Monday, July 11, 2011

Focus

I'm excited about the growth of my business to date.  It's small but mighty.  I keep reminding myself of a statistic I read in a news article somewhere (what a lame reference but that's not the point...) Apparently 20% of businesses grow in poor economic times.  It may be counter-intuitive to look at art as a business with a lot of opportunity right now but I think it is.  I've put some thought into how to make that happen and hope to see it work.

My focus right now is business follow up and drawing.  Discipline in those areas will support the growth I'm building.  I'll talk in another post about why I chose those two things and how they fit into my business plan.

I'm taking a drawing class from my colleague, Rich Brimer.  He's using the classic book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and does a good job with it. I'm happy with what I'm doing.  See Camarillo Artists' Drawing Class for information on the class.

Just to throw in the dash of reality here. I had a great evening but I dropped and broke the teacher's pencil, had to borrow an eraser from the woman next to me, got totally confused about how to color inside (inside not out, inside not out) the lines, traced a grid (in Sharpie) on plexiglass crooked, had the "wrong" sized drawing notebook and managed to coat both of my hands and most of my right forearm in graphite!

 It reminded me of kindergarten and sitting next to a girl with a perfectly sharpened box of 64 Crayolas.  She carefully outlined her coloring book pages with black crayon and gently shaded the insides of the pictures.  I had a box of 8 and always preferred them after they were broken. Then I could use the sides of them as well as the points.  I liked to color the backgrounds on the pages too, outside the lines.  It was hard because I kept comparing my coloring to hers and worrying that mine wasn't as perfect.   I'm not sure, but she may be an accountant now and here I am...

Anyway, there's my hand.  I'm happy with the sketch and grateful to have the actual hand to help me do the things I love!
Posted by at

6 comments:

  1. Marian FortunatiJuly 12, 2011 at 10:09 PM

    Taking a drawing class from Rich, huh??? Good on you... I need to practice drawing as well!!!


    It was good seeing you today!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mary-Gail KingJuly 12, 2011 at 10:44 PM

    It was good seeing you as well. Yes, Rich's drawing class is a big help. It's an area where I need to focus and seems to be paying off... I had a blast with crashing class to paint a shark's head. What fun. You never can tell what's going to happen around the studios:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. BethJuly 13, 2011 at 7:19 PM

    I love this post. One of the first things that I do with my class every year is teach them how to do rubbings. We get out my shoeboxes full of old crayons and I teach them how to peel the paper off. Many are very nervous when I tell them that they should BREAK the crayons (in order to get a good angle for rubbings)! We go outside and find things with texture--leaves, bark, stepping stones, signs... I do love the smell and feel of a box of freshly broken crayons.

    ReplyDelete
  4. BethJuly 15, 2011 at 2:47 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EELEjeYzfjM

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mary-Gail KingJuly 15, 2011 at 3:03 PM

    Hi Beth, So, I'm getting ready for my art camp and planning on doing the color wheel with two age groups: 5-8 and 8-10. In my adult classes I have them paint a wheel of primary and secondary colors and then do a grid of paints in their palette to show how the different paints work together. Any suggestions on making this more fun and appropriate for those age groups? I'm so used to adults I'm not sure how to twist it for the little ones.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mary-Gail KingJuly 17, 2011 at 3:44 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EELEjeYzfjM

    Here's a fun link about crayons....

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)