Prize winning painting!

If you've been paying attention, you will have noticed we featured this painting as it was being painted.

On March 30th, Matt was only half done with the work, having apparently started it only the night before. Perhaps it was a dare?




Matt submitted the painting to the Dupage Art League's monthly exhibition on March 31st. The theme of the April exhibition was "Art Imitates Art."

Submissions could be reproductions of masterpieces, artworks done "in the manner of" a particular artist, or could take some other tack with the given theme.




Matt must have done something wright, because he won a blue ribbon on April 1st. No foolin'!





Kudos for the well-deserved recognition!


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Contour drawings

Picasso's Igor Stravinsky
Originally uploaded by Real Distan

In one recent class, we worked on contour drawings, after taking a look at Picasso's contour portrait of Igor Stravinsky.

Contour drawings follow the edges, or contours, of an object. We tried to do these without looking much at our papers while doing them -- quite tricky! In reality, there are no lines at the edges of objects, but this exercise trains your eyes to see imaginary ones that define space and shape.

We drew wine glasses ...







and of course we drew eggs...




Interesting to note that one drop-in visitor said she'd come back "when we were doing the good stuff". We can't fault her for not recognizing that our present work centers on developing an artistic process. Too, training a new way of seeing is part of artistic growth and it's essential to the cultivation of new skills.




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Open Studio Wednesday

This week, we worked on individual projects.

Matt, working in acrylics, was finishing a painting done in the style of Wayne Thiebaud



but naturally the subject matter was eggs. Of course!








Ellie worked on a different kind of nesting egg (actually, a matrushka nesting doll) in watercolors.




A very relaxing afternoon in the upstairs tennis lounge at the club -- lots of spectators and comments from passers-by, who usually only see sweaty people doing crunches lying around up there, or crowds of lay-abouts drinking cup after cup of coffee.

I like to think we added some high culture to the overall atmosphere.

Egg projects/ March 2010

Well, it's spring, and maybe that means eggs and Easter to you. On the other hand, you may associate our class theme with the simple joys of creativity, and celebration of the birth of exciting new projects.

In any case, we've been drawing and painting eggs in our studio art class, and here are some of the great results...