March 1, 2014

It's March and there's a fresh dusting of snow on the ground—with more to come. Does that sound just a little contradictory? Yep, seemed so to us too. Maybe that's what influenced us in another of our inadvertent "theme" days. Call it what you will, "incongruity," "opposites," or "compare and contrast," our paintings set up in a natural "this vs. that" style.

Just look. We begin with cats vs. dogs. Even their style is different—Ken's regal, sphinx-like vs. Elaine T's animated, active dog.

 

Cats vs. cats (Okay, this may be a stretch as Ken paints cat faces both in profile and straight on.)

 

Dueling Saras. (Same sitter, same colors, very different feels)

Fall vs. summer (And we like both Marva and Elaine O's choice of season. Anything but more snow!)

 

 

Even angels vs. devils, thanks to Mark and John.

 

Don't you love the composition of John's final illustration? The balance, the flow, how your eye travels from the empty place in line down through the road into the abyss. All this framed by the devil as narrator/commentator. Beautifully done! What's next?

And let's not forget our new students. Even though they are working on exercises, they fit right in with our comparison theme. We have egg vs. egg (same egg resting on the same plate, but one is highlighted by color and the other has a striking graphic quality)

and plum vs. plum. Again, it's the same plum but painted from different angles. Can't you just feel the personality of the painter?

Artist(s) of the day. We had a plethora of books today. We learned about Aubrey Beardsley—and yes, his sinuous Art Nouveau curves do look like last week's carrots! We also saw some pre-Raphaelite drawings that were inspirational to both our sketchers and portrait artists.

Strange sight of the day. This may only be strange to our group, but Pat actually took a brush, dipped it into paint and nearly touched down on Ken's cat painting. Imagine! Perhaps this wouldn't be so odd to people whose teacher isn't so adamant about finding your own way, but we couldn't believe our eyes. In response, Ken promptly dipped his own brush in burnt sienna and the result is the painting at the top of our lineup. New inspiration technique? Radical teaching method? Momentary aberration? Who knows! But the result is incredible. Does the end justify the means?

And now for some good news/bad news. The bad news is that we've come to the end of our term. Yes, another seven weeks of growth and enrichment are over. So we'll be away for two weeks. But there's good news, too! We'll be back on March 22 to paint some more and celebrate Ken's birthday. Don't cry—it'll go by quickly and we'll see you soon!