Heaven sent...

Sometimes you get a good demo, most times you don't -they are average due to the nature of the beast. This is how I feel about demos. I am rarely able to get in the 'zone' around teaching. I have made peace with this.

You paint 'what you know' accepting you are teaching a lesson and hoping to show that lesson well for students.

I like this one tho', my demo from Vita this week. The sitter is an art student from my gifted teen class with a heavenly face. She is very reserved in person but, boy, did she look at me right in the eyes all the way through the sketch. I could have painted her for hours. She was also wearing one of my favorite vintage hats from my collection.

I set myself a challenge to hang on to the original 'hot' toned canvas on much of her face keeping some of the original drawing lines too. That made it a success for me. I knew when to stop before I messed it up by rushing and overworking. It also meant my drawing was 'on'.

Thank you Juliana.

PAINT BY NUMBERS?

Well, not exactly. But I do like sometimes to concentrate on a specific thing in a teaching class demo, as in this case - the color harmony of red and green - rather than sticking to a formula.

This was my demo in my portrait class at Vita Art Center in Ventura...the model, actually a real person, had crazy wild great hair...black with light blonde streaks. No point playing it safe. And of course her hair is my favorite part of the sketch. Simple as that, 1...2...3...

I GET HANGED!

I am being hung...my show that is! Exciting to see it all come together finally...

Editing "365 Days of Drawing By Johanna Spinks" was not easy.

It feels like wonderful closure on a year of drawing.

See you tomorrow night for the opening.

Post-It...That's The Tick-it.

Today I got serious. I have a show coming up. How on earth do you choose to mount a show from the 365 Days of Drawings you did in 2010?

I tried to cancel the show, very seriously. Didn't want to go there. The challenge was DONE, my public art soul out there for a whole darn year, day by day. Not so easy.

Why put it out there anymore?, I said to myself. My family agreed. Don't do it, my husband said. However, Ms. Mary Perez, owner, curator, of The Vita Art Center in Ventura, CA, mounting the show, (committing to it quite early on in the drawing challenge last year, b.t.w., which kinda kept me going at some points) , calmly talked me out of it. She said she had never seen me so jittery. Ms. Perez also said I would really regret it if I didn't do the show. This is exactly the type of curator an artist needs. Gets it!

I thought of the super successful "American Idol" TV show in the USA. You have to reach, right? Consolidate the hours of performance/learning/training into a three song set sometimes? You gotta be in it to win it, whatever 'win' is, right? And I really did frickin' draw every day no matter what for 365 days. One needs a conclusion to a year like that. A finale of sorts.

So self edt. Get the blue 'Post-Its' out. Tonight I laid out the selection of drawings I liked the best and became an 'American Idol' kind of TV judge, although not so Paula Abdul, if you know what I mean.

Consistency overall. Pick the 'art spirit' that propelled you forward in 2010 for 365 days. Amazingly enough, it seems to me there was a current, a theme of sorts. SO I PUT BLUE STICKIES ON THOSE, just like an A. I. judge. However, I do have to put my art ego aside to show that 'current' in the show. Not always the best drawings showed the current. No-one can help me with that it seems.

I now share with you my journey of putting on this show. Do you wish you could vote me off my version of American Idol perhaps?

365 Days of Drawing By Johanna Spinks

Opening Reception Friday April 1st 2011, 6 to 9 pm

Vita Art Center

Ventura, CA.

More details will surely follow

The VaLUE OF VALUES, 365 Days of Drawing

I am teaching a workshop this week - so lots of drawing yesterday with a brush. This is a quickie demo I did on one canvas from three different simple still life set ups I had planned around dark, middle and light value backdrops. Each student painted all three over a three hour period.

Ah, the value of values. Fun to nail them really fast on one canvas. Today we move to color.

Shoot the breeze...365 Days of Drawing

I had a wonderful time last night shooting the breeze with Sheldon Brown, publisher of The Ventura Breeze newspaper, whilst painting his likeness for the world to see at The Bell Arts Factory Open House, part of Ventura's highly successful First Fridays of The Month art night series.

It was a busy night at the studios http://www.bellartsfactory.com/ including a great new show "March" at Vita Art Center Gallery http://www.vitaartcenter.com/ featuring the work of over 50 female artists.

I was so happy to see so many really young children stop by and be interested in what we were all doing with the paints, ceramics, glass, yarn and clay. I got some great critiques from them on my portrait of Sheldon as it was developing. Kids are so honest.

I post the drawing part of the head study of Sheldon to qualify for my daily drawing challenge.

There is NOTHING better than having someone sit for you like Sheldon. http://www.venturabreeze.com/Good witty conversation, a great visage, and a connection leading to some satisfying portrait painting capturing a likeness of that person, that particular moment in time and space, reminding me why I so enjoy being a portrait artist. Wonderful also to hear the feedback from other artists and art fans milling around the studios of the Factory.

Thank you Sheldon. And thanks to The Bell Arts Factory and Josh Addison for all that goes on there. It is a great vibrant place to be.

Nothing french today in terms of photos from my residency in France. I am off to the movies with my daughter instead to see Alice in Wonderland.

YOU JUST KNOW tonight's drawing will have some of that in it!

SOLD