May 15, 2007

Drawing Life 29 / Notes on an Art Class

It was hot and sunny on Saturday and I decided that with summer in the air, at last, that we ought to draw tropical fruits—oranges and lemons and limes. The great thing about drawing such simple shapes is that anyone can do it with a fair amount of accuracy and we can then focus on the bigger issues of drawing—line and color and composition. Do we do line first or shape? How do we introduce color—as a block or just in hints? There’s no right or wrong. What’s important is that we become conscious of what we’re doing and stick to that consciousness throughout. When we start stabbing away in a mindless way things can get pretty muddy.
Three hours of drawing the same things can get boring unless we’re really finding that consciousness. David Hockney says there are infinite ways to approach the way we represent things with line and color. Once we hook into that infinite possibility and find an angle to explore, we can draw all day. Everyone in class got to the place of deep fascination and experimentation—very exciting.
Art is great practice for focus. It’s a yogic practice—one-pointed attention. It clears all the other dross from our minds and helps us get to that pure space where inspiration creeps in the back door. I think that’s as beautiful as any picture we make.

by Cathy @ 4:37 pm. Filed under Drawing Life

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A Big Shout Out—

Because it's brilliant and fun, because it might change the way you see your life journey, even make that journey a little easier and wilder,a big shout out to Allan Hunter's new book— Stories We Need To Know

And check this...

Words from people who inspire us to think in ways that might change our world to one in which we can all live in peace and prosperity—Howard Zinn, Paul Farmer, Robert Reich and more. Edited by Anna Portnoy, Ann Kim , Kate Holbrook. Based on the Global Values class taught by Brian Palmer at Harvard 2001-2004.

Global Values 101

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Welcome...

I’m Cathy Bennett, writer, artist and teacher in Boston. Looking for signs of art on the planet...and how we might make it.



Mondays: The Saturday Morning Drawing Club is posted under Drawing Club and follows the further artistic adventures of a fine group of women in my Saturday morning drawing class who gather each week to meet the artist within and to prove that we all have a creative core that can rock the planet. It continues last year's posts filed under Drawing Life. The class is now on summer break.




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Bono said...



~The world is more malleable than you think. We can bend it into better shape.

~The job of life is to turn your negatives into positives.



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There's a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in.



&mdashLeonard Cohen


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