Destination: Holy Land for Tom Forrestall

Tomorrow my father, Tom Forrestall and brother Frank Forrestall set off for Israel for an extraordinary painting tour organized by the Atlantic Jewish Council. This trip has been months in the planning and we are thrilled and excited for all the adventures and art making that lie ahead, for both of them. They will begin their trip in Jerusalem for several days, then travel to Tel Aviv. Dad and Frank will be with an organised group for the first week, and then on their own traveling to various parts of the country to paint. My brother Frank, a very talented film maker, will document dad's painting in various locations around the country.
It will be an extraordinary adventure, and we all wish them safe travels and wonderful times. It's making me sentimental about my own trip to Israel in April 2009, a most moving and memorable trip that I wrote about for The Chronicle Herald newspaper. Bon Voyage!

--Monica Forrestall

Watercolour painting inspired by the Charles Burchfield show at the Whitney Museum of American Art

I took Max up to the Whitney yesterday to do one of their great Family Art Workshops and this time the project Max was to do was inspired by the show of paintings "Heat Waves in a Swamp" by Charles Burchfield. The workshop instructor was Jesse, who Max had already worked with, and when Max walked in he said, "Hey you've been here before."
We sat on the floor of a large gallery room of early works, in front of a painting titled "Four Seasons."
Jesse led a discussion and encouraged responses on how this painting that portrayed four seasons in one landscape work was unusual, interesting and mysterious.

Jesse then passed out small watercolor "postcards" and pencils and asked the children to choose their favorite painting and from it choose three favorite elements and interpret them on  the postcard, which they would then use as a reference for a larger piece to be done in the studios downstairs.

Max's beautiful drawing downstairs was inspired by Burchfield's painting "An April Mood"(above) of a crooked tree in a storm, very gray in palette, very dramatic. It looked like a haunted-house type-of-tree that we are seeing in stores and imagery all over these days.

I was inspired by this painting "Dandelion seed heads and the moon" (above), which had trees blowing in the breeze and butterflies and a dragonfly. One of the very modern things Burchfield does in his work is show motion, movement and vibrations. He loved to visually interpret the sounds 

he heard in the nature around him. 

In the studio, for his final piece (below), Max chose to make something completely different, a watercolour of a whale (which reminded him of the big blue whale on the ceiling at the Museum of Natural History).

The instructor, Jesse, kindly invited the parents to also make watercolours, "since you probably don't have an opportunity to make art everyday in your lives." And all the parents did. Jesse said it made for a richer experience to have children painting side by side with their parents. 

The tableful of the children (and their parents) watercolour paintings at the end of the hour of painting, laid out for everyone to see and talk about. 

Max's exuberant and colorful watercolour of an ocean scene of a blue whale and divers and fishing on the left. My wc of a dragonfly flying over dandelions and a secret swim hole under the full moon, on the right. Most importantly, Max and I made a wonderful mother/son memory, 

painting and drawing side by side. 

Updates on Fam art activities

My sister Renee Forrestall has a new role as art teacher at the Grammar School in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is thrilled with the job and the supplies and rooms that she has to work in, not to mention her enthusiastic and happy students. Renee followed up her commission of a major altar piece for a new Halifax church by doing two additional commissioned Icon pieces for the same church.

Frank Forrestall is wrapping up his work on the Moby Dick film he has been working on for months and is getting ready for his big trip with our dad.

Tom Forrestall is also gearing up for his 6-week trip to Israel, where he will travel all over the country and paint. My brother Frank Forrestall will accompany him and will work on a documentary film chronicling their travels and art making.

Kerry Schuss' current exhibition at his gallery KS Art on the figurative work of Jocelyn Hobbie had a great listing in the Tribeca Trib with a large image, and will have a review in Art in America. Two pieces from the show sold to very important NYC collectors. The show has been extremely well received. http://www.ksartonline.com/

I worked on two poster designs for Max's school events and for our local park, Washington Market Park. 

--Monica Forrestall

Painting alfresco on the High Line NYC

Painting outdoors has always been a part of our lives. It might seem like part of a throw back to a Victorian lifestyle, but slowing down your mind and your eye to truly see and appreciate something is good for the soul. In the trunk of the cars we drove around in all of our childhood years, in Nova Scotia, there has always been a box of sketching materials and some paper, and an old folding stool. New York, it's more challenging, and frankly I do it very, very rarely. But on September 11th, a lovely opportunity came up for Max and I to do it together in a free Whitney Museum workshop (they usually cost $10.)

I love the Whitney family art workshops; exceedingly well organized by the easy-going, fun and creative staff at the Whitney, I try to get my son Max signed up for as many as possible. And he loves them too! Although, sometimes at 9:30 am on a Saturday, it's slow going to get him out of the door.
The instructors often allow the parents to participate and make art as well, and it's a lovely bonding thing to do with your child.

On September 11th, the Whitney co-organized a day-long drawing event on the High-line park on a sunny Saturday. I'd never been to the park, I heard it was great, it's been open a year---the perfect time to go.

As is the norm, the workshop was tied into a current exhibition at the Whitney; this one "Heat Waves in a Swamp": The Paintings of Charles Burchfield was one I'd been dying to see. Burchfield was famously known for his outdoor painting, in rural and cities. He was inspired by industrial buildings and the sounds of nature in semi-rural areas.

Max, and the other children listen intently to instructor, Lisa. 

Instructor Lisa shows a reproduction of a Burchfield painting, "Insect Chorus"(1917) to the group, while asking the children how they see examples of Burchfield "sounds" imagery in this piece.

Max found a quiet spot to draw something that inspired him (some plants and the window of an art auction house.) 

Lisa gives Max some instruction on colour blending watercolour pencil marks.

Max's drawing of sounds.

--Monica Forrestall

Paint The Town ARCAC benefit weekend becomes a family affair

                                           Painting watercolours at Hillsdale House gardens. Dad did a figure in a landscape piece, while Max focused on a wc pencil piece of squirrels running up a tree.

Monica and dad painting at Fort Anne Saturday afternoon. 

Max's love of bird watching inspires his art making for Paint the Town art exhibit in Annapolis Royal

Max loves birds. Watching them, writing about them and drawing them. His obsession with bird watching has inspired all aspects of his life, including his art making here at Beach Rose Cottage.This is Max's Common Loon drawing made using watercolor pencils we brought from NYC.  And this is the piece that Max has chosen to exhibit with his mom in the "Paint The Town" artists exhibition this weekend in Annapolis Royal. The plastic Common Loon that Max picked up at a yard sale in Granville Ferry last week for $5...(there was an astonishing amount of garden ornaments for sale). Whatever inspires a piece of art, is worth the price! I guess especially if your parents (Kerry here) are paying. :)

Below: Max's "Common Loon" (top right) and his "Mallard" watercolour pencil drawing submissions for the Paint The Town exhibition in Annapolis Royal on August 21st and 22nd, 2010.

Natalie Forrestall Memorial Children Art Prize at The EX

     Every year I organize a prize in our mother's name: The Natalie Forrestall Memorial Children's Art Prize. We sponsor this prize at The Annapolis County Exhibition's art competition. The Ex, as all the locals call it, is the BIG county fair and something my mother and grandmother loved going to, and taking us all to every August. Going to the Ex was (and is) one of the highlights of fun for kids summers in Western Nova Scotia.
     Our dad sponsors two of the prizes as memorial prizes for our grandmother Esther Forrestall and mom, Natalie Forrestall; the best watercolour and the best watercolor in show. And as a group, my brother Frank, my sister, Renee and I get together and buy some good quality art supplies to give as a prize for the best piece of children's art in the under age 8 category. This year the prize (which will be judged and decided on today) will include canvases, acrylic paint, craypas, watercolor pad, sketch books, watercolor pencils, brushes etc...In this area of the province, it's very difficult to find good quality art supplies, so this is our way of putting a nice and varied supply into the hands of a child who loves to make art.

It is also a small way of ours of acknowledging our wonderful mother, who was an art teacher for many years in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and helped support the family as my father painted. Our mother was a very talented painter and the woman who encouraged all of us to paint, draw and celebrate life by looking at and making art every day. To you mom!

A couple of entries in the drawing category August 2009.

And the 2010 winner of the Natalie Forrestall Memorial Art Basket is Jacob 

with his winning drawing of a birdhouse (below).

---Monica Forrestall