Penland: Last Days

Photos from left: Beverly and Michael, the best teachers ever; Michael giving some color palette advice; Beverly’s sister Renee’s pot holders (Beverly  cares for her mentally disabled older sister Renee who makes pot holders). Renee came to Penland for the second week and sold everyone pot holders (I bought two) . There is a documentary about Beverly and Renee on HBO called Raising Renee.

My class with our Portraits

Some images from the classroom: class portraits, Floyd the skeleton and Michael’s lemon/apple painting, Abie drawing.

The paintings I won at the auction. I actually won a still life by Michael (see above), but he generously traded the portrait on the left for his apple and lemon (thank you Michael!). The oranges on the right were done by Abie.

Penland: Day 10

The question of the day… when is a painting done? I thought my large portrait was finished this afternoon after I worked in the detail in the eye/nose/mouth areas, but now that I look at the photo below, I think maybe not. But it’s done for today… All of this painting is exhausting! Maybe because I’m not used to standing up all day, but I think it’s also all of the energy it takes to create (or to CREATE!). I also painted over my collage piece and began anew. That’s the thing about paint, you can always paint over it.

Penland: Day 9

Last night there was an incredibly violent/exciting thunderstorm which knocked out all of the power on the mountain. We had no electricity until almost 2:00 this afternoon, so I didn’t get a lot accomplished both because of the lack of light and the lack of coffee. When the power was restored, Michael came to the rescue with a coffeemaker for the studio, and Beverly came to the rescue with some really great feedback and advice, so I managed to add some detail to the large portrait below.

Penland: Days 7 & 8

After five full days of making art, I decided to take Saturday off. Technically, there is no class on the weekends, but the studios are open 24 hours so I could have painted had I the urge. Instead I headed back into Asheville with one of my classmates. We toured the Asheville art museum (saw a nice Robert Motherwell printmaking exhibit), then met Michael and Beverly for lunch. Nice respite to recharge the batteries, plus with the heat wave it felt about a thousand degrees outside, so a spin in the Jeep was just the thing.

Friday I used the projector to lay in the general outline and dark colors of  the portrait below, and today I started to paint. I tried to keep all of the guidance and wisdom Beverly and Michael have been imparting for the past week in mind as I painted. It’s moving in the right direction though Michael keeps telling me to not be afraid of using a little color. My main question is, what the heck am I going to do with an enormous painting of myself?