On the way to class the other day, I passed a much younger fellow student on the opposite side of the street. He called out, “Hey Diane, how’s it going? On your way to painting class?” He mentioned seeing my fractured self-portrait on Facebook and how much he liked it and I said I also liked the work he’d been doing lately. (more…)
Lucy Ellen Smith is not only an exceptional artist, she is an exceptional teacher.
I met her several years ago when she and her husband Carroll moved to Maine from Chicago to take care of her mother Fran. Thinking about that, I need to add that Lucy is simply an exceptional human being. She and Carroll left their home, jobs, family and friends to move in with Fran and care for her until her death seven years later.
They are now back in Chicago, where Lucy continues to create beautiful art and nurture other artists in her drawing and painting classes at the Center for Life and Learning. (more…)
My mother, who is 88, has Alzheimer’s disease. What does that have to do with getting an art degree, you might ask. Well … in my Drawing 2 class at USM this spring, we had an assignment that had my mother’s lost memories written all over it.
I have never enjoyed working with charcoal — until now. We had a model in class last week and our assignment was to sketch her using a big stick of charcoal. I thought, “No way am I going to be able to manage this chunk of charcoal. No way!” (more…)
We had a really fun assignment in drawing class recently. We had to take pictures of each other and make a composite drawing of four people. The drawing could have two different eyes and eyebrows, a nose from more than one person — same with the mouth, the ears, even the hair. Mix and match. You get the picture? Let me show you mine! (more…)
Cranky. That’s how I’ve felt this past week. My immune system was working overtime trying to fight off a cold. The deadlines for a couple of freelance writing projects had arrived. I made a commitment to volunteer at a wonderful and worthy weekend event when I really needed to be working at the computer. I had homework.
Fortunately, I love, love, love doing my homework. This week it has been my saving grace.
The first assignment in my Drawing I class got me thinking about order and chaos and how chaotic my life suddenly seems now that I’ve gone back to school to get an art degree.