Last updated 6 days ago
These sketchbooks feature binderboard covers with true linen spines. The smyth sewn and gauze spliced bindings provide strength and durability. The unique binding method allows the books to be opened flat and even bent double without damage to the binding. Linen spines are available in five colors and seven sizes. The heavyweight acid-free paper is excellent for all dry media and is suitable for waterbased markers and light washes. The paper is PH buffered, lignin, and chlorine-free.
Last updated 7 days ago
By Elena Parashko
At some point, most artists have experienced the discomfort of staring at a blank canvas, unable to start painting. What is the cause of this procrastination and avoidance in beginning a new artwork and how can it be overcome?
Often, the cause is fear. Fear is an emotional reaction to danger or a perceived threat, with the usual response being escape or avoidance of the thing we fear. Just as writers can experience fear of the blank page, artists can experience fear of the blank canvas, and, as a result, can become quite skillful in creating convenient excuses to delay painting.
But what exactly do we fear when faced with a blank canvas? There is no real physical danger to us. Instead, our fear is based on worry about future consequences that may or may not even happen. We may have a fear of failure, or surprisingly enough, a fear of success. We worry about making a mistake or that this painting may not be as good as the last, that it may not be accepted into an exhibition, win a prize or please a client. We fear success if we feel we are not deserving of recognition and reward, dislike being the center of attention, or worry about how we will cope with the change that success brings.
We may not even be aware of exactly what it is we fear. Our procrastination may be coming from very deep-seated issues that, in the long term, will need to be resolved if we are to break this pattern of self-defeating behavior. In this situation, professional counseling may be helpful. But in the short term, whatever it is that we fear will be expressing itself in a host of excuses as to why we can’t start work on a painting. Fortunately, there are some simple strategies that can be used right now to eliminate these excuses and get painting again.
To continue reading, click HERE.
Last updated 8 days ago
Come and learn a new drawing technique!
Oil Rubbing over graphite drawing is a time tested technique that can add some panache to your next illustration/ drawing/ painting.
Jack Hendrick, Illustrator and Art Educator, will guide you through this fun process!
For more information, click HERE.
Last updated 9 days ago
Come learn how to etch glass using stencils. Etched glass makes wonderful gifts or can give your belongings a personalized touch! Can also be used on framed glass and mirrors!
What: Glass Etching Demonstration
When: Saturday, June 15th
Time: 11:00 am
Cost: Free!
What to bring: Any glass you would like etch - other materials will be provided.
(Note: Some Pyrex type glass will not etch due to being tempered for high heat. We can test the Pyrex at the beginning of the class if needed)
For more information, click HERE.
Last updated 10 days ago
An iPhone app is helping a woman to sketch fellow passengers while riding on the tube.
If you spot a woman scrutinizing you on the Tube – then busily fiddling with her iPhone – you might just end up on artist Julie Leonard’s wall of fame or tweeted around the globe.
Impressed by David Hockney’s iPad artworks at last year’s RA exhibition, Leonard downloaded the same app to her iPhone.(Hockney uses an app called Brushes, which you can download from the App Store for $6)
Armed with the highly portable sketching device, for the past nine months she’s been capturing fellow Tube travelers unawares and displaying them on a 20ft long wall at her Crouch End home.
“I was fascinated by the way Hockney used this app – the scale and detail you can produce with it appealed to me as well as the immediacy of being able to create something on the move,” she says.
“I always have sketchbooks on me at all times to draw ideas or people and I thought this would be a perfect way to have an electronic sketchbook on hand.”
Leonard tweets her sketches, with accompanying tagline such as: “On my way home, Victoria Line, 11.20.”
She said: “It has caught my imagination as a fantastic way to capture people and places anonymously while I am going to work or coming home late.
Quirky
“I love watching people go about their everyday lives, making up stories about them and where they might be going.”
Leonard might be drawn to her subjects by an item of clothing, a curious trait or quirky distinguishing feature.
Her wall includes a pair of immaculately turned out blonde, blue-eyed twins traveling home late on the Victoria Line; a girl in a baseball hat and shades, a sleepy couple huddled romantically with their heads together, and a city worker with ‘more money than sense’ emblazoned on his forehead.
“I use several different tube lines regularly and I am fascinated by the different social and cultural mix of people on different lines at different times of the day.
“It’s a very fruitful place for an artist – with people in their own world coming and going to different places.”
Leonard, who has a fine art degree, also works in oil and specializes in life drawing and seascapes of the south coast and St Ives.
Even then she creates on-the- spot sketches which she works from back in the studio.
“The way I work, I like to respond to what’s around me,” she said.
To see more of Julie's portfolio, click HERE.
