Standing Room Only

The one week delay in holding our January critique didn't do anything to reduce the enthusiasm or attendance of our little group. Maybe it even increased it. We ended up with 13 participants (all regulars), 12 of whom brought new art to show. Most of the work is seen in the above photos. The top photo shows Molly's large print on fabric and two small tire assemblages from Adam. The second photo (click to enlarge) includes a drawing from Jane, a drawing and mixed media piece from Edy, graphite drawings from Katie, mixed media jewelry pieces from Michelle, a small collage/painting from Mary, a color ink sketch from Tim, a small wallpaper experiment from Molly, a pear painting from Amanda, a digital design piece from Adelle, a small assemblage from Adam, and my new block.

Two more works that weren't stacked with the others. An abstract painting from Sandy (above) and an installation in the ladies room by Adam.

Because of the numbers we had to limit each artist's time to about 10 minutes, but a lot of good observations, questions, and comments came in the limited time, something that several of the artists specifically mentioned to me. In general, people liked my new block in progress. One person thought at first that the image was a sequence involving the same character, because she thought the women in the image looked so similar. Five of six are from the same model, so I'll have to work a little more on making them look like distinct individuals. (I was already planning skin and hair color variations, but maybe I'll make a few adjustments to physiques as well.) Another question raised was why the two forward facing nudes in the left panel lacked pubic hair. Simple answer- neither of the original models had any (something more common in recent years), and for now my block sketches just copied my original life sketches. Since those areas may be obscured in the final drawing, I'm not going to worry about it now. At first Molly was wondering if the woman emerging from the shower was cut off because of the panel border, but I explained that she would have been cut off by the shower stall anyway, and in the finished print it will be more obvious (tile/color patterns) that the shower wall continues a short distance into the right side panel. If my schedule and the weather cooperate, I hope to get the drawing completely done before the next critique.