I spent the day at Fort Can Gallery & Studios, drawing people and enjoying being immersed in art making. Last Saturday I drew four portraits: Karen (above), Cora, Gladys & Duffy. I hadn't arranged to draw Duffy ahead of time, but it worked out well, as the person I had planned on drawing didn't show. Today I had three subjects: Sarah, Rhoda and Harrison. Sarah brought her sweet dog, who I didn't know how to fit in the drawing. Rhoda was a gas and I started two drawings before I settled on one that I liked well enough to finish. I did Harrison in crayon and it came out OK, except his mouth looked like someone else. Thursday morning I started painting and drawing on the walls of the gallery. That's where the image from the "kinda spicy" post came from. After a week of feeling shy about having this gallery space, I found I needed to splash some color around. Once I got started I didn't want to stop, although I only had about an hour. But I got far enough that I came straight over after work on Thursday night, and worked through past midnight. I had a blast. Brian Ziegler, one of the studio renters, was there most of the evening and was very supportive and helpful. I haven't worked on one art object for more than an hour or two in years and years. I just love being able to do it. The only problem I was having was a certain stiffness in one of the figures (of the kissing couple). I found hundreds of kissing couples to study online, sketched a couple for reference, and went back Friday morning to loosen things up a bit. It worked like a charm and I'm pretty happy with the result. I may work on the painting more...I'm not sure. But since it's on the wall, and it will have to be painted over, I may stop where it is now and move back to more portable media. We'll see how it goes. I still have one wall I haven't done anything with yet, except write the words "I don't know", "I don't know, either" (which I erased) and then on the other end of the wall "is it too much?". Before any of these statements I wrote the question "Why" on the opposite wall. I love writing & drawing on walls. I've been doing it since I was maybe three or four years old, when my Dad repainted the upstairs hallway and I couldn't resist applying my crayons to the freshly painted surfaces. Oh, I love making art. I really do.
