Susan's Flowers

Just finished this charcoal drawing of flowers from Susan's garden. Last week she had me drawing in pastels. Never touched a pastel before so it was an adventure. But just the act of making art makes me feel so alive.

Thursday Drawing - Friday Oils

These are photos of me sitting on my own front porch. Painted by my friend Scott Burdick. Someday soon this should be an online video teaching others to paint.

My friend Scott

Last weekend my friend Scott Burdick was in the top fifteen artists to do portraits in Washington DC. Think he scored really high in the contest WTG Scott!!!

If you haven't checked out Scott and Susan's new drawing video's - you are missing out on a great thing. Check out their website www.susanlyon.com

Last week they came to my house to draw and paint another in their series of videos for artist. Who's that model? My she looks good for an old woman. This was such fun to watch them work. Hope you like the couple of shots I took. Great gift for artist to watch and learn from their video's.

Where has she been?

On February 28th my dear friend/ adopted brother passed away from Cancer. My Mother was really sick for 3 weeks in March. And passed away on March 28th from a Stroke. Due to a huge knot growing in my throat I had surgery on April 9th.

Hopefully I am on the road to recovery and ready to do some serious Art study.

Thanks to all for the cards, calls, visits, and especially food. lol

Mama's Owl

Bowl with fruit was drawn on March 1st. Light and shadow still amaze me.

Really enjoyed drawing this still life. Hope to do lots more of them. Teach asked me what I didn't like to draw- duh- I couldn't think of anything. Maybe there will be something in the future but for now just having a ball playing with charcoal!

Brave Warrior was drawn over several days in the last week. Susan helped me see the midtones today and now I will share him with you. I do so love drawing Indians!! Hope someone will leave a comment soon on something I have drawn.

These are study drawings of light and shadow. Looks easy - NOT! The charcoal one was done on 2-6-10, conte pencil was drawn today 2-14-10. With help from Teach- Susan Lyon. Check out her website if you want to see real art!! www.susanlyon.com

Did these a few weeks ago. Hope you all like them. Love drawing people that seem to have a story to tell.

Sorry for so long since an update. The weather and life has been crazy lately. These were drawn after 9 lessons. Very pleased with progress. Think I will post one tomorrow night of one I drew last year before taking portrait lessons, its pretty bad. But shows me that this old dog is still learning new things.

Enjoy talking with friends on Twitter and hope to be painting again soon. Right now any free time goes to learn to DRAW the right way! There is nothing like chasing your dream after you retire. Just can't understand people who retire and go home and sit down! My Art teacher gets so tickled at my enthusiasm. Been dreaming about this day forever.

Today I tried drawing something new. Sure hope it shows up on this blog. Ok computers change faster than I can keep up with them. This is the site if it doesn't show up. http://tinyurl.com/ydkq6fx

I love drawing, always have loved it. But I love to color outside the lines too. So today I drew a lady from my head and put a scarf on her head. When I was young everybody wore a scarf. Now they might wear a hat but rarely see a scarf except around someone's neck.

What a great day at art class today. Working on the math part of art now. Measuring 15 ways from Sunday to get that line just right and I love it. Never dreamed that the human face has so many angles and lines. To some people faces comes natural, I am the type of artist that has to work very hard on that part. Have so much homework that there is no way I can get it all done. And I plan to start a college course Tuesday night in Adobe Photoshop. So I can take my photos and blow them up and paint from them. After spending so many years of my life in the tobacco fields and in the factories, this is turning out to be the best time of my life. Retirement can be great if you never stop learning. Go for your dream, no matter how crazy you think it sounds. Reach for your star and don't give up. Push yourself harder than you think you can handle, and most important keep a great attitude.

Class #6

Today was a great class and I learned a lot. I went in all proud with 83 drawings done since last class. Turns out 43 were cartoons and 39 of the rest had errors. Leaving this one I am trying to post tonight as the best of the lot. The things I learned today

1. Slow down a measure measure measure
2. Squint more - draw less
3. Commit to shading! Its either shaded or not!
4. Better to get one right than take in 82 wrong.
5. Get a great teacher who will not only tell you, but show you errors.

I got a great teacher and has the patience of Job to put up with me. Going to draw more. Will post later this week and let you know how its going.

The studio

For 3 days now my friend and I have labored in the clutter that I called my upstairs. There is something about clutter that drags the soul down with its weight. First day I was like, well I may need that - today I said "Trash it". We made 4 piles Trash, Goodwill or Salvation Army, stuff to take to antique mall and a keep pile. After I finish I plan to do it again with the same 4 piles until I get to just the stuff I have to have to work with.

I am blessed to have 4 rooms upstairs. One side is a bedroom and I plan to make it into a nice guest room. The other side is living room, kitchen and bath. That is the side in which will become my studio, the area between the 2 main rooms is mostly open.

Had an old door removed this fall and put in a 2 ton heater/ac unit, with a small window over it up there. Had the kitchen light removed and put in an 8' day light unit in. Since I get no north light, may need another one of those in the living room area. Will post photos when its done- trust me you don't want to see that mess. I am very tired tonight!!

Happy New Year 2010

Hello and welcome to my new blog. Hope you will follow me on this journey to become the artist I dream to be. Will share with you about my classes and paintings. And hopely good news and new events on my journey. AAWS is having a contest in Feb. for members and a guest to paint a picture together. My cousin brought her half done painting over for me to finish. Sure hope she finds the photo. I was there when she did the plein air start of the painting. But didn't study the scene very much. This will be a challenge.