Last pastel class

This afternoon was my sixth and last pastel class. At least for now.
I don't know how much I am into it. Maybe I like the oils better.
Whatever...I have had a good time exploring the various mediums.

Creativity

Today the artists who will have pieces in the Spring Show that will be held later this week in the old USO building brought in their work. My only involvement was to bring an oil painting for someone who couldn't do it because of work, that thing I used to do! I was glad for the reason to be there and see the impressive art that folks have done. Tomorrow the pieces will be hung, on Wednesday the judging, on Thursday the reception. Then the show until Sunday. Last year I was agog with excitement over it.

But before I went downtown I stopped by the ArtWorks to get a couple of little things done.
As I passed by Elena's place, I saw that her life-sized papier-mache Victorian girl was complete enough to be moved outside her studio to gaze through the window, which is intended to be her forever place. Isn't she beautiful! Elena has been working on her for a long time, building layer upon layer from scratch!
For now I will just post one photo, but I would love to show the details another time.

He is risen!



By Carl Block, a nineteenth century Danish painter.

Oil Painting Class Today

One of the other students brought in some objects for a still life, and I painted a portion of it.
Taking a picture of the finished 8x10 painting helps me to see what I did wrong and what I did better. I may do a few more little things to it.

At Airlie

A mother swan on her nest.



Movies about Artists

On Monday I went to lovely Thalian Hall to see Mr. Turner, a biopic about the famous English landscape painter JMW Turner. If I were a reviewer, I would give it as many thumbs up, stars or tomatoes as possible as it was a masterfully done movie on all counts. Earlier this year I saw Big Eyes, another well done, well acted movie. The artist Keane was the subject, and it was especially interesting from a psychological angle. Last year an individual, not a big studio, came out with Tim's Vermeer, a movie that seemed to prove that Vermeer's art was done by way of something called camera obscura, or as my daddy would say...it was done with mirrors. He still had to do the design and arrangement of subjects, but the painting was greatly simplified. Today I read about another art movie coming out, Woman in Gold, based on a painting by Gustav Klimt. I hope to see it, too.

Life drawing

Also called figure or figurative drawing. It seems to be popular in Wilmington art circles, but nudes have been primary subjects throughout the history of art.
Today in my pastel class, we had a live model, one of our teacher's favorite subjects.
Many beginner artists, like me, draw too tightly and want to draw or paint looser. She tried to help us loosen up by having us make swooping strokes with wrist and shoulder motions on big pieces of paper. I have a long way to go!