Art Night

February 6, 2012 · Filed under Art Classes

Before I get around to posting those last few calligraphed Christmas gifts, I’m interjecting this post about the fun we’ve been having at Art Night lately. We’ve been using Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun by Carla Sonheim as the basis for our activities each Wednesday evening when we all gather around the table. This week, we used chisel-tip markers to quickly draw the same dog over and over on 20 index cards.

At first, 20 cards didn’t seem like all that many. But by the time I got to 20, I was ready to stop drawing that darn poodle.

It was a great exercise in trying to get the dog’s features down quickly. And it was weird how hard it was to draw it much differently each time. My hand just kept doing the same things.

Anyway, she suggested that we each pick our favorite to enlarge and doodle on this week, so I picked this one.

Some of the kids whisked off their pictures, but I managed to get photos of a few of my favorites. Here’s Joey’s adorable dachshund:

Lydia’s and Charlotte’s:

Eleanor’s and Margaret’s:

And Tim’s:

These exercises have forced a different part of my brain to work, especially since the exercises are almost all done quickly. So, I’ve been learning–and laughing a lot–with the crew on Art Night. Can’t beat that!