September 28, 2010

The end of summer has been a whirlwind of activity, so I’m a little behind in my blog posts.

Margaret Dyer was here at the end of August teach a 3-day workshop on pastel figures. Margaret is always a very popular instructor. She had just taught for us the previous year, but all the students clamored for a repeat so we quickly added Margaret to our 2010 schedule.

This talented group of students worked with both nude and clothed models. Margaret kept them challenged with multiple changes of model poses and painting angles.

The 3-day ended too quickly for us and the students! But not to worry Margaret has already agreed to return in 2012 to teach.

The next class up was with Judi Betts. Judi is such a delight to have here. Her enthusiasm and passion for her art is contagious!

Judi introduced a number of exercises to stretch the students skills with using color in their compositions.

Another fun/challenging exercise was when Judi surprized everyone with a male nude model! Ok, the male in question was our Dalmatian, Hudson.

The last time Judi had taught here, Hudson had been a puppy and was slightly less energetic! This time Judi said he was the wiggliest model she’s every worked with.

But everyone did their best to capture the “essence” of Hudson and some really nice sketches resulted.

I was the model handler and if the students wanted a less wiggling model, they could sketch me instead of Hudson.

If was a fun class and several of the students, who have attended many of our workshops, said that Judi was a really wonderful and generous teacher, in fact they said that she was “Xtraordinary”! (Judi’s website is Xtraordinaryart.com.)

Judi Bett’s will also be returning in 2012 to teach another 5-day watercolor workshop.

Maybe we can find a less wiggly male nude model by then!