Capitol Hill Neighborhood

I am now working as a graphic designer for Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. Here is a promotional map I created using sketches from the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

DC Sketchers @ The National Gallery - The Perception of Spaces & Relationships

DC Sketchers visited the National Gallery of Art and learned to see and draw negative spaces. We also learned how to make visual judgements regarding proportion & measurement. We sighted and drew the compositional format and postive/negative forms of masterworks in the gallery's From Impressionism to Modernism show.

The we visited the East building's installation of Bruce Nauman, “Fifteen Pairs of Hands” and observed and drew the varied and interesting negative spaces interwoven among the fingers in the cast hands.

A new session of DC Sketchers starts April 16 and continues 'til June 4. Register for eight classes for $240 0r drop-in for $35. Registration begins Monday, March 7th. Save 10% during the first week of registration.

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DC Sketchers @ The Trapeze School of New York - DC

DC Sketchers gathered at the Trapeze School of New York - DC. We focused on gesture drawing by observing the school's Intense Flying Workshop. While it seemed safer on the ground, students were challenged by drawing the human figure and further challenged by their constant movement.
Next Saturday - March 5th, we'll be visiting the National Gallery of Art from 10am to Noon. Check out the class' description and itinerary/schedule.








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DC Sketchers @ U.S. Botanic Garden

DC Sketchers visited the U.S. Botanic Garden on Saturday and continued our study of contour. It was a pleasure drawing the variety of plants and flowers, staying warm inside during the blustery day. The instructor adds his drawings to the student's work here.

NOTE: I'm going to check out the book The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton. One of the DC Sketchers recommends it. I found an excerpt and was intrigued by the essay that refers to John Ruskin, especially his The Elements of Drawing, a book I often reference in my teaching. I'll definitely take a closer look.

Next week we'll be visiting the Trapeze School of New York-DC and learning about gesture drawing while observing their Flying Trapeze class. We will meet at 10:45 to 12:45 to coincide with the Trapeze School’s class schedule. Check out our itinerary/schedule for more info.








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DC Sketchers @ The National Gallery - The Perception of Light and Shadow

NOTE: The Spring 1 session of DC Sketchers begins next Saturday, 2/12. See link for itinerary/schedule. Register at http://www.chaw.org/ or by calling 202.547.6839.

DC Sketchers met at the National Gallery of Art for the fourth and final session of their Winter Workshop. We began with a warm-up in the beautiful Rotunda. Mercury was circled with Valentine's Day themed flowers and plants. Looked like an FTD ad.

The class revisited Exercise 3 from Ruskin's The Elements of Drawing: creating an tonal gradation from light to dark with cross-hatching or a continuous tone.

We then went to the cafeteria and claimed one of the tables and set up a still life of styrofoam cups - illuminated by the directional light of the window with the cascading fountain. We observed the tonal gradations in the smoothly curved forms of the cups - including cast and attached shadows.






Teaching artist, Kent Gay, also tried his hand at the day's exercise - below.




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DC Sketchers is also featured in EastCityArt.com

DC Sketchers @ The National Gallery - The Perception of Spaces

Saturday proved to be another successful day of drawing at the National Gallery of Art with DC Sketchers' Winter Workshop. We learned to look for negative space shapes, like in the interesting, interstises between the fingers of the 15 Pairs of Hands sculptural installation by Bruce Nauman.

Then interested students and teaching artist Kent Gay joined other
drawing enthusiasts for the 30th SketchCrawl at the Library of Congress. The idea of SketchCrawl, founded by Enrico Casarosa, is that of a global drawing marathon: taking a day to journal and draw all that is around you.

DC Sketchers @ The National Gallery - The Perception of Edges

The DC Sketchers class started it Winter Workshop series of classes. We will be visiting the National Gallery of Art for all four sessions. A group of eight sketchers joined teaching artist Kent Gay last Saturday, January 15th from 10am to Noon. The class started with introductions in the Rotunda of the West Building.

We began with blind contour drawing to develop our perception of edges, sensitively observing and recording the interesting wrinkled edges found in our palms.

And then we proceeded to the East Building and gathered around the marvelous installation of Bruce Nauman's Fifteen Pairs of Hands. Students practiced their contour drawing skills, creating beautifully observed drawings of a variety of sculptural representations of posed hands.

DC Sketchers @ Union Station

DC Sketchers met in the main concourse of DC's Union Station on Saturday morning, 12/18/2010. The historic interior was decorated for Christmas with lots of people scurrying across, catching their departing trains.

We made ourselves comfortable in the lobby's seating, practiced composing with our viewfinders, selected views and quickly created several smaller drawings. We learned how sighting/measuring techniques can help to see and draw proportional relationships to create perspective drawings.