The Big Side View

 The Big Side View

while at work once in the regimented field of jet engine manufacturing I had to take a training course. The course was in an old office room in our fort like building with an instructor not to long remove from Russia or some some soviet block country. The course went all morning and we stop for lunch and upon our return the instructor made a remark in regards to human physiology that explained many a routine working day feeling.     
       In his Russian accent he said that I understand that after lunch all us our a little sluggish because of the rush of sugars to the body makes us sluggish, so if you want to get up and get a glass of water or nod off in the car for five or ten before we get back to studying please feel free.
       Today I lay in bed dosing off before going to a schedule drawing section at our local art league I had ice cream on a warm summer day with the TV playing and on another monitor scanning through the hundreds of drawings I digitized.
      I got in the car a drove to NewBritain Connecticut from Windsor were the art league drawing session was and I was about six minutes late in a crowed room.  Our model was a Peruvian young lady named Bialatnett in a pink dress.  I had to take position that allowed me to to draw her side view.  I pondered for a while to decide how I wanted to draw her,  I thought to myself  maybe a full body side view, but that was to cramming for the size of my paper that I wanted draw on, so I decide to draw larger than life side view. I stummbled a while to draft the portions and drew the the model in charcoal on paper with a little white pastel, wish I had more time to color the drawing.  The drawing is below "Bialatnett":

       

"Believe in You"

• Believe in You" pencil on paper -
• as a young man I once had a summer job driving an airport shuttle. This is a drawing of me in the bus mirrors day dreaming at work.
• http://www.darrylzo.com/
  #me #art #shuttle #drawing #airport #summerwork #daydream

"The Fantastic Margaux Ensemble"

"The Fantastic Margaux Ensemble"

pen on paper

 

 

I thinks it safe to say educator Marguax Hayes composed a powerful strong, soulful, and spiritual African connection in her music that took us for a long beautiful ride as we listen to the Hartford library jazz series, just the thing needed for Black History Month. It was a pleasures listening to the rightness and shear genius of her music.

Vocalist/Performance Artist/Educator: Margaux Hayes

Pianist: Jonathan Chatfield 

composer/multi-reed instrumentalist: Richard McGhee III

Drummer: Jocelyn Pleasant on percussion

viola and bass: Colin Benn

#TheKamanFoundation #thehartfordjazzsociety #thehartfordpubliclibrary #jazz #music #peoplecentric #afrocentric #americana

 

 

The Matisse Project

The Matisse Project

     Today’s episode at the Hartford Library’s Sunday Jazz series featured a duet that played with vigor and purpose. There was  the insightful masterful pianist Christopher Bakriges and the soulful gifted Gwen Laster on violin.

     The lazy hazy winter Sunday entertainment also featured musical arrangements that paid homage to the legendary French painter Henry Matisse and a speaker who added even more focus on the theme by reciting some of Matisse’s inspiring life.  The speaker, an actual reverend, was a gentle but opposing man large in stature dark skin and with gray dreadlocks who spoke with a committed baritone voice that anchored the legendary artist story.

     The duet and speaker entertained in the library’s auditorium that had a built in projector that showed images of Matisse’s work on a large screen behind the performers as they performed.

      Some of Matisse’s more astonishing life events and ground breaking artistic theorems were noted like his way of seeing color as form, his life time commitment to art even in old age along with his traumatic family events in war torn France. 

Below:

 Two sketches of the duet and the reverend in pen and ink

...and music continues

Monday Night  before the big holiday music break, that is,  it is December 18th and the following Mondays until the first open Monday of the new years things will pretty much closed around town. In anticipation of the hiatus few of the regulars I sit with arrived early. I myself drove around for a while trying to find an ATM to pay a cover charge in anticipation of the one day out of month they charged a very modest fee to the the performers. I couldn't find one so I just took my chances and showed up and luckily there was none.

 It was a packed house with almost all tables occupied. Had small talk with my friends.  The talent was International known with roots in Hartford.

It was Jovan Alexandre the Saxophonist trio with Matt Dwonszyk on bass and J.K. Kim on drums from South Korea. They honored the holiday atmosphere by playing fantastic masterful done innovative songs along with a few jazzed up charlie brown songs. The band definitely earned its keep and played to the crowd.

Below a pen and ink sketch of the trio with it's tall band Leader Jovan cutting a confident pose outlined by a thick red curtain that covered the windows while they played.

Monday Night Jazz

 

Monday Night Jazz

 

 

 

On a quiet Monday night between Thanksgiving and Christmas saw another great jazz set at “Black Eyes” restaurant. As I sat at a table with another regular and friend I listen to music that had smooth and catchy beats. The sketch below is from Monday night yesterday.

Pen on paper approx 8” x 11”

From left to right

 

Scott Sasanecki on guitar

Jocelyn Pleasant on drums

Steve "King" Porter on Bass

Warren Byrd on piano

 

 

A Student's Dive

A Student's Dive

 Soft echoing voices in a place with soft pleasant lights done up to look smart and eloquent, place of comfort and a place known to hipsters away from the stuffy. Hear I came to the University of Hartford's Starbucks coffee shop (a school which now I am an alum) conveniently built into the library. 

I went to the library to complete an art assignment for a friend that we booth had procrastinated on for a while. It was designing labels for his candy campaign a simple brain child idea that had the potential to create ownership away from his corporate world.

Given my now mid age I looked upon the student with a new kind of older perspective.  That is that they are the continuation of a cycle of hopefuls. Hopefuls to become leaders, entrepreneurs, teachers, doctors, husband, wives and innocent of failures trials and tribulations of the professional working world... almost cute. Their ordering of the drinks and snacks reflected just that, their voices were soft and almost innocent, how we all acted when first left home, as a crowd of students that gathered to pick up their orders after efficient machine like execution of the Starbucks staff.

Below is a quick sketch done in ink on paper while waiting for my hot chocolate.