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It’s always a pleasure to host old and new friends at an open studio in my home gallery, with images from my collections and fresh from the easel . . . drawings, paintings in oil, watercolor, pastel, and prints. Fortune cookies and good conversation!
I look forward to seeing you! Oct 7 & 8. 10am – 5pm, 2180 Beverly Way, Santa Rosa
Personal attention for those who want time to ponder additions to their collection include private appointments, time payments, trying artworks in your environment, special commissions.
Contact me : marsha@marshaconnell.com

A theme for musing: The past speaks to the present. . . All I ever needed to know I learned in figure drawing. . . (SEE BELOW THE IMAGE)

ALL I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN FIGURE DRAWING
by Marsha Connell

Be courageous! Stay focused.

Be ready to respond to shifting forms and problems.

Follow the rhythm, warm-ups to extended poses,
like scales before the symphony or stretches before the big game.

Try different processes, from outside in and inside out: gesture, contour, mass.

Go ahead and scribble, or crawl as slowly as an ant climbing a mountain.

Be curious! Be humble. Be inspired by other artists. Learn from them.

Integrate “rules” that help you. Try them on. Or save for a rainy day.

Discover how the figure forms the ground and ground forms the figure,
feel the charge between positive and negative space.

Seek balance and teeter on the edge of imbalance,
organic and geometric, light and shadow,
composition and detail,
lost and found edges.

Experiment. Change your perspective.

Explore realistic color and expressive color.

Be flexible and spontaneous. Be methodical.

Use a lot of materials. Share. Be generous and kind.

Clean up together. Listen. Rest.

Observe how the landscape of the body that is subject
meets the landscape that is body
meets the body that is artist
meets the inner landscape.

Trust your own voice, your own journey.
Let go of judgement and the critic and move on.

Open your mind and heart to expression, to not knowing,
to grief and joy, to repairing pieces of a life interrupted.

It’s a practice, like music, yoga, tennis, prayer . . .
that is strengthened by drawing in community,
by parallel play, study and work.

Really, all I ever needed to know I learned in figure drawing!

“And it is still true, no matter how old you are,
when you go out into the world,
it is best to hold hands and stick together.”

(with thanks to Lisa Beernsten’s recent comment after drawing from the model ,
silently next to each other, for two hours, “Parallel play is so satisfying!” and
Robert Fulghum’s All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)