Markets and Coffee Shops are among my favorite Subjects!

Posted on March 12, 2015 by csir2014

When Tom and travel we often plan our days and weeks around when the local markets are open. We have favorites. The Ballaro Market in Palermo, Sicily is in our top 5. The painting of Ballaro is actually a studio work, not plein air. I took lots of photos and painted it upon our return. The fellow in the painting was priceless. I wish we had recorded this market. The cry was, from almost every stall, “Broccoli Broccoli Broccoli” which was really cauliflower!!!

In Rome we visited three different kinds of markets, the famous, and tourist-full Campo dei Fiori, and the less travelled Print Market in Piazza Borghese was fascinating. We found a Piranese-like lithograph to take home….Piranese’s work was really expensive!

The third type of market was the Flea. Staying in Trastevere, we couldn’t leave without visiting the famous Porte Portese Flea and everything Market. Packed and worth the trip though I wasn’t tempted to buy.

Markets in smaller cities and towns in Italy are fascinating, but different. On Lake Como, the market day is different for each town. We liked Lenno’s because it had everything. This is a detail, looking up over coffee on a market break.

Perhaps the best Italian city markets, that we saw, at least, are in Bologna. What a wonderful surprise Bologna was to us. We stayed there to satisfy our search for the perfect Bolognese dishes, and we found so much more. Seemingly empty streets around the city center opened and filled with people shopping on their way home. This painting on rice paper is a studio piece painted from photographs we took on Via Pescherie Vecchia. What a wondrous display of food and flowers!

We loved our visit to Argentina, and Turkey, and took in as many markets as we could find. Buenos Aires is famous for it’s weekend markets. We loved the street markets in Palermo Soho and Palermo Viejo.

San Telmo was a crazy weekend market in Buenos Aires, full of everything including tango, and tourists! We enjoyed the music, the variety, people watching and of course tasting the local faire.

We travelled to the the Northwest corner of Argentina to Salta, a much smaller and very welcoming city, full of more spanish and indigenous influences. This sketch is of the umbrellas at lunchtime. Lunch was relaxed and warm!

I was surprised that I didn’t do any sketches of markets in Turkey, especially in Istanbul. We stayed in Istanbul for a week. I think it was just so much! Here are some photos of the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Market and an area on the Galata side of the Golden Horn which was an area selling fish and household hardware. It was amazing!

The Spice Market was fascinating inside, and even more interesting in the small alleys which surrounded it.

The Grand Bazaar was too much! We spent a few hours there, but could have spent several days and not seen everything!The markets in the shadow of the bridge to Galata were a total surprise. No tourists there. The buckets are full of pigment for custom-making paint. We had fresh fish cooked on the grills and ate at tables with the fishermen and market workers.

We left Istanbul and flew to Ismer and drove to Selcuk, a small city/town that served as our center of activity for visiting the archaeological sites. I loved the town; loved coming home to the quiet streets each night to sample the local faire.

I sketch wherever we go as much as I can, markets and coffee houses, and food carts. The sketch below is of the wonderful Queen Anne Thursday Market in Seattle, WA.

This is the Garbo’s Food Cart in Key West. Great food! It was the last stop in one of our southern trips, some by plane, some by car. We stopped in Virginia on the road in Stoney Creek to sample fried chicken at the Tastee Hut.

Washington DC is a favorite. The sketch below is from a Starbuck’s coffee break near the Eisenhower Building at 14th and New York Ave. NW.

My resolve for 2015 is to sketch more at home. These three are from favorite local places, some still here, some moved and changed. Favorites are Sweetness 7, Bistro Europa in its older more intimate setting and location and, for those of you who are Buffalonians, the inimitable Spot, this one is on Elmwood. Love it.

We certainly have plenty to sketch and paint in Buffalo. Look at these shots from our Elmwood Village, Bidwell Park Farmers Market.

So, time to finish this blog post and think about sketching and painting!

Figure Studies – a perfect way to perfect your skills of observation and hand-eye coordination

Posted on March 5, 2015 by csir2014

I love to attend figure study classes, afternoons with other artists as we work on our skills. There is no better way to perfect your skills, to rekindle your enthusiasm than by studying and drawing the human figure.

These drawings are from three different periods in my life. First from 1974 when my then husband and I moved from Ithaca, NY to Fredonia with our three year old daughter Cynnie. I hadn’t found a job yet; finding a job as an unlicensed architect, really a designer/draftsperson, was not easy in a small town south of Buffalo. Instead I found a figure drawing class at Fredonia College with professor David Small. He was willing to let me audit, and I loved it. These next few drawings are from that class, 3 hours two afternoons a week. Heaven for a person who had not drawn, except with architect’s tools, since 1964!

I found a job in early 1975, and didn’t draw for fun again until I moved to Buffalo in 2001. My daughter Cynnie convinced me to sign up for a Figure Drawing Class at the Buffalo Arts Studios. I could only find two drawings from that class, these 5 minute gesture drawings.

I got very busy at Cannon Design, and could not continue with the figure drawing class. (I substituted my Monday nights with Sally Treanor, also at the BAS, learning about watercolor painting).

It wasn’t until this past year, in the fall, that I started with the figure again. At Sally’s suggestion, I joined a group of artists on Friday afternoons at the BAS. We rent a room, hire a model and draw and paint together. These next drawings, and paintings are from those afternoon sessions.

We also did some work with clothed figures in Sally Treanor’s Watercolor Classes this past session. Working in watercolor with a figure is a real challenge!

I will return to Figure Drawing next week! It’s worth it.

Buffalo, A Love Affair

Posted on February 9, 2015 by csir2014

I love Buffalo, New York. Moved here from Fredonia, a college town south of Buffalo, in 2001. As luck and love would have it, I was offered a perfect job with Cannon Design, architect/educational planner for their public school projects, and a few months before met Tom Palamuso, a retired teacher and interior designer. We found in each other all the things you look for in a mate. We exchanged vows in December 2001.

Around the same time, probably the winter of 2002, my daughter Cynnie Gaasch, then the curator of the Buffalo Arts Studio, convinced me to take a figure study class at the BAS. Another daughter, Margaret Treanor, convinced another mother, Sally Treanor, to take the same drawing class. Sally and I became friends, and shortly thereafter I signed up for her Watercolor Class, and the rest is history.

It was a natural progression for me to paint and draw my surroundings. As an architect, and an emerging painter, I was and I am still drawn to and inspired by the wealth of Buffalo’s rich architectural environment. The paintings and sketches in this post are a sampling of my 10+/- years of loving this place.

The Heath House The Rose Garden Buffalo Seminary

Sunset Light in Allentown

This is my favorite corner, Allen Street and Elmwood Avenue, where the bubble man blows his bubbles down on the passersby.

View from Within the Botannical Gardens.

I like the stag horn fern that climbs up the right side of this early painting.

Lafayette High School Detail

Tom and I got a special look at Lafayette High School from the construction scaffolding; a treat from Christine Hentz, from the Buffalo Public Schools Facilities Office. Incredible terra cotta!

Homage to Louis Sullivan

My favorite building in Buffalo….no, I love City Hall and the Darwin Martin House as much….well, I do love the incredible terra cotta detailing on this, the Guaranty Building.

Hanging Out at City Hall

More incredibile terra cotta, and brilliant coloration. Tom took the photo I worked from. We didn’t realize until we took a much closer look that there are two workmen “hanging out” on the building. Look closely.

The Casino at Delaware Park

I think that this was the first time that I drew in pen and ink and then added watercolor. I like the flowing freedom of the line. 2007 – 2008

BECHS – The Buffalo History Museum

When I painted this pen and ink and watercolor painting this building was called the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. Now its the Buffalo History Museum. The photos I took were just after sunrise, coloring the marble beautiful shades of yellow gold through deep purply blue.

The View From Silo City Dusk at the County Fair

Bethlehem Park

Every time we drove down Route 5, especially at the end of a sunny day, I was drawn to this juxtaposition. Finally convinced Tom to stop so I could capture the spritely row of houses built for the Steel Plant employees many years back.

Wright’s Fontana Boathouse

Painted for a fundraiser for the Boathouse. The light from the sunset on Lake Erie is unsurpassed!

Darwin Martin House Reflections

Looking through the door from the main house into the pergola that connects the restored house to the gift shop. This is a small painting that I love. Still hangs in my living room.

Hope Studio Watercolors: A seminar under the guidance of Sally Treanor.

Posted on November 22, 2014 by csir2014

I am busy “turning out” twelve new paintings for a show with Sara Zak, my favorite oil painter, and Chris Hawley, city planner and terrific instagram photographer. We three share a love for the places and architecture of Buffalo, our city. Our show is scheduled for Studio Hart on Allen Street in Buffalo, and will be called “Buffalo – a work in progress”. I won’t be posting these new paintings until the show is closer. It opens on January 9th, the second Friday which is being called the First Friday because of galleries taking time off the week after New Year’s. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, another cool thing is happening.

I’ve been taking watercolor classes from Sally Treanor, a wonderful teacher and artist, since we met in a figure drawing class at the Buffalo Arts Studio back in 2002. Our daughters, Cynnie Gaasch and Margaret Frey, were both working at the BAS, and thought we, the mothers, would enjoy figure drawing. Sally asked me if I had every tried watercolors. No, I hadn’t. She was in her second session teaching watercolor at the BAS. I signed up, and have been painting with Sally ever since, twelve years in fact.

Doreen Boyer DeBoth is also a student of watercolor with Sally Treanor. She is best known for her oils, and for the gallery she operates at 447 Amherst Street in Buffalo, Artsphere Studio and Gallery. She and Sally are curating a show of watercolors by Sally’s students over the years. It’s called “Hope Studio Watercolors: A seminar under the guidance of Sally Treanor.” It opens with a reception on Friday December 5th from 5 – 9 pm, and runs until January 3, 2015.

Sally continues to be an inspiration for me. I never would have tried watercolor if our daughters hadn’t put us together back in 2002. I love painting. Since retiring from Architecture in 2010, I have been loving it more and more.

I have 5 paintings in this show. I’m posting them here. Hope you like them. They are all Buffalo inspired.