Mondays after drawing a portrait in charcoal with Carl Samson, Millie and I head directly over to the Cincinnati Art Club in Mt. Adams for sketch group.

There's a different live model every week, so we eat a quick lunch and then continue to practice what we've learned in our Monday morning class.

I'm not a portrait painter but, as one of our classmates, Cindy Harlan Youse, said, "There's nothing like miles on the brush" for improving your work. Seeing the "bedbug" line and working with shapes and values has already influenced how I see the houses I've been commissioned to paint. When I'm at the sketch group at the art club, I draw in pencil and try to change position to a different view of the subject every 30 or 40 minutes.

In this case, I can't remember which one I did first but they both resemble him more than the studies I did six months ago, so I'm encouraged.

Java Jazz and Art 2009

New Richmond OH

Oct 10-11, 2009

I'm so glad my Pendleton Art Center studio-mate, Dodie Loewe, got me involved in this wonderful event and I look forward to doing it again next October. After a pretty drive east along the Ohio River from Cincinnati, I arrived in New Richmond Friday evening and visited all the stores and businesses on the main street, as each of them displayed artwork being judged for the event.

Tempted by the cosy atmosphere and dinner specials listed on the blackboard at the Cafe, I'm glad I didn't eat before the opening and awards ceremony at the Front Street Gallery because the food served there was filling and absolutely delicious. Enjoyed listening to live bluegrass music and catching up with a lot of good artists before heading home to rest up for the plein air paint out Saturday morning.

Back on the main street the next morning, the coffee smelled good and the jazz musicians were setting up in a beautiful park overlooking the river but the weather didn't look too promising. So I decided to breakfast at the diner with a bunch of other artists and by the time we finished eating, it was beautiful out and I felt fueled up and ready to paint.

Seemed like there was a different jazz band every hour and they were all great! I found the music very inspiring and enjoyed talking to all the people strolling by. But it was a challenging outdoor painting day because the light changed constantly, so I finished this little palette knife painting in oils and then got my drawing tablet out and started working on all the home portraits I've been commissioned to paint.

Got a lot of good work done, so drove home with a sense of accomplishment although tired. Next year, I want to stay all night at Susanna's Guest House, a bed and breakfast with rooms that have fireplaces and twelve foot high ceilings.

Going to New Richmond for the weekend to paint was like going on vacation, making me see the charms of this area with fresh eyes. Formed when glaciers diverted existing rivers 10,000 years ago, the Ohio River is broad and relatively shallow. To me, this area resonates of Hopewell and other ancient cultures here long before the descendents of Europeans.

Painting the river, I thought of Meriweather Lewis' expedition passing through in 1803 camping and conducting business until William Clark joined the group and they moved West.

Finding the Bed Bug Line
Artist Carl Samson has been teaching me to look for the "bed bug line" when viewing or drawing a portrait. Bed bugs don't like the light and will do whatever they can to avoid it, so one determines the bed bug line by drawing the overall flat shape of what's in shadow vs. what's in the light. Easier said than done! I've been at it for hours today and haven't quite gotten it yet but I'm making progress. How do I know? Because now I'm seeing the bed bug line on actors' faces when I watch TV!!

When I have tried to draw faces or heads in the past, I've tried to draw all the values, from 1-10. This is a totally different approach: kind of like drawing only value 7 in flat shapes. Then going into the light areas and adding the halftones from 1-6.9. Maybe pulling out a little of the light in the value 7 and darkening some of it to 8, 9 and 10.

Today was my third out of eight classes with Carl. Some of the things learned that I'm trying to apply to my own work are as follows:

• Triangulating: correctly positioning key elements like eyes, nose, ears, chin, mouth in reference to two other points

• Modeling via lost and found edges on the bed bug line to create form, before modeling in values, which was all I did in the past

I know from teaching people to use software that we don't master new skills just by watching and listening. When someone shows and tells us what to do, we have to try it ourselves and then practice, practice, practice to really get it. Spending so many hours teaching each week, it's poetic justice for me to be the student practicing this for hours and still not coming close to what my teacher can do quickly and easily, almost as second nature. This experience should help me develop more patience with my own students, while learning to look and see in a new and different way, better than ever before.

Happy birthday to me! Working on several home portraits right now. Here's my first preliminary color sketch, in acrylics, for one of them. Driving over there to look at the home and take more photos this afternoon.

Still bathed in inspiration, for which I'm very grateful. Will write more about that soon.