July 14, 2012

All's well with our world. The heat wave has broken, everyone's healthy, and there's so much happening, it's hard to tell where to begin.

No movie this week, so we'll start right in with the paintings. Scroll through and enjoy. We'll chat afterwards. Then, we'll share an important announcement and discuss an interesting art question.

The painting stories of the day, as you can see, were color and produce. Our beginners have moved to some of our favorite exercises—the three-way and the giant fruits. In terms of color, we seemed to be enamored of the warmer colors on the color wheel, exploring apples, cherries and warm green grapes. There was a great attraction to yellow, from Greeta's heirloom tomatoes to Isa's delicate orchids to Ken's neon trolleys. And what would summer be without scenery, stories, friends, families and pets? Wasn't this just the essence of summer?

You're invited! As our term winds down, Ken's had a brilliant idea for the long summer break. Inspired by the summer solstice sketching party, he's resurrecting an old class practice—cemetery sketching. Beginning in a couple of weeks, we'll be meeting casually at Graceland cemetery to sketch. There's something for everyone—nature, architecture and even people—followed by lunch. Anyone is welcome to join. Tune in next week for time and meeting place. Hope to see you there!

Who influences you?

Story illustration by John R.

Last week, we all pondered a very interesting question, "Which artists have had the greatest influence on you?" Since John asked the question, we thought it only fair to look at his inspiration first. Louis Binet is an illustrator from the 1700's. Like John, he was a story illustrator. Particularly inspirational was his habit of including a lot of the storyline in the illustration, even inventing bits! Also, if you look at this week's painting, you'll see another influence, Arthur Rackham (also an illustrator). Notice how the figures in the center of interest have been subtly outlined to draw focus? That's a Rackham characteristic. Yes, we can certainly see the inspirations—and we have to say that John's certainly chosen his art heroes well.