A few weeks ago I had the good fortune of being invited to accompany my friend Jill to the Garfield Park Conservatory to draw, and it was a really sweet couple of hours we spent going from greenhouse to greenhouse, taking it all in and sketching all kinds of flora. I was particularly into leaves and stems that day, mostly because it was much easier to zoom in to one plant than to attempt to sketch the dozens of koi fish or larger scenes in each room. It was a great way to spend some time in lush greenery indoors in early Spring in Chicago, which is not very warm or green, or any color other than wintery brown until mid-April at the earliest.
Of course now that we are approaching the end of April, buds and blossoms are everywhere and the colors are so pretty. Everything smells so sweet, too. It is such a hopeful time of year. I am working on a series of new paintings that are all botanical, and this coincides nicely with Spring as well. Photos of those coming soon…
I am about to wrap up the Spring 1 session of mixed media classes at the Oak Park Art League, and then I will be off for a session (or two), to do some traveling and focus on these new paintings. We had a good time in classes this session, trying some new approaches to working with various media – drawing, painting, collage, image transfer, gel plate printing, and creating textures with gels on multiple surfaces – paper, canvas and boards. Every session is a bit different from the last, and I bounce back and forth from taking the individual two hour class sessions to work on projects that incorporate different techniques, and singularly exploring one technique at a time. Look for new sessions to begin this summer. I will send out emails to students on my mailing list, and otherwise visit here for updated class offerings at OPAL.
I also visited the Highland Park Art Center with my critique group, and we were so lucky to see a spectacular show by Evanston artist Indira Johnson, whose powerful, larger-than-life work was almost astonishing to see in person. What a nice art center that is, too! I definitely want to go back and see if I can get some of my artwork into their group shows in the future. Highly recommend!
