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Welcome to our archives!
February 1 - Don Magid at Art Center Waco - Portrait Play
Don Magid is a
great painter and teacher, but didn't he just have a program at the Art
Center recently? Yes he did, but Don has a new and improved presentation
in which he will develop a portrait based on a dramatic Steve McCurry photo of a man
wearing a turban. McCurry is a wonderful photographer who travels the
world recording what he sees. An exhibit of his work, including the
iconic National Geographic cover photo of a Afghan girl, was on display
at Art Center Waco for 9 months, ending in March 2008. Many of his
photos can be seen on his web site
www.stevemccurry.com.
Don is convinced that art can be - and should be - the
pathway to coping
with our rapidly changing world. He will try to show that the perception
skills needed to produce art also help us to see the structures
underlying other aspects of our lives, and that the possibilities and
limitations of the media we use both
enable and constrain what we can accomplish in art and in life. He will
develop an image, and also "the big picture." In these days of
all-important tests, art is being squeezed out of the schools. Don is
not alone in deploring this shift of emphasis away from students being
able to explore their creative sides. Come to see how to paint better,
but also how to help prepare children for their futures. For more, see
Don's web site www.mindsalive.com.
The meeting will be from 2 to 4, with refreshments and conversation at
1:30. Admission is free, so bring friends.
There will be no Art Guild contest in February.
The demonstration will be at Art Center Waco, whose
official address is 1300 College Drive, but which is actually off of
Highland Drive. To get there, turn off of Lakeshore Drive onto College
Drive, then take the 2nd left, which is Highland Drive. Proceeding
uphill, take the first left into the Art Center parking lot. The
building is lovely home with some sculptures out front.
If coming out N. 19th, turn right on College Drive (where
the post office is on your left). Then turn right on Highland Drive, the
third entrance to the campus (where there is an Art Center sign).
Proceeding uphill, take the first left into the Art Center parking lot.
The building is lovely home with some sculptures out front.
February 1 - Don Magid, The Play Factor Illustrated with a Portrait
Don Magid presented
a program called The Play Factor: Harnessing the Power of Information in
Art. He said that great artists have always employed both sides of the
brain to create something new.
We
must train our perceptual skills, allowing us to see and record basic
structures. We can then add elaboration and details to capture our
subjects. A good observer is apt to be successful in most any endeavor.
Art can help us to develop skills that can be applied in many areas of
life by observing underlying structures first, then playfully
elaborating until the desired result is obtained.
Don
pointed out that we use combinations of basic elements to produce
complex structures. He made several quick charcoal sketches with simple
lines and basic shapes. He then added details to develop a quick
landscape, and to show how one can capture aging in a quick portrait
sketch by
elongating
the face. Moving to a portrait, he used a photographic portrait by Steve
McCurry of a tribesman in a turban as a reference. He started with a
canvas previously covered with gesso mixed with small amounts of acrylic
primary colors to create a warm neutral background color. He sketched
the basic shapes in the portrait with charcoal, showing how the brain
processes an image -
the
key is to get the large shapes in place, then to get more detail in the
drawing. He measured with his charcoal pencil to get features in the
correct place and proportion. He drew in the eyes first, then the nose,
and other features, creating shadows and bone structure. He emphasized
that what he was doing was processing the information in the photo and
recording it in his work, keeping a loose, playful approach. After
completing the charcoal drawing he used hairspray to fix it.
The
basic elements of color are primary colors. With his palette knife, he
mixed a flesh color using a mixture of cadmium red, cadmium yellow,
ultramarine blue, and white oil paint. He varied the intensity by adding
more or less white or by adding a complementary color. He stressed the
importance of learning the colors and their complements in order to use
these elements in your painting. By experimenting with the paint, one
learns the basic characteristics of the paint and how it behaves. He
added a paint medium to the paint to thin it, and used a flat bristle
brush to apply it over the charcoal drawing, using the dark tones for
shadows and lighter tones for highlights.
He stressed the need for a willingness to play with the paint and not to
be afraid of making a mistake. He turned the painting and the resource
photo upside down to make it harder to see the face and easier to see
the shapes while building up the forms.
Switching
from the early stage portrait at the left to a partially completed
painting of the same subject, he showed how he developed the finishing
details. He worked more paint into the underpainting with lighter flesh
tones and added more charcoal shading to the darker areas. He then
concentrated on building up the form of the figure, working around the
whole painting, rather than just one area at a time. He
added white for highlighted areas in the turban and face, and worked the
paint in loosely to show the folds of cloth and bone structure of the
face. He did a great job of capturing the rugged strength of his subject
as seen in the photo at the right. We thank Don for showing us both how
to paint a portrait and how the skills involved can apply to other areas
of life. Thanks also to those who brought refreshments: Gloria Meadows,
Larry Garza, Ellen Foster, Kathe Tipton, Judy Franklin, and Nancy Cagle.
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