie and I were scheduled to return home on Saturday.

The blizzard last week stopped all flights into and out of Denver International Airport for the better part of three days. Already this storm has canceled flights through Friday evening, so I figured that it would be better to change our flight now, rather than wait until our flight is officially canceled and have to take an even later flight. As it is, we’ll be coming home late on Tuesday evening, just a few hours before we have to be back at work. I was really hoping to have a couple of days to work on my paintings before getting back to the grind. Alas, it seems it was not to be.

Wishing you all bright, sunny days…

- Jeremy

I’ll post a picture of the now familar bird-feeder in the morning…

It hasn’t stopped snowing here. Not sure how many feet of snow we’ve got at this point, but the photo should give you an idea. It’s gotten so deep that the satellite dish is completely covered, so we’ve got no Tele. Hope that the internet conn…..

As you may have heard, last week we had a powerful windstorm in Oregon. Winds were upwards of 100 mph and we lost power for several hours (some people are still without power now, nearly a week later).

Now we’re visiting with Julie’s parents in Denver (acutally Littleton), and today we’re in the middle of a blizzard. It started snowing last night and hasn’t let up yet. We’ve got nearly a foot of snow at this point and they are saying we may have three feet before the precipitation lets up. This photo was taken of the bird feeder in the back yard:

Definitley will be a white Chirstmas here… wishing you all a lot of warmth and joy.

- Jeremy

I was recently given the opportunity to execute a large double-portrait drawing for a private collection. It’s one of the larger drawing that I’ve completed 20″ x 26″ and was done on Fabriano Artistico Hot Press 140lb paper. The paper seems to be a good mix between the Rives BFK paper that I used for the drawing of Shaun and the Strathmore Bristol paper that I’ve been playing with. The Rives seems to have much less sizing and so it takes some work to make the darkest marks. This can be a good thing if it takes one a bit of effort to find the form. The Bristol paper on the other hand takes the marks as you lay them down and erases cleanly. This would seem desirable for a highly trained or experienced draftsman though you have to be careful not to smudge it. The Fabriano is sort of a hybrid between these two extremes. Though I have to say that I do like the way the Rives paper fights just a little bit. Julie recently received some Magnani paper that feels like a cross between the Rives and the Fabriano. I’m going to have to see if I can steal a sheet to play with, though I don’t think she has any extra (it’s for a printing project). But maybe I can swap it with a sheet of my Fabriano paper without her knowing.

At any rate, here’s an image of the final drawing. I sent it off to the client on Monday, so hopefully it will be arriving (safely) before the end of the week.

Tyler Portrait, 20″x26″ – Private Collection

– Jeremy

Update: just got an email that it arrived this afternoon without any problems. What a relief.

It’s time again for my Lessons and Carols post. As you may or may not recall, for the past 3 years, I have participated in the choir for our university convocation’s Lessons and Carols service. The choir is composed of volunteer staff and students at Willamette, and we get about 4 hours of practice to learn 5 or 6 songs for the performance. This year we did “What Child Is This,” “In the Bleak Midwinter,” “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” and “Sing Gloria,” plus the usual battery of traditional Christmas hymns associated with Lessons and Carols.

The twist, at least for me, occurred at practice on Tuesday afternoon, when the choir director looked at me, and said, “Julie, why don’t you do the solo for ‘Once in Royal David’s City’?”

I hemmed and squirmed, and belatedly tried to make myself look small and inconspicuous, as if doing so would make her forget she had asked at all. When that was unsuccessful, I managed to squeak out, “I don’t know, I’ve never done a solo before.” That was taken as consent, and I suddenly found myself responsible for doing not just a solo, but an a capella solo of the very first verse of the first song in the entire program, complete with high D’s in the last two lines.

Since Tuesday, I’ve been nervously humming “Once In Royal David’s City” anytime I don’t think anyone else will notice, trying to find my pitch and hit those high notes cleanly. The service itself was today, and I think I did alright. I was wearing a new dark green corduroy blazer and plaid skirt, so I felt appropriately Christmas-dressy, and I am told that I could be heard on the other side of the chapel, which is a good sign. I got in a little warm-up time before the program, too, so I was able to hit those D’s and not sound like a squeaky clarinet in need of a fresh reed. After the solo trauma, the rest of the music just flew, and by the last hymn, I was singing so exuberantly that I strained my voice a little.

Considering my Lessons and Carols posts of the past two years, I should mention that I will yet again be going home and doing some Christmas party baking this evening, though I also baked a batch of peanut butter cookies last night. I used a Moosewood recipe that claimed to make big and chewy cookies, but though I ended up with the right number of very tasty cookies based on the recipe, they were definitely not big, and more crunchy than chewy. I’m tempted to try making ice cream sandwiches with some of them, since I think Jeremy was a little disappointed.

I’ve been working on a couple of portrait paintings recently. I think I’m starting to find a studio process that is going to work for me. This isn’t yet finished, but it’s coming along well, so Julie asked me to post an image of the in-progress work. The photo could be a little better. It was very late at night (dark) and wet paint doesn’t photograph very well, especially under fluorescent lights. The painting is a little more chromatic than it appears here.

Casey – Oil on Linen, 32″x24″ (In Progress)

– Jeremy