Drawing Impressions: Art Overdose

I have been too busy painting to do any blogging. Until now, when my immune system has rebelled and said, “NO MORE!”

Darn that immune system! I guess I should have taken more precautions, back when I first went to Jaime Sanchez’s studio and found him and several students smoking away in the unventilated basement room.

At the end of a session, one woman clutched the cigarette between her teeth and squinted through the smoke as she sprayed her charcoal drawings with fixative – at her easel, right in the studio! When I would approach the stairs to go down on a busy evening, the smell of turpentine, fixative and cigarettes was so thick it was like a physical force that you had to push through to descend.

But this did not prevent me from going back as often as possible to paint live models and get Jaime’s advice.

Jaime's studio is a fabulous place to work. The students are fun, and he is an awesome teacher. If you have the immune system for it - go to Jaime's! Here we are taking a break for tapas and wine. The model is in the striped bathrobe. (I made it yellow in the painting above.)

Jaime, the student, painting in Jaime (the teacher's) studio

But it was not enough to paint at home with acrylics and pastels, and 2 or 3 days a week with acrylics and oils at Jaime's. I wanted more time with models. So I began going 3 times a week to El Circulo Belles Artes. (An insertion of gratitude here to my children for letting me go off so often, and my husband for not preventing me from buying SO much paint!)

El Circulo Belles Artes deserves a half dozen blog posts all by itself, but, to be brief, it is an old art center in Madrid that, for a mere 20 euros a month, you can go and draw or paint from models from 4pm to 10pm Monday through Saturday.

View of El Circulo Belles Artes from my bus stop at 10:30pm

Besides three painting studios and two drawing studios, El Circulo has a fully equipped print studio with one of the best views in the city.

view from the print studio

I would spend 6 hours in the painting studio with 8 to 12 other artists, all with their oil paints and turpentine. Heaven. Pure heaven. I began to notice at Jaime’s and El Circulo that I was quite possibly the single messiest of adult artists. How was it that others did not seem to get paint all over their hands, and on their faces?

Thank you, Rafael, for the photo. Uncharacteristically clean here, must have just started that day.

But the material that really tipped my immune system over the edge was pastels. I love pastels. There is nothing like them for drawing and painting at the same time.

Nor is there anything like them for delivering the maximum amount of pigment directly into the lungs. I was being grossly negligent. Please take note – when using pastels always use a mask and gloves, and vacuum up the dust with a HEPA-filter vacuum cleaner!

The day I was finishing this pastel painting of Iris and Lexsi, I was perplexed to find that my back hurt and I just felt lousy, like I was getting the flu. But I worked fearlessly on, inhaling the lovely pastel cloud deeply, until I was finally done.

Just then, my children arrived home and exclaimed that I had a dark red rash on the right side of my face and neck.

I put the pastels away immediately and cleaned my studio of dust, but weeks later, that rash has yet to go away completely. I found that I could not go near the studio (the far end of our living room) without it flaring up. And – horrors I was having the same reaction to acrylics and oils.

I went to Jaime's and worked with nothing but charcoal, but the air itself was making me react. And at El Circulo, using gloves and a mask was not enough to prevent the rash and a tingling sensation in my hands and feet to creep over me when I returned.

Now with gloves. They did not seem to help.

Last painting, not quite finished

After a more complete cleaning of the studio, even washing every brush in water, I do seem to be able to safely occupy our apartment now.

When the rash finally disappears I am going to try these pigments that my mother brought over from the States. Supposedly, If you mix them with walnut oil, you have a totally toxic-free archival quality paint, though actually eating them is not advised.