My Still Life

My Still Life
Originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

In Cynthia Padilla's Botanical Art: Still Life class at Powell Gardens. The thought of doing such a large (to me) drawing in colored pencil is very daunting. I am such a detail-focused person in my art. We were working on 11 by 14 inch Bristol, vellum finish. Nice stuff for cp! I just did what I did and it's going to be nice and big! Not so bad! We were especially enjoined to make things actual size and to pay attention to the negative space around objects. It was hard not let perspective take over completely, the far orange wanted to be small. And a photograph does make things look different...just a little. Our "film plane" is curved, cameras' aren't.

I got to meet Jill and Cynthia and Rex came by for the artists reception after the class. Such nice people! Jill graciously shared her still life objects with me, I hadn't gotten the materials list! Luckily, I did bring the necessary art materials! Many people brought woodland objects and flowers and all were generous with them. Cynthia demonstrated all the art materials and had extras we were encouraged to try out and buy if we liked them. All skill levels were represented, some had no previous art experience and others had more, and all made lovely still lifes to draw from.

Most of all, I enjoyed getting to make art for a very long period of time, uninterrupted! What a luxury!

I did take a few photos, but out of respect for the privacy of the others, I won't share all of them publicly. If you were there, contact me and I'll email you yours!

Great class, great people, great fun!