-
Animal Month
Guided by Emily Hirtle, at the Main Line Art Center I started to think about how I wanted to represent different animals with watercolor and gouache. I no longer find watercolor scary and I am motivated by representing the many animals in my life. I want to get better at drawing and painting because I… Read more
-
Perception is not always reality
I’ve been trying to improve my drawing skills, and much of drawing is seeing. These days, I think it’s good to remember that perception is not always reality. One’s reality has a lot to do with experience and assumptions. For example, one of my art assignments was copying this master drawing by John Singer Sargent.… Read more
-
Copying the Masters
Copying a master painting is a very useful exercise. Here is The Favorite Horse by John Singer Sargent. First make the “linear placement” — where the shapes go on the page. Then, start to think about how Sargent did this very warm and subtle painting. This was a challenging assignment, not only because I haven’t… Read more
-
A Year in Drawing and Painting
It has been an entire year since my last blog post! Last year, when visiting Maine, I was blissfully unaware of the events of the coming year. Pandemic, crazy politics, national unrest, weird weather! Still, there were positive things about 2020. I tapped into several high-quality online art classes sponsored by community art associations. For… Read more
-
Lesson: Memory vs. Photo
I had some acrylics left over from my class so I thought I’d use them to practice what I learned in my last painting class. The messages from class: form makes a strong painting, value is important in the “reading” of the painting, and finally, a photo can be somewhat of a tyrant. It is… Read more
-
More Observational Drawing
I would like to gain enough skill to use drawing as a second language for expressing ideas, feelings, and places. After so many years of playing with drawing, I feel as if I am learning skills I can use for this. After 9 classes, I can see that this is going to take a lot… Read more
nzacksart 