Minnesota Art Retreat • August 15-18

Tags

animal drawings, art of silliness, Artwork, figure drawing, Midwest Art & Lettering Retreat, Minnesota Art Retreat, rabbit drawing

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:

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:

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

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

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!

Checking In!

Tags

art class online, art classes online, drawing giraffes, drawing nudes, figure drawing, giraffe drawing, online art class, online classes winter, painting giraffes, winter online art classes, winter online class, year of the giraffe

I just wanted to say a quick hello between holidays… above is my son, Christer, and my grandson, Liam (15 months) on a cool, wet walk Christmas Day. We had a wonderful time with family and hope yours was happy, too!

Here is Christi, my daughter-in-law, with the little cutie pie.

***

I’m really looking forward to 2013… are you? Of course I have the big Year of the Giraffe experiment starting next Tuesday, and that’s super exciting (don’t worry, if you can’t join us for the full class, there will be other, peripheral, opportunities to participate in the experiment later in the year!).

And the Draw! class should be really fun, too. For the first time I’ll have all of the drawing exercises documented in video in one place. In addition, we will be drawing the figure, which I have found so helpful in my own drawing practice. If you want to draw, this might be a fun class to get you started this New Year! Class begins January 10, 2013.

In any case, I’ll see you soon!

Two New Online Classes! Registration Open

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art class, art class online, art classes online, drawing animals, drawing class, drawing faces, drawing giraffes, figure drawing, online art class, online art classes, online classes winter, online figure drawing, painting animals, painting giraffes, winter online art classes, winter online class, year of the giraffe

I’ve been working hard developing TWO new online classes!

The first one, “Draw! 21 Days Towards Freeing Your Creative Self” is a three-week, video-based class for everyone — all levels encouraged and welcome. Click HERE for all the details for “Draw!”

The second one is called “Year of the Giraffe” and is a long-term, group project exploring a single subject matter and culminating in a ‘zine.

Take this class if you:

• Want to practice your drawing, painting, and observation skills.
• Paper maché is something you’d like to make time for again.
• Think giraffes are one of the coolest creatures ever.
• Don’t necessarily care about giraffes at all, but want to learn to think more creatively in general.
• Want to participate in a year-long group project.

Click HERE for more!

Standing Male Figure

Tags

Artwork, drawing models, drawing nudes, figure drawing, life-drawing

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.)

Figure Drawing

Tags

Barbara Fugate, drawing figures, drawing nudes, figure drawing

Hello! I spent six hours yesterday at a life drawing session with two fabulous models (session organized by the wonderful Barbara Fugate). I haven’t drawn from the figure in very long time (too long), and I was so rusty! Most everything I did was pretty bad; however, I did like these three little gestures.

I’m really too busy to spend an entire day drawing nude models.

But it’s just as true that I’m really too busy NOT to spend an entire day drawing nude models.

I hope you have a wonderful week!