Silver Lake

Silver Lake
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

However I feel like I'm out on a limb by not drawing something observational-- like drawing things like this are somewhat silly. Though that feeling sometimes means I am doing something right. I'm thinking of doing some in oil just to see what happens. (This one is colored pencil and acrylic paint out of my sketchbook.) But I don't know if I could do abstract paintingse exclusively because it only satisfies part of what drives me to create art. Sometimes I feel like I'm two different artist in one body-- an old fashioned observational artist and a (budding) abstract artist. I wish I could combine them somehow but I can't seem reconcile the extremes.

View past map drawings:

the streets run like the lines on my palm
Eight Years in LA, A Portrait

Dark eyes, Sunny Days

Dark eyes
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

This girl had one of those faces that is just dramatic. I tried hard to capture it and I think it came out a bit labored and not as fresh feeling as I had hoped. But I got her basic essence-- dramatic eyes and eyebrows, dark hair, and a headband that offsets it in an almost playful way.

This weekend I am hoping to get a new series of paintings started-- but I may just start planning them and getting reference together for them. I need to also do some sketching. Sunday's weather will be good so maybe I'll bike somewhere and do some outdoor sketching/painting. I never considered myself good at landscapes, but since I have moved I feel like I need to paint landsdcapes outdoors to feel more connected here. There's a cranberry bog and a farm nearby I could paint. I'm glad the weather is getting better so I have more options than staying cooped up inside.

Slightly nerdy...

Slightly nerdy...
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

...in a good way with the high-impact glasses. He would look like a totally different person with a different pair.

Woman with curly hair

Woman with curly hair
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

I suppose this is not a terribly flattering portrait of this woman-- however sometimes outside influences creep into a drawing. The light was kind of sickly yellow here, and even though she was nice looking-- the light made her look old and weathered. I also was overly fascinated by the shape of her hair and how it created a wild dark halo and blended into her shoulders. I was more intrigued by those details than drawing an accurate portrait. So this turned more into caricature.

In other news, I'm off to my new studio today. But I'm not doing anything terribly creative-- mainly moving in and organizing my little area. I probably won't touch a brush until this weekend. I must buy some supplies since I gave away any painting supplies that would have broken and created havoc if the movers chose to toss my boxes around. So I have no turpentine or mediums. But that is easily remedied and I'll be happily painting very soon.

Seated Girl

Seated Girl
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

Here's another cafe sketch. This is another case where I wish I had paint on hand instead of pencil. The light was falling nicely on her and she had pale white skin, dark hair, and icy blue eyes. It would have made a nice little painting sketch. But I just had 5 minutes to sketch her and then she left the cafe.

757 Massachusetts Avenue

757 Massachusetts Avenue
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

I love cafes. Probably because I spend too much time indoors painting alone. Drawing in cafes gives me a reason to go outside and also provides people to watch and draw. However there are no good cafes immediately near me. I don't even think there is a Starbucks. So I've been trying cafes in to Somerville and Cambridge. (That's where I plan to move, as soon as I am able.) But it's 30 miles away so cafes are more of a rare treat these days than a habit. This one had good tea (very important) but a bad floor layout. It was shaped like a railroad car and there weren't many good places to sit and draw from a good angle. But so far it is my favorite cafe. Because the tea was good and the people interesting. I just wish I could sit where I could see them.

In other news, you may have noticed my website has been down for a few days. It was a DNS server issue that I don't completely understand, but it is fixed now. So visit. Also if you're on facebook, I created Bekka Teerlink page. So become a fan!

Man in a Straw Hat

Man in a Straw Hat
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

I was going to post a painting today. However I wrecked it in a fit of anger. I am trying to paint in acrylics, except I hate acrylics it turns out. And when they don't behave I try to beat them into submission. Which results in destruction. Acrylics just can't take a beating like oils do. And I can't paint with oils in my parents house due to ventilation & risk of explosions. So I must learn to control my anger when a painting isn't working. For today I'll just post a sketch of a man I saw in a cafe. He looked like Daniel Day Lewis from the front but I didn't get to draw that view. He had a very striking presence even though he was just reading a paper. How one would imagine Daniel Day Lewis off screen.

the streets run like the lines on my palm

the streets run like the lines on my palm
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

another map, maybe a better one. but it looks more like a map than I wanted. I wanted it to be more abstract. though the streets aren't right-- because memories of where things are always shift and when you try to draw them you see it put down muddled and out of order. but I kind of like the lack of precision that memory has.

Guy in a Cafe

Guy in a Cafe
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

Just a quick sketch for the day. I'm off to the city for lunch and a job interview. Happy Thursday!

Eight Years in LA, a portrait.

Eight Years in LA, a portrait.
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

This is a departure. I was going to post another entery in my steady flow of people sketches of late. But my mood has skewed to the other end of the spectrum this week. Instead of looking outward I am looking inward I guess. It is a rather large jolt to suddenly be 3000 miles away from my home for the last eight years. I forgot how to live anywhere else. I'm still comparing everything to LA as I find stores, things to do, concerts, art galleries, museums, the cafe that will have my new favorite tea.

Tonight I'm in a particularly reflective mood. I go to many concerts. Many. 1-3 a week, depending on my usualy flux of commitments and projects. And always local musicians because I enjoy small venues and lending support to musicians I like. Since I've been in the Boston area (4 months now?) I've gone to just two concerts. It's sad. Because I only know Los Angeles music I found myself at a concert tonight of an old favorite from LA, Ferraby Lionheart.

But what I thought would be a night of getting inspired or getting lost in music became a night of being homesick for Los Angeles. It was also sad because I know that many of the most important things I loved in LA have since left or ceased to exist. Jobs. Friends. Music venues. Radio stations. Art galleries. It was time for me to leave as well.

However I miss having eight years of memories around me-- of places I went, things I did, people I met. When you stay in one place for so long the city becomes layered with personal experiences.

So this week I wanted to find a way to draw those experiences-- like a web of places and paths and emotions all over the city. I decided to draw a map of Los Angeles, but not a street map-- a map of everything I did in eight years there.

This is not meant to look like Los Angeles really, or be accurate with streets. This is out of my head and it may not make sense to anyone else. But here you go....

Woman Reading

Woman Reading
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

When I observed this, the light was coming very softly from the window behind the woman and nearly backlit her-- but just enough light was skimming the side of her cheek. She was wearing multicolored scarf, jacket & shirt which was very cool. I drew this in pen first. I watercolored it later from memory-- I think I came close. I also wanted to capture part of the big bulky guy sitting next to her. He made her look small. I cropped him off to make the frame feel crowded and cramped.

Portrait of my mom

Portrait of my mom
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

Just a quick sketch of my mom after dinner while we wer all waiting for the Oscars to start. The red carpet pre-show was on and the comentators where saying vapid things which was causing my dad to yell at the TV. My mom was tuning this all out somehow.

Family at Home

Family at Home
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

I quickly sketched this one afternoon as we were all lounging around being lazy. This is why I'm glad to be on this side of the country. It's comfortable. Even without having a job or my own apartment yet.

Portrait with a Laptop

Portrait with a Laptop
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

How many hours do we stare at our computers each day? Too much. We should be looking at people, trees, clouds. I'm going to make an effort to spend less time with my computer and more time doing things... like drawing people looking at computers.

The Laundromat

Laundromat
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

I draw while I do my laundry. This man had the most serene face yet he was rather large and burly with dreadlocks. He was folding a load of laundry and I had to draw him. I think I caught his face pretty well even though this was done very quickly before he finished.

Cafe Sketch for the Day.

Man with hat
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

I saw him in a cafe waiting for someone and I had to sketch him. Luckily he waited a while so I had some time to try to draw him. He almost looked sad though he was probably just bored. I thought he was terribly interesting looking with his hat, hair and the tooth hanging around his neck. I tried to capture it all as I saw it but when I looked at the sketch later I realized I hadn't.

I'm back being artsy already.

Even though I'm "in transition" now and without a studio, I just can't stop making art. Making ambitious oil paintings is not convenient, but after a quick trip to the Met (just 5 hours away, yeah!) I was inspired by Degas to do pastels. I think I will eventually try some giant ambitious pastels, but for starters I am doing portraits to figure out how the hell to work with "chalk." I've been wanting to do portraits since I watched a documentary made by my neighbor about Alice Neel. (That was just before moving-- because one always gets brand new interesting neighbors just before moving out of a building.) I'm starting with self portraits, because I'm always available. And eventually I'll draw my family. After which I will draw friends... and new friends. Anyway, after a couple ass-scrambled drawings, I was able to make this:



Which isn't a bad start, but I still have a lot of work to do. I just wish I was a more interesting subject. I need to change outfits like Susanna Coffey does in her portraits. So right after this sketch, I tried to change myself up a bit:



But I struggled on this one. Mainly because it was 2am but I didn't know having not paid attention to clocks. All I know was that I was watching Notting Hill and it had finished and started over... and finished again. That's when I realized I had been drawing too late and too long. It shows in this portrait. And the pastel is still not natural. It's a bit muddled because I haven't quite figured out how it works and how to plan out my layering in my head as a draw. I always have to know what colors to lay out first and what to hold of on until the end-- but it takes time to know how different colors of the pastel interact with each other. I know oil, and I have an intuitive sense of each paint and it's qualities and when and where to use it. But pastel is unfamiliar territory. My main frustration is how Degas gets such small and fine detail. These sketches are 11x14 and very loose. His pastels are smaller, and I know he is probably using a much different (and better) pastel. I did a quick google about Degas' pastel drawings and found out enough to know that he got very meticulous about his pastel process and materials. But I must learn about his process if I can! More research is in store.

6hrs in Chicago

If I could get back all the time I spent in waiting rooms, lines, jury duty, the DMV, cafes, subways, and stranded in between things to do. I would probably have 2 more years worth of life to do other things. But I would also have significantly fewer sketches like this.

Making a Painting

I'm busy doing some businessy stuff to finish off the year. I don't have much time to get much done before the holidays, but I'm working on developing some new pieces and getting some projects lined up for the new year. I'm getting ready to dive into starting a new series of paintings in January. I spend more time preparing paintings than painting them sometime. Here's a bit of what I'm working on. The following painting I'm preparing is tentatively being called "Free Will." It was inspired by the painting above ("Original Sin" by Hugo van der Goes, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.) I seem to be fascinated by the Eden story right now, and love how it is portrayed in painting. I especially love the lizard-serpent creature with the head of a woman. When I first saw this I didn't realize it was the serpent, only with legs and a human head. Then I started looking at other paintings of the same thing and realized how many ways it has been painted. I was originally going to work this into my painting, "The Bible Tree" but it has developed into having its own canvas. Below is a color sketch:


I somehow had the idea of placing it into a flooded world that's more like the flood story than Eden. (The theme of floods, water, and tidal pools also keep recurring in my stuff lately.) I put some dead trees sticking out of the water, having seen trees like that in flooded areas on the east coast. I eventually removed all trees but one-- thinking of making it more of a dead and drowned Tree of Knowledge. However I was unhappy with the composition and color somewhat, so I tried another color sketch:


I felt a little better about this one, I liked the lone tree but didn't quite like the foreground or some of the fine detail. It still seemed off balance, but the concept was much closer. I'm still not happy with the color, it feels chalky. But I will be able to refine it in the final, and get much more depth (which comes from spending weeks on the painting instead of the 3 hrs this one took.) I did a detailed pencil sketch to refine the detail and composition, I'm not sure if it's perfect, but I like it much better. It needs some more space on the right side I think. But I nailed the lizard-serpent creature.

I think I might put a rotting apple in the final painting (and straighten out the horizon line....) In this I also changed the eyes so they are looking at the viewer, and I'm still thinking about the face. I start out my paintings lately by photo-collaging them to work out composition and ideas. I thought I would include the photo-sketch as well-- even though I work from photos I change a good deal once I translate it into a painting:

For this painting, I will most likely paint more from the pencil and color sketches than the photos. While photos can be helpful-- I find they lock me into things (like where the rocks are, lighting, color, specific positioning) so I make an effort to question and rethink what's in them. You can see that in the tail and hands of lizard, the placement of the rocks, the woman's head and eyes.

I haven't started the final painting yet. I may start a small 8x10 of it this week, and may do a larger one later. I want to finish one more painting before Christmas, this may be the one but we'll see. I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet and am buried in parties and concerts and art shows for the next week. Hopefully I'll get some time this week to at least start.

Spaceland Sketches

I've posted some fun little sketches I did at the Parson Redheads show last week at Spaceland. I kind of wish it was less crowded so I could've snagged a table closer. But instead I was tucked between the merch table and the trash can looking at the backs of heads. Spaceland is not the best place to sketch, Silverlake Lounge is better, and perhaps Bordello. Also El Rey is good (when they have the tables & chairs set up along the side) because it's easy to see over heads and sometimes the lighting guy throws up some crazy stuff. I think my new fantasy is to someday paint a large canvas live on stage with a band. I heard it's been done before, it never occurred to me it could be done. In high school during talent show time I would feel left out that as an artist I couldn't put my talent in front of an audience. But live painting side by side with music would definitely work. Some day I will find a way to do this. Meanwhile I will keep drawing at shows I go to sitting quietly off to the side....