Program Highlight: Looking and Drawing

This summer, adults and teens can explore the current exhibitions through a series of Thursday evening workshops inspired by the process of drawing.

Can’t draw a straight line? No problem. If you can create your signature on paper, you already possess the basic skills required for drawing. We’ll use drawing as a tool for seeing. The process requires us to look carefully and describe what we actually see, not what we think we already know. 

The intricately carved and finely detailed ivory chess pieces in the Encore! exhibit provide an excellent opportunity for close observation. We’ll create contour drawings to describe the basic shapes of pieces, and look for patterns made from repeated shapes. We’ll practice hand/eye coordination as we attempt to describe these important ivory objects. The drawings of Marcel Dzama provide a different starting point. They combine the simplicity of folk art with a hearty dose of surrealism. Foreground and background disappear, past and present story lines merge­­­ The drawings gives us permission to disregard perspective and scale. The process of drawing is suddenly less intimidating! You will learn some of the techniques used by artists to create a dream­like narrative drawing.