Tag Archives: Artwork

Minnesota Art Retreat • August 15-18

11 Monday Mar 2013

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I was happy to receive an email last week from the organizer of the Midwest Art & Lettering Retreat that the four-day workshop in August is nearly filled (there’s three spots left).

Here’s the class description:

midwest-PM

The class is four days long. In the mornings we’ll draw, doing a series of serious and silly drawings (mostly silly) from life, from photos, and from imagination:

day10bunny2

day11lilies

deer

We’ll even draw from the live figure on the fourth morning!

10minpose1

In the afternoons we’ll add color and collage and turn those drawings into a multi-layered, mixed-media book (or series of books): QY8058_094

birdbook

I think it will be so fun! I’ve never taught a four-day workshop before, and look forward to the more leisurely pace.

Have a great week!

Thoughts on a Wednesday

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

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redhead

• Sometimes it’s best to keep your mouth shut, so your foot doesn’t fly in and kick you on the roof of your mouth. This thought crossed my mind today AFTER I had made a comment to the art gallery lady about a certain show (the work, by the way, I loved, but whatever I said came out kind of wrong because it was met with a tight, “Looking at art is subjective.”) I gave a mumbled apology and fled, but now feel completely stupid; this is a gallery that is near my office and I go in often, and had even hoped to strike a friendship with this woman.

Now what? (Rhetorical question, btw, I’m not looking for an answer. 😀 )

• Someone ordered the above “Redhead at the Beach” print recently and I remembered how much I liked this particular one. I think I did it in 2005, when I was just beginning the Girls series that really helped solidify my art-making “career.” Around 2009 I moved on to other things, but the girls still pop up every once in awhile (kind of thinking they’ll be in a children’s book before it’s all over).

Anyway, recently I’ve come to think of drawings and paintings to be like “conversations.” Some are fun, some not so fun, but they all help us learn about ourselves and others. Some conversations end up morphing into larger projects; some perhaps are springboards for other conversations; others, most perhaps, end up stored in the back of our minds as “memories.”

The art I create is similar. Some works end up being shown; some are springboards for other art ideas; others, most perhaps, end up in a stack in my studio. (“Memories.”)

It’s helpful for me to think of it this way, that the DOING of the art is the most valuable part, just as the actual talking part of a conversation is the most valuable.

What do you think?

Abstracted Minutia

27 Sunday Jan 2013

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19minutia2

These two drawings are “testers” when I was working on this lesson in the DRAW! workshop (it’s also Lab 42 in Drawing Lab). I had so much fun doing these, and it got me all pumped up to do a series.

19minutia1

This one is even “giraffe-like.”

It’s hard to believe January is almost over already. It’s been a super busy month for me, but I think that’s how I like it.

Have a great day!

Standing Male Figure

28 Thursday Jun 2012

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Yesterday I spent three hours drawing a model from one pose (the model would take a break every 20 minutes, but would then go back into the same pose).

My favorite life-drawing combination is a female model in a reclining back pose. So, a male model in a standing frontal pose would be OPPOSITE of what I would normally want.

But no matter! I enjoyed myself tremendously even so, spending most of my time doing modified blind contours using the side of a graphite stick, experimenting using both my right and left hands. These were done right at the end of the class in about three minutes total.

(I know this one doesn’t really look like a man, but it’s still one of my favorites from the day.)