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Drawing 50


I woke up, thinking - what to do today? What does one do when one turns 50? My paints were in my studio, but the only thing that made any sense was to sit myself down right away, and take a good honest look at myself before I had any time to think. I found a watercolor block, and my drawing box and thus began a project of drawing myself every day for my 50th year. To live 50 as a painter, taking a good look each day, whether I have 2 minutes or an hour, and whether I want to or not. And in the way that iterations are not just repetitions but change due to the very fact of being repeated, I will live the year of 50.


Karen Kaapcke, September 2012

The Continuation: I have noticed in this, my 51st year, that I am more my body than ever. Yet I was suddenly barely recognizing it. The need to look at it and 'lean in' with it, to work with it, has become central. As a result, my body is becoming more my own. And more universally representative of the need to be present physically in a way that most women find only happens in the younger, sexy years. 51 = drawing the body.

Karen Kaapcke 3.30.13

A few years later, and I looked into the mirror - and was struck by how foreign my belly was to me. I still don't recognize myself.

Karen Kaapcke 9.20.16
A combining of the Morning shards with the Belly series


smoke and wax on broken plate 1.4.17
10.21.16 Even if you have one hour work as if you have all day; pastel and galkyd belly


Winter Light

12.21.15 Oil stick, craypas and graphite on bristol, 9x12"
Before the shower


5.13.15, oil stick and graphite, 9x12"
Saturday morning.


5.2.15, oil stick, pastel, graphte and turpentine wash, 9x12"
I realized again recently that I didn't recognize my body when I saw it in the mirror. Worked until the workers came back to start their hammering outside my bathroom window....


4.30.15, oil stick and graphite, 9x12"
It's been a while since checking in with my body.   Which is a kind of unbelievable fact.


Pinstripes, graphite, concealer and oil stick on bristol, 9x12"
This morning I was thinking a lot about negativity of varying sorts and had to look again at my aging body. After working a bit I thought about it then as this belly 14 years after bearing 2 children. I thought about filling the page with that. 


1.26.15, charcoal, wax and oil sticks on polypropylene
continuing to work with wax with graphite, for the way in which it is so close to the transparency and warmth of flesh.


1.6.15, graphite and wax, 9x12"
I've been interested in exploring wax with my drawing and painting, ever since seeing a series of sculpture by Medardo Rosso, who used wax as a surface to his pieces.   The skin-like sense is extraordinary, and reminded me of how I consider paper and canvas or board to be like skin, with both sides, an inside and an outside, interacting.  


12.17.14, Before The Shower, graphite and wax, 7x8"