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October 31 & November 1 - Apple Tree Bazaar at HOT

The Art Guild will have a booth near the entrance. Our primary purpose is to make ourselves better known and to attract new members. Members who volunteer to spend time manning the booth will be allotted space to display and sell their works. (Price them allow for a 10% commission for the Art Guild.) To participate, email or call Bill Franklin (physicsnerd@yahoo.com or 254-741-0960). He will need to know which day(s) and hours you can be there, so that arrangements can be made to have the booth manned at all times.

 

The booth will be set up on Friday, October 31, 9:00 to 12:30. Public display will be Friday, 1:00 to 5:30, and Saturday, 9:00 to 4:00. Please help if you can.

We had a nice exhibit, lots of traffic, and some sales. Displaying and tending the booth were Gloria Meadows, Rose Jacobson, Nancy Cagle, and Bill and Judy Franklin. Gloria sold a lot of painted rocks, and Rose sold some cards. The total was about $400, 10% of which is donated to the Guild, which is nearly enough to pay for the booth. Also exhibiting were Pat Blackwell, with her own booth just to one side of us, Bettye Schwartz, who was at the Harrison Center booth adjacent to us on another side, and Sue Young at a more distant booth of her own. As usual, there were many interesting things to see.

James Spurlock is a painter, sculptor and teacher of considerable skill, as you can tell from a few of his works reproduced here.  You can see more of his works at www.jamesrspurlock.com.  He developed a reputation for painting, but has turned more recently to bronze sculpture, life sized busts and complete figures and groups.  For us, he will demonstrate his painting.  He is mostly self taught, but credits the influence of Bob Tommey of Carthage, Missouri.  According to James, "art is just a series of adjustments...and life is art."  Be there when he shows us how he make those adjustments.

 

We will meet at the Waco Charter School, 615 N 25th Street, with refreshments and conversation at 1:30, the meeting at 2, and the demonstration soon thereafter.  Please bring one of your works for our monthly contest and sharing.  And bring friends.  They can come once free, or they can join as a regular member for the remainder of the year for only $2 (and all of next year for as little as $15 more).

James Spurlock has a studio and gallery in Granbury. He is self-taught, having studied the works of many artists. Nancy Cagle signed him up to demonstrate for us when she him in action there, and we're happy she did. James spent about an hour demonstrating drawing. Then, after a break for show and tell, he took a painting from blank canvas to conclusion. It was quite a show!

 

He uses many media, and emphasized that a good drawing should be the underpinning of any media, and that artists should plan their works carefully. He introduced us to his geometric drawing system, using two dimensional shapes, such as circles and rectangles, and adding "transitional" shapes, such as triangles, ellipses, and trapezoids, to create three dimensions. He used Bill Franklin and Nancy Cagle to illustrate the need for warming up shoulder muscles and using the right stance in order to make proper use of the shoulder's ball joint.

 

To faithfully render a subject, the brain and arm must work together. In his portraits he uses unit measurements, such as the head, or the interpupillary distance, as standards from which to get relative distances to correctly place the unique features of his subjects. He spends time blocking in his portrait subjects using one of three categories. Category 1 is a circle with its lower half overlapped by a square. He did a quick sketch of Judy Franklin as an example of this category. Category 2 is a circle with a square underneath and tangent to it. He sketched Pete Moffatt for this category. In both cases he got good likenesses in a very short period of time. Category 3 is a circle overlapped in half vertically by another circle. This is used for rounder faces, such as babies and young children.
 

Some of his guidelines for portrait drawing are as follows: 1. Once the category is determined and blocked in, draw a brow line along the horizontal diameter of the upper circle, draw five eye widths below it and locate the eye sockets in the 2nd and 4th ones. Look carefully at your subject: some have eyes up close to the brow line and others farther below it. 2. Locate the tip of the nose at the center of the square and the chin at the center of its lower edge. 3. Draw a line for the mouth 2/3 the way up from the chin to the nose tip. 4. Determine the distance from the center of one pupil to the center of the second pupil (interpupillary distance). This is the key to laying out the placement of facial features. Faces vary, but this is usually about the width of the mouth, the height of the ear, the distance from the eyes to the mouth, and the distance from either pupil to the center of channel between the nose and the mouth. Also the width of the eye is about the width of the nose, although this varies, so you have to observe carefully and adjust.

James also showed us how we can draw trees using circles with lines to create the basic structure. He demonstrated one point perspective using a point in the center, and radiating arms like those of a clock. Fitting basic and transitional shapes in between the radiating arms, the artist can create buildings as seen from below, above, or anywhere in between. James often uses willow charcoal or watercolor pencil for his drawings. He especially likes Moonstone paper by Canson Miteints for his pastels.

He created a portrait in acrylics of an Indian Chief of the Kiowa Nation from a photograph. A few stages in the process are shown here. Bear in mind that the whole process took less than an hour! Most of the painting was done with a flat brush about an inch wide. Highlights and some other details were added with a narrower brush. He began by blocking in the basic Category 1 shape using burnt umber, leaving the highlights white, then put in mid-tones with burnt sienna. He rendered reflected highlights with white added to his browns, then put in more dark tones, ending up with a very strong and accurate likeness. He donated the finished painting to the Waco Charter School for it Texas wall, which also features our group painting. Be sure to stop by and see it at the January meeting.

 

We thank James for a very useful demonstration. By trying to place subjects in one of his three categories, we will learn to better observe the proportions of our subjects, which is vital to making them recognizable. We also thank Violet Piper, Charleen Isbell, and Gloria Meadows for the refreshments, and all of those who brought painting to show us, some of which are shown below. The winners of the monthly contest are shown at the left. New member Kathy Perry was first, Bobbee Watts was 2nd, and Rose Jacobson and Violet Piper tied for 3rd.

 

Show and Tell:

                             

Nancy Cagle         Bill Franklin          Judy Franklin      Charleen Isbell

 

                             

Rose Jacobson  Gilda Lancaster       Kathy Perry          Violet Piper

 

                                   

         John Twardowski    Bobbee Watts       Robyn White

We will hang the MCC exhibit on Thursday, November 13. Please bring up to three paintings to the Ball Performing Arts Center between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. There is no theme, but paintings must be at least 16" x 20" including frame. If you cannot bring them at that time, please get someone to bring them for you, or bring them to the meeting on November 2. The exhibit will be removed on December 10 between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. Again, either pick up your works or arrange for someone to get them for you.

 

And while the exhibit is up, come out to enjoy a performance and see the exhibit at night when it shows up best. The following performances will be held there, all at 7:30, all free!

Monday, November 24:  MCC Chorale

Thursday, December 4:  MCC Wind Symphony

Monday, December 8:  Waco Jazz Orchestra

Tuesday, December 9:  Waco Community Band

The exhibit looks good, but there are only 22 paintings from only 8 exhibitors. We had room for more. Several people (or their art, in Linda Green's case) were out of town. We hope more will contribute to the spring show. Thankfully, Robyn White exhibited for the first time, and Don Magid loaned us some vintage paintings that had been at his mother's. The photos below show the exhibit from left to right. Come see it up close. Especially good times to see it are any of the following FREE public performances, all of which begin at 7:30.

Monday, November 24:  MCC Chorale

Thursday, December 4:  MCC Wind Symphony

Monday, December 8:  Waco Jazz Orchestra

Tuesday, December 9:  Waco Community Band

                                                         Judy Franklin                                                                                   Bill Franklin

                                     Bill Franklin                                                                                        Don Magid

       Don Magid                                                                                     Robyn White

                                                  Sue Young                                                                                  Christine Niekamp

                                       Christine Niekamp                                                                               Nancy Cagle

               Nancy Cagle                                                                                       Pat Blackwell