Havana Staircase 2009

My latest watercolor painting. I was struck by this staircase in Havana, Cuba, on my visit in 2009.

Havana Staircase 2009

SOFA So Good

We arrived at SOFA, checked our coats, bought tickets, and had our tickets checked by the ticket checker at the door. I noticed that he scanned preprinted tickets, tore bought tickets in half, but just looked at my tickets taking no action.
When we left I pulled out the coat check tags and noticed that they looked remarkably like tickets to SOFA and not at all like coat check tags.
Turns out we had entered the show by displaying our coat check tag, and we now have two unused tickets for SOFA. They would be worth $24 - if the show did not end in 55 minutes.

A snow day in the city

Thursday night we were scheduled to go to a concert the the CSO - Pierre  Boulez conducting. The weather forecast was for double digits of snow. We did not want to miss the concert, so we decided to go downtown the night before the snow started to avoid the long commute and the possibility of getting stuck or sliding off the road. Whimpy, I know.



Next morning we were greeted with some snow - but not a lot. We decided to go to the Art Institute to spend the day, and go to the concert across the road in the evening.
Click to see the AIC pictures.
The concert was marvelous - Pierre Boulez at 85 was spry and active, and conducted a strong performance of "Bluebeard's Castle" by Bartok. Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano and
Falk Struckmann, bass-baritone take their bows.

We had a great day.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I fell behind in posting my watercolors. Here are the recent ones.

My home setup for watercolor

The current semester of my watercolor class ended on Monday. I had an unfinished painting, and the next class does not start until January, so I got my home setup fixed and ready to go, and finished the work. I am happy.

The new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago

Sunday we visited the new wing (The Modern Wing} of the Art Institute of Chicago.

It is amazing - huge, beautiful, and filled with some of the best art of the 20th Century.

If you have not been there - run, do not walk to the nearest exit and head to downtown Chicago.

All my pics of the new wing start here

Back at watercolor class again

This week's effort - from a photo taken in Spain in 1972

More Watercolors

This fall I missed many of my painting classes for a variety of reasons. These few are the best of the bunch:

CSO - Mahler's Symphony #2 - wonderful

Last night we went to the Chicago Symphony and heard Mahler's Symphony #2. Wonderful performance from the full orchestra and chorus - and the organ. A literally ground shaking event. After seeing and hearing the opera Lulu by Alban Berg the night before, I realized how much my taste in music has moved to the more modern - Mahler the bridge from the old and Berg the new.
This morning I heard that the Chicago Symphony has been voted the best symphony orchestra in the USA by the Gramophone Magazine critics - and fifth in the world. I feel privileged to be able to attend so many of their concerts.
The full listing is:

1 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

2 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

3 Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

4 London Symphony Orchestra

5 Chicago Symphony Orchestra

6 Bavarian Radio Symphony

7 Cleveland Orchestra

8 Los Angeles Philharmonic

9 Budapest Festival Orchestra

10 Dresden Staatskapelle

11 Boston Symphony Orchestra

12 New York Philharmonic

13 San Francisco Symphony

14 Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra

15 Russian National Orchestra

16 Leningrad Philharmonic

17 Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

18 Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

19 Saito Kinen Symphony Orchestra

20 Czech Philharmonic

Source: Gramophone

Millenium Park Watercolor

My watercolor class started up today for the spring semester. The assigned topic was skin colors - but I was in a monochrome mood, so I did my first monochrome watercolor - all Payne's grey.

My art lessons

I resumed my weekly art lessons - this palette looks better than the painting it produced. I have put most of my output in this gallery.

I attended a watercolor class(3)

The last three posts are my attempts from the last sessions I went to.

I attended a watercolor class,,,(2)

I attended a watercolor class...(1)

My first pencil drawing

I starting drawing lessons last week. I have not drawn anything since maybe 3rd grade. At the first class we were tasked to draw a skeleton in charcoal. Not my favorite subject. Yesterday our task was a pencil drawing of a face. This is supposed to be Jacob!

My First Drawing Lesson

My First Drawing Lesson
Originally uploaded by chmoss

So, today I started drawing lessons, courtesy of a gift certificate Hilda bought for me at a charity auction. Our first assignment - draw this skeleton. Hmmm,,,