Weather Permitted

We're a week into March, and by the standard of some recent winters, this one hasn't been too bad around here.  Lots of threats of bad weather, but only a few times did we have any accumulations, and never on a day when I had to do something.  The weather forecasters have only a few more weeks of official winter left to scare us and for the past few days we've been told about a huge storm bearing down on our area.  Winds, snow, floods second only to Sandy.  Well, this has been no Sandy, not that I'm complaining.  Predicted snow didn't arrive on Wednesday, or early Thursday.  And even though they told is it was bound to show up by tonight, as the time approached we just had a some intermittent rain, and the temperatures stayed above freezing, so we gathered in Ocean Grove for the March critique.

We opened with a digital presentation (above) from TJ, who was unable to get his connection to work, so we viewed some of his pieces on his phone.  Some video, and some aps.

 Our first round on the tack wall (above) included some work from Mary- the first proof from her latest print (a linocut she showed us as a block last time), and the two color version that was started in my class a few days ago.  She's not satisfied with the results, but is learning from the mistakes and can probably still salvage the piece.  Underneath those, a block drawing in progress.  On the right side, two mixed media prints involving stripes- Kristina's piece includes monotype over a photograph, while the older piece I brought in combined woodcut with preprinted papers.  I explained why I was influenced to bring in an 8 year old piece, and the group enjoyed that story, as well as the aesthetics of the print itself.

Molly had two groups of work out when I arrived.  Above are some of the canvas pieces she worked on over the fall, a commission.  Below are two new blocks, different sized versions of the same doodle based idea.  We spent all her allotted time talking about the blocks.

Sheilagh has been experimenting with encaustic over the past several months.  The above piece is the most recent such piece she's shown us.  The result is a painting with a very strong sculptural presence.

As sometimes happens, we had to expand our into the building to show everything.  Katie set up her work (above) in the hallway, a trio of paintings on canvas featuring flowers,   Finally, Vince had set up in the cafeteria, more images from his long photo based project.

We had a rare occasion of finishing on time, and when we made it out to the parking lot. still no sign of any snow.  Turned out to be a good night.