May I introduce my new website: mathie-art.weebly.com

You will find there my updated CV and a number of artworks produced over the years, such as the above pastel of a cloudy Oaxacan landscape.

I would be very grateful for your comments.  

Sgurr Fiona from across Gruinard Bay in Wester Ross, Scotland

May 2016

What do Mexican-Scottish dance? Highland Jarabe, a mixture of jarabe tapatío and Scottish reel.

This is hardly a postcard as my painting of Bkassine in Lebanon, my grandfather's birth town, is 24 by 48 inches. The topography of Bkassine and environs is extraordinary with heights going from 2650 ft at the site of St Thecla church, 1000 ft down to the river and then up 3000 ft to the top of the cliff. This is the painting in two stages.

  

A couple of years ago my daughter Heather gave me a poem for one of the year's anniversaries. It was much apropos as I was at the time as I am now very keen on sketching of all sorts, including urban sketching.

The author of the poem, a Spaniard, writes in a mixture of Spanish and English, just as we speak at home. Here it is. Enjoy.

In awe of Molly Crabapple

Molly Crabapple (born Jennifer Caban on September 13, 1983) is an American artist (her sketchbooks are awesome), activist, writer and entrepreneur. She is also a columnist for Vice magazine. 

Her memoir, Drawing Blood, published by Harper Collins in December 2015. Called "An emblem of the way art can break out of the gilded gallery" by the New Republic, she has drawn in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Dhabi's migrant labor camps, and with rebels in Syria. Crabapple is a contributing editor for VICE, and has written for publications including The New York Times, Paris Review, and Vanity Fair. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

For  Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School! she wrote Dr. Sketchy's Official Rainy Day Colouring Book,  which is one part DIY handbook, one part activity book on acid, and one part history of the Sketch Revolution. 

Here is one of her sketchbook drawings - Absinthe.

Read more about her and her spicy work in her website: http://mollycrabapple.com/

Also listen to an NPR podcast of Molly's latest biographical opus "Drawing Blood" at: http://www.npr.org/books/authors/297856892/molly-crabapple, and lots more from the Litup Show: http://thelitupshow.com/episode-33-molly-crabapple-on-the-paris-attacks-refugees-her-art-and-witness-journalism/

Equation Heta - Sketchbook

My Friend Hector Sierra found a mathematical relation, which I call the Equation Heta, between the Golden Ratio (Phi), much used by Renaissance artists and indeed by Mother Nature, and the Euler number e the base of Natural Logarithms. I made a sketchbook to study how to represent Equation Heta with images.

Please click on the following link to see the sketchbook: 
equationheta.blogspot.com