Showing posts with label Penny Shaw. Show all posts

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Post 218: What Is Mark Making in Art?

What Is Mark Making in Art?

By Penny Shaw

Penny describes the process of learning to draw, but actually put in proper, simpler terms, learning to make marks on a surface. She has a series of 4 classes scheduled on Thursdays in October, and you can contact her directly to sign up.

Mark Making

Earlier in my career as a beginning artist I was admonished to “draw what you see and not what you know” by my seventh-grade art teacher, Mrs. Lashley of Johns Hill Junior High. She was a firm believer in learning how to see with your eyes and elaborate on your imagery with making marks that told your story. Her teaching has served as the bedrock of my skill set for the past sixty+ years as an artist and art educator. I have used this mantra in training students how to draw or make marks that tell their stories and ideas to others.

There is a distinction between making marks and drawing. Making marks involves any mark made using any material on any surface, such as: pencil on paper, Photoshop brush mark on a screen, painting on surfaces, or scratches in clay. Mark making can be seen on many different two-dimensional or three-dimensional surfaces. The lines can describe or suggest a multitude of ideas or stories that convey emotions, directions, or separation of shapes.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Drawing chief component is line and usually appear on two-dimensional surfaces. These lines can suggest tones using techniques such as stippling, smudging, hatching or cross-hatching. Drawn lines can be created with dry or wet media.

New media has allowed drawing to evolve with moving away from chiaroscuro applications of values found in the old masters rendering of still life or portraiture to looking at how lines become designs found in zentangle designs or graphic imagery. Drawn lines tell different stories from many different cultural traditions. Many people have replicated permanent tribal tattoo designs or non-permanent henna Mehndi designs to commemorate events in their lives on their bodies as well as creating decorative imagery that evolve from emotions.

I have heard many say they cannot draw straight lines. Lines, whether as a drawn element or created in mark making, do not require you to make straight lines unless it is part of the story you are telling. Creative mark making does not require you to duplicate objects you see in your environment but does require you to allude to telling your story with visual shapes that suggest you can elicit a response from the observer.

The mantra draw what you see and not what you know requires an individual to let his story evolve from what is observed to projecting imagery that tells the artist’s vision of his story. There is no right and wrong way of telling the story in drawings or mark making. The artist becomes not only the storyteller but also the craftsperson that builds upon his ability to get responses from the viewer or interpreter of his story.

Join me at Open Space Arts at the Stonebridge Gallery for an introductory class in basic drawing on October 6. 13. 20, 27. This class is designed to begin the mark making journey that serves as the foundation for telling stories using line as the main element in two-dimensional drawing compositions. Many individuals lament that they cannot draw a straight line but wish that they can acquire basic skills in how to develop drawing skills. We will explore training the eye to SEE, investigate drawing materials, learn how to do blind and modified contour lines, and do simple value drawings using drawing techniques.

Class:

4 sessions – Thursday, October 6, 13, 20, and 27 at 6:00-8:00 in the back room of Open Space Arts at Stonebridge, 15000 #140 Potomac Town Center, Woodbridge, VA

Cost: $160.00 payable during the first class to the instructor

Materials list available during first class. Sign-up by email shawonesent@gmail.com

Ages: 15 and up, any skill level

Author/Artist: Penny Shaw
An artist member of PWAS in Woodbridge, VA

Author/Artist: Donna Liguria
An artist member of PWAS in Woodbridge, VA specializing in acrylic painting. She paints landscapes, seascapes, animals and many subjects. Visit her Website at https://DonnaLiguriaArt.com & her Blog at https://donnascavepainting.blogspot.com/.

Local Art: Visit us at Stonebridge Open Space Arts at 15000 Potomac Town Center, Woodbridge, VA - Open Wed to Sat 12-7 and Sun 12-5
The Prince William Art Society is a 50-year-old non-profit art group in PWC for the appreciation of fine art throughout the county and Northern Virginia.

Want to know how to get involved at OSA? If you are an artist (18 or older) living in Prince William County, or a are a member of a PWC art group, you are welcome to get on our next art show's emailing list. Send it to us, OR come by the gallery to find out more.

Want to join PWAS? Go to https://www.princewilliamartsociety.com/membership

Thank you for visiting, and remember to Share, Follow, and Comment!

Thursday, October 14, 2021

Post 41: Artist Interview with Penny Shaw

Artist Interview with Penny Shaw

At Clearbrook Center of the Arts on Saturday, September 18, 2021, I worked the gallery with Andrea Castaneda and Penny Shaw. What an opportune moment to conduct an artist interview with Penny Shaw, a fellow PWAS Member. So, I just have to do it...a Penny for her thoughts.

Getting to Know Penny

1. What is the best piece of advice you've been given (and would pass along)?

Do you.

2. What is your art background?

I have training in art and art education from undergraduate to graduate school with degrees from College of the Ozarks in southwest Missouri located near Branson, Missouri; University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, and at University Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. I have forty plus years of teaching art, from pre-school through university level.

My preferred area is drawing and painting but I am a Jill of all trades - as an art teacher, you have to be. I have had to master many mediums, techniques and styles in teaching art classes from glass, clay, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, graphic design and painting to name a few. Art educators do it all with smiles in hopes of encouraging their students.

3. What does your art say?

I like color and shapes.

4. What work do you most enjoy doing?

Painting or being creative.

5. What are your greatest influences?

I enjoy all art areas but was inspired by the work of Marcel Duchamp and his exploration of unusual ways of creating art. One of my favorites of his is Nude Descending a Staircase. I revere a lot of artists with abstract influences. (Sam Gilliam, Romare Bearden, and Jacob Lawrence) It creates a buzz in me how you can take something realistic and change it to blocks of color and shapes that elicits a conversation.

6. Does the place you live influence your art?

Yes, well anywhere you live does. When I was in southwest Missouri, I worked my way through college by selling watercolor paintings of trees, water, and nature subjects found in the Ozark foothills. I participated in art festivals there. I pushed to learn how to make crafts and found this experience was more enjoyable and created a thirst for problem-solving.

7. What keeps you going and why do you do what you do?

I enjoy bringing out the creative spark in people. I have been retired the last five years and I invite people to join me for painting virtually or in person. I have a virtual paint class that people join which is not dependent on the weather. I also invite friends to join me for paint sessions outside weather permitting.

8. What is your scariest experience in your art life?

Social commentary from the news had a bearing on my early life as an artist and what I was painting. As you mature your focus changes. Social commentary had its moment but events of the real world overwhelmed me because of the negative messages. There were a lot of things happening in the community that influenced my art and I needed a new voice. I changed to working with abstraction after a time.

There is so much beauty in the world, we should be thankful that we are citizens of this nation and have the opportunity to see the diverse settings from coast to coast.

9. What themes do you pursue?

I have started embellishing my painting with line art to help direct the eye to flow through the paint to see what is there.

10. What item in your art studio could you not do without?

A palette knife. It allows you to touch the canvas and is synonymous with elementary school sensory play with finger paints. I always want to go back and touch it. I like the textures. I can scrap it down or build it up. You can have rough or thinly painted areas, much more so than a brush. Too thin and it streaks. Palette knife can be thinned by smearing. There are so many things you can do with it.

The palette knife is an extension of your hand - that's what a tool is anyway.

11. Can you describe a funny experience you've had in your art life?

I once had a friend that asked me to help with a child's birthday party. She wanted me to do the face painting. Of course, when you do face painting, you are not painting the child's whole face, you are usually painting a small animal or whiskers around the eyes and nose like they are a kitten or puppy. I had some imagery of animal features or butterflies that I knew I could paint.

Along came this child who wanted me to paint her as a unicorn. She wanted a horn painted coming off her forehead. She wanted to BE the unicorn. Unicorn painting wasn't something I was prepared to do and the child insisted that I could do it. I tried to talk her into an optional "special friend" to the unicorn. The kid wasn't having it. She wanted me to turn her into a unicorn. Here I was sitting there thinking this child is going to be crying any minute...

12. How did you get involved with the gallery and PWAS?

There was a Fall Art Show at Tall Oaks Community Center. A friend of mine in Dumfries told me about it, so I stopped in. I stopped by to check out the Prince William Art Society show and met Jim Gallagher. That was 3 years ago. I joined right away.

Penny working with an acrylic pour as a demonstration. She prefers working pours on larger canvases, but for the purpose of a demo, smaller canvases are used. Larger canvases are sometimes hard to maneuver into her car and many of her pieces are done as diptychs, triptychs, or multiple panels to fill the wall areas of her clients.

Penny's preferences when varnishing or using resin on her acrylic pour paintings leans more toward a matte finish. She wants to see the rawness of the color in its original form on the canvas which allows the viewer to see the textures and clarity of the colors.

Penny enjoys working out on her patio when the weather cooperates.

Penny at her one-man show at Jirani’s Coffee Shop in Manassas, Virginia - below, followed by some examples of Penny's artwork.

"Joy Rising" Diptych 48x48 Acrylic

"Exploration I and II" Diptych 36x24 Acrylic

"Swept Away" Diptych 24x18 Acrylic

It was a nice afternoon with Penny and Andrea and it worked out well as a method of "getting the interview". So, who's next for the artist interview in November?

Local Art: Visit us at Clearbrook Center of the Arts at Tackett's Mill in Lake Ridge, VA on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 – it’s free to see the artwork! Want to join PWAS? Go to https://www.princewilliamartsociety.com/membership