From "The Big Impact of a Small Hobby/Drawing mundane things like my dish rack had helped me survive job loss. Could it be helping me through the coronavirus?" by John Donohue (NYT).
You can see a lot of his drawings at this Google image search: here.
And here's a New Yorker article of his from 2016: "The Drawing Pad as a Fatherhood Survival Tool."
To draw from life in ink, as I do, with no prospect of erasing anything, is to risk making immediate mistakes that quickly make clear—in black and white—the error of one’s ways. Seeing things in perspective, being present, and quickly acknowledging mistakes are as useful in life as they are on the page....
I spend an inordinate amount of time in the kitchen, and I have often found myself drawing the dish rack. I now have more than a hundred and fifty renditions of the humble kitchen appliance. This practice has led to a calmness that I didn’t know I could achieve....
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Found out today that a signed Pablo Picasso painting is going for around 100,000 grand less than a Hunter Biden "painting."
Odd, that. Open, legal, blatant in your face bribery and corruption? Or is Hunter Biden the best artist in 100 years?
Which is more likely?
Not terrible drawings...but there may be a bit of an OCD thing going on here.
Those are fine drawings but I don't know if they offer more in terms of commentary on the world than the host's drawings of rats.
Paywalled…with a NYT offer of $1/week for a year. You’d have to pay me to take it but that’s cheap…
I am both appalled and amused by his obsession with his dish rack.
You need to get back to doodling your rat!
"drawing mundane things like my dish rack"
I thought that, here, 'dish rack' was being used as an example of all sorts of mundane things he draws, but no, that's the whole deal. He draws his dish rack over and over and over.
I used to do week-long Orthodox icon-painting workshops at my church - attend, that is, not instruct. I am IN NO WAY an artist. But this iconographer's method was such that she could (a) teach just about anyone to produce a serviceable icon, and (b) fix (our "redeem," as we only half-joked) anybody's mistakes.
The process was the most intense and engrossing meditation I had ever experienced, and for a good few weeks afterwards, I found that I saw the world entirely differently - in terms of how I would mix its colors, how I would try to capture its light and shadow. It was... magic. Liminal. I even started painting icons on my own as a devotion. (Speaking of, Advent is coming...)
An art collective purchased an original Andy Warhol drawing for $20,000 and is selling it to one lucky buyer for just $250. But there's a catch: The artwork is being offered alongside 999 high-quality forgeries -- and even their creators can't tell them apart.
So there really is no difference between a signed Warhol work of art and Warhol forgeries that include his signature - not even the selling price.
But I wouldn't pay $250 for this sketch even if it was the original.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fe891f0f6-3714-11ec-b83a-bd8490b9f48d.jpg?crop=2857%2C1607%2C36%2C452&resize=1200
Speaking of art and fatherhood, creating art with your own children is one of the funnest things you can do. It does not even have to be good art. Source: @hereswhatweregonnado on insta, my own art account.
Next up......crayons!
When I went to art school (c. 1970), we were encouraged to draw various mundane things you might have around. Shoes were big. As were individual kernels of popcorn. And I vividly remember drawing an egg — an unbroken egg set on a white surface. You'd be surprised how much you see in an egg when you really look at it and draw with a pencil. Not a line drawing, but a careful copying of the shading and the cast shadow.
Popped popcorn... that was the drawing craze of the time. But go ahead and draw unpopped popcorn if you want. After you do the egg.
A lovely elderly neighbor of mine made arts and crafts for charity sales, along with several of her friends. They collaborated on a piece, a painting of six teapots sitting on kitchen shelves. Each teapot was painted by one of the artists. It was quite nicely done, for amateur artists, and would do well at the upcoming event for charity.
She asked me, as an objective reviewer, to pick the best teapot. Judgement of Paris, like. I did so. Then she asked me why I chose the blue and white teapot over the rest. And I told her about the perfection of the perspective and excellence of color shading and photorealistic light reflection painted on that teapot, compared to the still lovely but less perfect painting of the other teapots.
And then I asked her which one was hers. She smiled hugely, but said, "Oh, I couldn't say. We each painted one teapot, and it is after all for the charity sale, not bragging rights." I hope to this day that I picked hers.
'But I wouldn't pay $250 for this sketch even if it was the original.'
Now do Hunter...
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