NATHANIEL GOLD

Chimp Sketch of the week #10

2012-02-14T17:56:00.000-08:00

an old watercolor in my sketchbook

Chimp Sketch of the week #9

2012-02-07T18:50:00.000-08:00

chimp Sketch of the week #8

2012-01-30T17:06:00.000-08:00

This chimp looks into the mirror does he see something that we don't when we look at yourself?

The Anatomy Lesson of Homo Sylvestris

2012-01-17T04:55:00.000-08:00

About a week ago Eric Johnson the great writer that I work with at The Primate Diaries emailed me to tell talk about a post he was going to write and some general ideas he had to send me in a direction for an image. In this email he sited a few classic paintings that dealt with the history of science included in them was The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn known to most as simply Rembrandt. I jumped at the chance to take on the great painter, as he is a hero of mine as he is for so many artists. I always wanted to tackle this painting but never had the nerve, now here I was face to face with the opportunity to take one of my favorite paintings and recreate it with Chimpanzees in my way (extremely indulgent). Well I thought I was taking on Rembrandt but in reality I was taking on the entire concept of chimpanzee centric art with out even knowing it.

When ever beginning an image there is always a level of research that goes in to the subject that I am painting in this case I learned that Tulp was the official City Anatomist, permitted only one public dissection a year. His most impressive work on medicine was his Observationes Medicae published in 1641. The book is complete with descriptions of his work, including 231 cases of disease and death. Some called it the "book of monsters", because Tulp dissected animals brought back from the Dutch East India Company's ships. As a result of the success of his books, Tulp became Mayor of Amsterdam in 1654, a position he held for four terms.

So that first evening after tucking my kids into bed, working on a few rough sketch ideas and after concluding my basic research on Tulp I decided to go down stairs and snuggle up to the book I am reading at the moment. The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary by Andrew Westoll is a fantastic book about the relationship between the author and the chimpanzee residents there that are living out their retirement. Westoll also provides the background history of the chimps lives and what brought them to Fauna Sanctuary that show the utter brutality of human nature. It was here on page 38 the second page that I read only moments after my research of Tulp that his name came up in Andrew Westolls book. He was describing a short history of the Chimpanzees introduction into the western world and it was here that I learned that it was Tulp who described and first drew a picture of a chimpanzee in his book "The book of monsters." Call it serendipity but this image now became extremely important because I was not only paying tribute to a the great artist Rembrant but to the entire concept of non humane primate art which obviously holds a great level of importance to me.

So now here is that chimp Homo Sylvestris from Angola getting just a little revenge on Tulp and on us all please enjoy my painting The Anatomy Lesson of Homo Sylvestris

A Tale of Illustrations

2012-01-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

On this weeks installment of The Primate Diaries we used an old illustration, one I did a few months ago. At first this image was not working and we decided that we would not use it. I change the background to add some brightness to it and it worked. Let me know which you like better.

Portrait of Carl Zimmer

2011-12-20T04:45:00.000-08:00

For the most recent installment of The Primate Diaries I was asked to paint a portrait of author Carl Zimmer. The portrait is painted with Gauche and Acrylic paint on a 140 LB Arches hot press watercolor paper.

The first step in any portrait I do is to define the entire image in line with a complete drawing. This drawing will be painted over and none of it will become part of the finished artwork but it serves two purposes. During this stage I am exploring Mr. Zimmer’s face learning it with every line and mark that I put down I am also creating a rode map of structure, value and design, always mindful of the paint that will be layered on top.

The next step for me is strictly about blocking in shape and value. I am laying down blocks of paint in basic shapes that I see in the face using the sketch I am painting on as well as previous sketches and any reference photos I am using. With every shape I put down I am comparing it to all of the other values I have put down paying close attention to my darkest dark and lightest light knowing that all values are only relative to the other values placed on the paper.

I have now gone into those shapes and found more and more shapes inside the larger shapes putting all of the values together like a puzzle. At this point I lay in the largest blocks of color (the hair, coat and background) based on the value of those areas all of the values in the face could change. I am now comparing the face and determining if the values and colors laid in are the right ones for this painting in this case the background value changes three times before I was happy.

I now go in to the details that make this painting complete with a smaller brush and just a bit of color pencil. I am using pencil mostly on the shirt and coat creating a look that blurs the line between painting and drawing inspired by illustrators from the 1960s such as Robert Weaver and Austin Briggs

Mental Health

2011-12-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

This illustration is for the primate diaries this week. The chimp is drawn with ink and wash but the background is created with a type of paint called Casein paint. Derived from milk casein, is a fast-drying, water-soluble medium. It generally has a glue-like consistency, but can be thinned with water to the degree that fits a particular artist's style and desired result. It can be used on canvas panels, illustration boards, paper, wood and Masonite but here I am using it in 4 ply Bristol board. Casein paint is reworkable and can be used for underpainting. It generally dries to a matte finish. This was the paint of choice for illustrators prior to the 1960s but once Acrylic came to be most illustrators dropped Casein paint but I think I will be exploring it more in the near future.

Chimp Sketch of the week #7

2011-12-06T05:59:00.000-08:00

occupy wall street

2011-12-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

I was down at Zuccotti Park recently and decided to do some sketches. Ironically I found there to be many Wall Street types occupying Wall Street.

This young twenty something year old was more interested in checking his blackberry then protesting, most likely on his lunch break. Lets call this guy the lunch break protester a nice young guy a few years out of Grad School trying to remain youthful wanting to appear as if he is still part of some pseudo hippie culture but knows that if he gets back late from lunch he will be fired and his parents will be so mad they might stop paying for that blackberry or iphone he’s texting his girlfriend on.

The guy next to him was more interested in the 9/11 memorabilia that is sold on a constant basis at the construction of the Freedom Tower just another stop these days for the holiday season NY tourists

As you can see from this Sketch WORKERS ARE SLAVES well at least as far as that middle-aged woman is concerned as she stands there and preaches to the hipsters and homeless.

This guys walks by and stops for a second to see this sideshow attraction on his way to a very important meeting at the brokerage firm he works for...he looks at his pocket-watch like the white rabbit in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. He realizes he is late and he is then off to rob and steal.

Epilogue: I then left and got a dirty water dog for $2.50 I remember when they were a $1 well that’s capitalism for you.

Chimp Sketch of the week #6

2011-11-28T18:19:00.000-08:00

With Respect to Dr Seuss

One Chimp

Two Chimps

Red Chimp

Blue Chimp

Chimp Sketch of the week #5

2011-11-21T07:35:00.001-08:00

I had some scraps of watercolor paper that was toned with Lipton Tea from a previous illustrations (see Tradition post below) so I decided using black prismacolor color pencil to sketch out this chimp of the week with titanium white gouache for highlights.

The Social Network

2011-11-16T04:24:00.000-08:00

The most recent illustration for The Primate Diaries at Scientific American was a challenge. Unlike my usual chimp head on a human body I challenged myself to use the wild chimpanzee to communicate the narrative in this illustration. The idea was to show these wild animals in their environment holding mobile devices and communicating via facebook, twitter and text. The article was about how primate brain size increased over evolutionary time as an adaptation for increased social networks.

I started with a line drawing in ink on 140 lb Stonehenge cream color paper using black ink on the middle toned paper to begin to push and pull my values. I am already making choices as to were my darkest darks and lightest lights are.

My next step is using lamp back watercolor and watered down ink I create washes modeling the form and continuing to push and pull the values.

As you can see in this detail I use a kolinsky sable brush to model the wash. After this I put an acrylic varnish over the entire image creating a surface suitable for painting

Using gouache I add my lightest lights with titanium white and yellow ocher. I paint in the leaves and sky and for a final touch I paint the phones into the chimps hands.

Chimp Sketch of the week #4

2011-11-14T16:53:00.000-08:00

Another one done in my sketchbook, this one was done with an ebony pencil, which gives you a large range of value. The background is an acrylic wash.

Chimp Sketch of the week #3

2011-11-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

This weeks chimp was drawn in ink with a croquille pen direct into my sketchbook

Chimp Sketch of the week #2

2011-11-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

One Day late HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Nasferatu

2011-10-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

This image was created for The Primate Diaries on Scientific American my ongoing collaboration with writer Eric Johnson. This image was created on 140 LB Arches watercolor paper. I absolutely love this paper there is nothing it can’t do. This image is mostly acrylic and gouache but the body was created using a large amount of ink that was laid on heavily with a squirrel hair water color brush then when dried I laid in some color pencil to model the body slightly since this is such heavy shadow. I selected to paid a very specific scene from the 1922 film, this is the scene where he looks directly in the camera before he bites his victim. I always felt that there was something both romantic and terrifying about that moment. Happy Halloween.

Chimp Sketch of the week #1

2011-10-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

I will be posting one sketch a week of a chimp. The purpose of this is to be able to create art that is 100% for myself where I can simply exam the animal and expose it on an aesthetic level. This will also serve as an ongoing exercise into a more classic approach to picture making with the ability of freedom and experimentation. My plan is to wake up every Monday and challenge myself with a variety of Media to create a piece of art in 5-10 minutes.

Tradition

2011-10-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

This illustration is another for the Primate Diaries it was created with black and white pencil with just a bit or white acrylic paint for highlights. It is drawn on a 140lb Arches host press watercolor paper with a wash of Lipton Tea to tone the paper. My intention here is to make this illustration appear to be old as if it survived the test of time after the Russians expelled the Jews from their home Anatevka were they lived there entire lives.

(Tevye) "And among ourselves, we get along perfectly well. Of course, there was the time when he sold him a horse, but delivered a mule, but that's all settled now. Now we live in simple peace and harmony and..."
(1st Man) "It was a horse."
(2nd Man) "It was a mule."
(Chorus) Horse! Mule! Horse! Mule! Tradition, tradition... tradition Tradition, tradition... tradition
(Tevye) "Tradition. Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as... as a fiddler on the roof!"

With Respect to Whistlers Mother

2011-10-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

I started with a simple sketch with ink to define the contours and the overall design thankfully on this one the composition and design was done for me by James McNeill Whistler back in 1871, I changed the composition slightly but the fact that this is a homage to Whistler made this part easier.

Next I added my darkest darks as a point of reference. Since all values are relative to the values they are up against it is important to define early a point that all values are compared against, for me that is always my darkest dark.

At this point I began to define the form with a wash. This is when I begin to soften the values with lamp black watercolor, I am also using plain water to spread the ink that already exists on the page. Since the ink I used is non-waterproof the ink smears and creates more solid shapes.

Now I cover the entire drawing with one coat of acrylic gloss varnish. This does two things; it brings the image down two steps in value and also creates a surface available for painting. Once it is dry since the value has gotten two values darker I hit it with my whitest whites and use a little bit of paint and color pencils to define the shapes a bit more.

The last step is color, using acrylic paint and gouache. I carved the chimp out with a light color using simple temperature changes to show shadow. Here I am using the original painting for color queues but I am still making decisions to intensify them. A little paint and color pencil to detail the curtain on the left and I call it quits.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/2011/10/13/sacrifice-on-the-serengeti/

The Evolution of Darwin

2011-10-06T06:19:00.001-07:00

Darwin and I got to know each other well this week while I painted his portrait for Scientific American http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/2011/10/06/vivisection-outrage/

IPPY

2010-05-31T08:33:00.001-07:00

The Chimpanzee Manifesto won an IPPY one of 12 outstanding books of the year check out the link

http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1364&urltitle=Announcing%20the%202010%20IPPY%20Outstanding%20Books%20of%20the%20Year

Uncle Joe

2010-03-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

remembering when it was warm

2010-02-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

Weedsport

2009-12-31T09:48:00.000-08:00

This weekend Jessica Lillian and I went to Weedsport NY about 40 miles north of Syracuse. We stayed with our friends Willow and Dennis. They live on 40 Acers and its like being in the middle of the forest their entire home is surrounded by evergreen trees and with all the snow on the ground it was truly a winter wonderland. Wile the fire was roaring and the snow was falling Jessica and I remembered how much we want to live in the country.

above is a quick sketch of one of the trophy mule deer that hang on their wall.

David Levine

2009-12-30T08:11:00.000-08:00

David Levine was one of my heroes and I would like to share this with you all.

When I wrote my thesis it was on caricature as a vehicle for social and political commentary and in the chapter titled A Look at the Pioneers of Contemporary Illustration That Use Caricature as a Vehicle for Political and Social Commentary I used him as the first illustrator that I was to discuss. I was lucky to get a phone interview with him and even luckier that it lasted over an hour. I would go as far as saying that one of my greatest experiences in both school and my career (so far) was having the ability to get advice and to be able to pick his brain for a moment. In that interview he gave he pearls of wisdom that not only put my paper in prospective but also continues to help me now as I continue to build my own career. David Levine was more then a caricaturist and he was more then a phenomenal draftsman. He was a great storyteller and a brilliant man.

Below is an excerpt from my Thesis

David Levine
This chapter is dedicated to the pioneers of contemporary illustration that use caricature as a vehicle for political and social commentary. When I think of caricature I think of David Levine (b.1926). Levine’s work is just as important now as it was 40 years ago. He has created over thirty-eight thousand caricatures for the New York Review of Books alone; this gives some idea of the scope of David Levine’s career.

The great novelist and essayist John Updike, when discussing Levine’s caricatures, said,
"Besides offering us the delight of recognition, his drawings comfort us, in an exacerbated and potentially desperate age, with the sense of a watching presence, an eye informed by an intelligence that has not panicked, a comic art ready to encapsulate the latest apparitions of publicity as well as those historical devils who haunt our unease. Levine is one of America's assets. In a confusing time, he bears witness. In a shoddy time, he does good work. Here he is."

David Levine was born in Brooklyn into an extremely politically charged family: His mother was a Stalinist and his aunt was a Maoist. There was always extreme left-wing literature around the house for Levine to read, and it taught him to always question authority.

Levine studied art at many different institutions but during the conversation I had with him he said that what he learned in school came from friends pointing out things-his professors were too busy “sleeping in the men’s room.” He attended the Brooklyn Museum of Art School, Pratt Institute, and The Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, as well as the Eighth Street School. In addition, he studied with Hans Hoffman (1880-1966).

Hans Hoffman
Hans Hoffman has been called a Fauvist, a Cubist, and an Abstract Expressionist. He inspired his students, as well as artists all over the world. From his smaller works on paper to his larger paintings, all are unique and powerful. Hofmann was known for bringing together traditional methods and avant-garde concepts.

In his book, The Search for the Real and Other Essays, Hofmann discussed a new type of landscape without using trees and land, but instead using the tension between space, form, color, and planes. His focus was on geometric forms in positive and negative spaces.
“It was the object,” he said, “that creates the negative or positive space, not, as traditionally conceived, that an object is placed in a space. If an object creates space, then it is light that creates form. Similarly, light makes color in nature, but color creates light in painting.”

Before David Levine went to study with Hoffman, he graduated from The Tyler School of Art. There he’d met Aaron Shikler (b.1922). Levine said, “Shikler had an intuitive feeling about art.” Both Hoffman and Shikler’s influence guided Levine toward an awareness of how to look at art and think about what he was doing.

Aaron Shikler
Aaron Shikler also studied with Hans Hoffman. Shikler was born in Brooklyn and studied at the Barnes Foundation in Pennsylvania. He earned his Bachelors of Fine Art and Masters of Fine Art from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Pennsylvania. Aaron Shikler is a world-renowned portraitist whose works are in the White House. these include portraits of President & Mrs. Kennedy and the official portraits of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Time Magazine used his painting of president Reagan for their cover on January 5, 1981 when Reagan was elected President.

Levine spent some time in the US Army and worked briefly for the military publication Stars and Stripes. When he came home he met Jules Feiffer (b.1929) through a mutual artist friend and began trying to get work as a cartoonist.

Jules Feiffer is one of America's most influential editorial cartoonists. He has also written plays, novels, and children's books. Among the many awards he has received, the most prestigious is the Pulitzer Prize for his cartoon strip, Feiffer, appeared in the Village Voice from 1956 to 1997, and in 1996 a retrospective exhibition of his work appeared at the Library of Congress.

Growing up as a young boy in Brooklyn, Levine looked up to comic book artists such as Will Eisner (1917-2005) creator of The Spirit, as well as 18th century English cartoonists. His love for comics has not died. In the past Levine has even compared some comic artists to Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), saying, “They can see something in their mind’s eye and then put it down on paper.” Levine has also said, “The comics from 1905-1935 were to art deco what jazz was to the black community.” Later, when he began to paint, he discovered artists like Edgar Degas (1834-1917).

In the late 1940s Levine did some work for a magazine called The Gasoline Retailer, and for a left-wing paper called The Daily Worker. In the early 1950s, Levine worked with a Christmas card company and, though the company failed, the experience was a success for him personally because he discovered his signature style.

In 1963, Levine got his first assignment with the New York Review of Books. He is still doing caricatures for them today, but it was not always that easy for him to get work. Between the time that Levine studied with Hoffman and began his work with the New York Review of Books, he tried to ghost some cartoonists, (ghosting a cartoonist is the act of drawing the cartoons for an artist with no recognition or ownership of the art), but that did not work out. Levine also tried to get work as a penciler (someone who draws the comics) but when he went to get a job
potential employers stated they only needed inkers. He worked as an inker briefly, but his bosses said his work was too slick because he was much more comfortable inking with a pen rather then with a brush. Ironically, he was making a living at that time selling his paintings. He would make them small and sell them for $50 or $75 each. Living in Brooklyn was cheap enough then that he could afford to live on the money he made from selling his art. When referring to that time in his life, Levine Said:
“I used to say that painting was my way of making a living, and to support my hobby, which was cartooning. It was a really weird twist.”

In his long career, Levine has had some great jobs. For instance, when he worked for Time Magazine, the art director allowed Levine the freedom to draw without worrying about making his image fit the magazine. The art director took on that burden for him. Levine had such a good reputation that once he called the feature editor of Esquire, Clay Felker, and told him, “I really wanted to go to Europe; figure out a job for me.” Felker sent Levine to Europe for twenty-eight days. He visited all the major capitals and museums, and did thirteen oil paintings, twenty-two watercolors, and filled up three sketchbooks. Because of his love for comics, he was able to capture movement quickly in his sketchbooks.

Levine believes that whenever he does a caricature it is political, even if he is drawing a novelist or an actor. Levine feels if you have written a book or if you are in the public eye at all, you have a certain amount of power. He also feels that many of today’s caricaturists are just playing harmless games; they are not truly attacking the politicians issues. According to Steven Heller and Gail Anderson, authors of the book The Savage Mirror Levine questions the effectiveness of the political caricature:
“ I am not saying give up, but there are periods when what we do is like howling in the wind. The politicians generally have a very good sense of it. The artist needs some sense of it too.”

Levine still lives in Brooklyn but also has a small piece of land with a pond in the country. It was there, late in his life, that he discovered a philosophy that he discussed with me in detail. Levine shared this philosophy with a simple story. When he was at his new house, he and his wife decided that they wanted to get a duck for their pond. They went to see a man in their neighborhood that sold ducks. Next to where the ducks were was an old house and in the front and the back were dozens of old cars. Levine asked the man if it bothered him that this garbage pile was there and the man told him, “This is not garbage, it is a gold mine.” At first Levine did not understand, but then the man explained. The man said that he never needed to look for a screw or a nail or a piece of metal because every thing he needed was in or on those cars.

Levine then put some thought into it and realized that he had his own gold mine in Brooklyn. It’s in the garment workers that he paints or the people he paints on Coney Island. “It’s a garbage pile but it’s my gold mine.” For Levine the caricatures are about humor and criticism, but his watercolors are his tribute to who he is and where he came from.

According to author and editor Pete Hamill,
“The paintings of David Levine are never bombastic. They are seldom only about the thing or the place to the people directly observed. They are also about the unseen world that they suggest a world of time and nostalgia, of things and people lost. If David Levine was a writer he would be Chekhov.”

Both David Levine’s watercolors and caricatures are playful
“I am making fun but not in a way that undermines them. It makes them individuals. Caricatures divide the world into goodies and baddies, them versus us, too easily. The people at work, the people at play, are people doing things that I think are beautiful.”

Looking back at his great career David Levine left me with this
“I hope that some day my drawings will be unshackled of who they were and just stand up as good drawings.”

Levine is one of the most successful American caricaturists. It would make sense that he is also one of the most imitated.
“I think that too often young cartoonists imitate the easy parts, the fun parts, which are the nose, eyes and face, rather than taking a total look at drawing and style-how to handle hands, details, and other things that give it consistency.”

The Chimpanzee Manifesto

2009-11-01T14:33:00.001-08:00

Available now at www.Amazon.com and www.nathanielgold.com

Happy Birthday Mr TV

2009-07-12T06:49:00.001-07:00

Milton Berle would have been 101 today

Friday night life drawing 03/20/2009

2009-03-22T16:40:00.000-07:00

An Avoidable Death in Stamford CT

2009-03-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

Since The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post rejected this I thought I would post it here.
Preface: I realize that there are multiple victims in this incident and my heart goes out to the families of everyone involved: Charla Nash who apparently lost her face and is in critical condition after being attacked and Sandra Herold, a widow who lost her daughter previously and now Travis her chimpanzee. She will have to live with this incident for the rest of her life while her friend lays in a hospital bed disfigured. I don’t mean to disrespect or downplay the severity of the injury, or the physical and psychological pain but I am compelled to comment on what I feel should have and could have been avoided.

The Associated Press reported that Sandra Herold said that “Travis couldn't have been more my son than if I gave birth to him," and rejected criticism that chimpanzees are inappropriate pets. Well maybe she will now realize that a chimpanzee is not a pet. A chimpanzee is a wild animal. Just because an animal is smart enough to channel surf, use the toilet and drink wine from a glass does not mean that he should. It is not love to keep a wild animal in a cage and dress or treat it like a human…it is cruel. She said that he was like her son well guess what lady, he was not. It is in a chimpanzees DNA to dominate and become aggressive as they reach their teenage years and when they are in the wild they are able to be competitive and behave the way their DNA dictates. There is a reason that they live in the wild and not among us. Even though Travis was not in his natural environment his instinct took over. A chimpanzee is five times stronger than a human which is why the injures are so severe. This idea that it is cute to have a wild or exotic pet is ridiculous.

If a person thinks it is cute to force a chimp to parody a human existence then my suggestion is we strip them naked and force them to live in the forest among the chimps savaging for food and assimilating into their society. Maybe you think that they would become Tarzan of the apes, well this is not fiction this is reality and to remove a person out of there natural environment and force them to be something that they could not be would make them insane. No doubt their natural instincts would kick in and they would try to emulate a human existence and a chimp giving them leaves would help no less then the Xanax in Travis’s tea.

Herold says that she loved Travis and that he was her son but I must question, would you stab your son or tell a cop to shoot him? I am sure that I could never understand what was truly happening and what was going through her head but don’t think that you were his mother and don’t think that he thought of you as his mother because you were not. Travis was a chimpanzee, a pan troglodyte. Not a human, not your son.

It appears that chimpanzees are very important to the advertising world in Travis’ case he sold pants for Old Navy. I don’t expect corporate America to end their abuse of these animals anytime soon, but at a bare minimum we need a law that sends these animals into a sanctuary for their retirement and not to a situation in which they are not allowed to act like chimps. We should also force these companies to pay for their retirement. I am sure the mark up on the pants Travis sold allows for some kind of chimpanzee pension.

I just hope that Travis and chimpanzees in general do not get a bad name for this. The chimp is an intelligent, loving animal that belongs among its own kind in the wild away from the complication of human interaction and human society and certainly never as a pet.

Travis, rest in peace. I for one am sorry you never got a chance to be a chimp.

Read the whole story below
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct--chimpanzeeattack0218feb18,0,224327.story?page=1

Happy Presidents Day

2009-02-15T12:20:00.001-08:00

Inauguration day

2009-01-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

When my daughter gets older I will sit her down and explain to her the differences between the America I was born into and the one we now live in. I will tell her about this time in our history and how America came together to recognize and embrace a new version of itself. I look forward to her future and to her growing mind. And I am confident that she can be anything she wants to be and will have all of the opportunities for freedom and prosperity now that we as a people have recognized our differences and are beginning to accept our common bond as one people. As PRESIDENT OBAMA said “because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.”

Yesterday was filled with many images that will stay in my heart and mind for a lifetime. But none made me smile and warmed my heart more that the image of George Bush getting into the helicopter (Executive One) and fly away forever. I believe that Bush's policies set back this country so far that it will take a generation to fix… but a new generation of Americans have spoken. It is still time for optimism but more importantly it is time for action. To quote PRESIDENT OBAMA again “Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.”

“Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”

Friday night Skecthes

2008-11-09T18:16:00.001-08:00

Friday night I met up with a group of Alumni from graduate school and participated in a four-hour life drawing session. It was nice to get the opportunity to draw from the model. Life drawing is probably the most important thing an artist can do. It is like lifting weights for the eyes. Some artists tend to spend hours and hours on a single pose working to perfect the image. I found that the shorter the pose the more your eye is focusing on the subject; my mind and eye tend to wander when given a long pose. The images that I am showing here were all five-minute poses, meaning that the model changed her pose every five minutes. This causes me to draw fast and focus on the design and composition of the page as well as the anatomy, value scale and contours of the subject. This is the equivalent of bench pressing less weight but doing more reps.

All of these images were drawn in my moleskin sketchbook with a bic flare pen. I then used water to do the washes smudging the ink from the line before it dried.

Last Night

2008-11-05T05:13:00.001-08:00

Last night America stood hand and hand and let the rest of the world know that we accept the failure of the last 8 years and we are ready to move on. We showed the world that we could be the America we should be. A progressive nation, a nation willing to change and grow, a nation of greatness. America is once again truly the land of the free and the home of the brave, a nation of hope and a nation that has proven that anything is possible. I have never been so proud of us as I am today I have never loved my country more then I do right now.

30

2008-10-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

I’m turning 30 this week. Am I supposed to be happy or sad? There is way to many stigmas attached to what a man is supposed to do or be at 30. I am a father and a husband and I have my small piece of land in Long Island but for some reason this is not making me smile. When I was 25 all I wanted was to be a father husband and have my small piece of land by the time I was 30 and now here I am having met those goals but I am still the sad clown the prisoner behind bars. Blah Blah Blah screw me. I hate my birthday

Welcome

2007-10-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Well it seems as though bloging is the thing to do so why not start my own. I have no idea what I am going to do with this blog I guess only time will tell. The picture to the left is a drawing I did of myself and my bird Granny enjoy.

©Nathaniel Gold 2007