After the sketching class

There were 22 people in the group last night. Some were the core group that comes to most of the sessions, some had attended a few times, and some were first timers. There were a few that were new to Dallas and were looking for ways to connect with the Dallas art scene.

As stated in the previous blog, the drawing skill level of the group varied a lot. But everyone seemed to really enjoy the slow looking that copying a painting offers. This act revels how beautifully complex the composition of the paint was. One person commented that he had never noticed there was a wagon sitting on the hill, and that without the wagon the sense of perspective falls apart.

Sketching in the Galleries @ the Dallas Museum of Art

Tonight is my first night to lead the Sketching in the Galleries program at the DMA. I will be leading the drawing group for the next 4 proceeding Thursdays from 7-8:30. The group is usually around 10-25 people, with a wide range of drawing skills.

This will be my 4th time in 4 years to lead this group. I always love doing it because I love being around people that are excited about drawing.

Tonight we are going to be focusing on shadows. I have selected 4 paintings in the European gallery to work from. Alfred Sisely - The Lesson, Daumier - The Print Seller's (very semular to the one shown here), Pissarro - Apple Picking, and Villon - Society. All use large areas of shadow in a graphic and dramatic style.

Happy Birthday Video is getting a lot of plays

I posted my video just 24 hours ago and it already has 124 plays. It is amazing what family, friends and a little dog butt can do.

Happy Birthday to my Big Brother

I just finished this little video in honor of my Big Brother's birthday. You can see it by clicking the image below or go to my Youtude site which is a bigger formate and contains all my other videos.

Substitute Life Drawing Teaching at Creative Art Center

Tonight I will be leading the life drawing class at CAC. I am very excited about this opportunity to talk about drawing the figure and about the way your mind often tells your eyes what they are seeing. To heighten that phenomenon we will be drawing a lot of posses that focus on foreshortening.

Substitute Drawing Teacher @ the Creative Art Center

My very good friend and a really great artist, Susan Giller has asked me to substitute for her while she dashes up the Boston for a bit of northern culture and eating.

The class tonight is called Quick Draw. It focuses on the exploration of all forms of drawing, but leans a bit more towards still life drawing. I'll be carting a few boxes of junk up there to have the class draw from, plus a stack of books too.

5X7 2009 is coming to Dallas

August 14th! Mark that date on you calendar! It's the Dallas edition of the 10th anniversary Arthouse 5X7 fundraiser.

The event will be held once again at the Dunn and Brown Contemporary. The postcard states that the event opens at 5:00 and the sale starts at 5:30 but that sounds kind of early to me and the Arthouse web site has not been updated yet, so I plan on being there at 5:00.

With all the personal cutbacks that we have all had to submit to this year, I predict that when the bell rings at 5:30, it is going to be most frantic, ravenous art buying frenzy that one will ever hope to see.

And that's the whole reason I'm going. It's good for my artistic soul to see a room full of art collectors behaving so very badly, to see people of class and sophistication getting so whipped up about a small work of art that they forget their cocktail demure and start pushing and shoving so they can snag that one irresistible art gem.

It's art buying like you will never see in real life. I wonder sometimes what it would belike to have this kind of excitement and energy at one of my art openings.

Well here is a link the all of the artists that have art in this years 5X7.