On Saturday, July 16, Margaret Krug will return to The Naturalist's Notebook to lead a fun, accessible workshop that will combine art and nature in ways you've probably never tried before. Margaret, as many of you know, is the eminent art historian and artist from New York who was a senior lecturer at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She teaches at Parsons The New School, writes for American Artist magazine and is the author of the definitive book on art-making processes and materials, An Artist's Handbook. She put on a hugely successful drawing workshop at the Notebook last year.
There are still some spaces left if you'd like to sign up for the July 16 event. Here is her description:
Create a Field Notebook
Observe the natural world more deeply by drawing what you see including clouds, water, birds, insects and botanical subjects. Use various graphite instruments to create line sketches. Smudge and erase graphite covered surfaces to create studies by bringing light out of darkness. Combine handmade indigo ink with egg yolk to use with a dipping pen and brushes on vidalon and mulberry papers. Create intricate silverpoint sketches on paper prepared with handmade white gouache. Record textured and patterned surfaces with frottage (the action of laying paper over a textured surface and rubbing it with a crayon to make a printed impression on the paper). While sketching and writing to record your experience in the natural place, work in relationship with the materials by letting them inform you on how to use them to represent your experience of seeing. Create a field notebook of sketches, notes, and studies. Using exercises from An Artist’s Handbook, explore the vocabulary of drawing, including line, value, composition, volume, movement, perspective, the element of time, and abstract motifs.
The workshop will run from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., including an instant art show and reception at the end. The fee is $125. You won't regret spending a day at the Notebook learning and creating with such a gifted artist, insightful teacher and lovely person.
Margaret will have a show of several of her works at the Notebook starting July 16. This piece is Dante’s Alley: Memory and Presence (Path), 2010, distemper, beeswax, shellac on gesso wood panel, 5x3 inches.
Milestone
Taking Margaret's workshop may be the best idea since sliced bread, but I can't let today pass without noting that this is the 83rd anniversary of the actual invention of sliced bread. The Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, came out with the first sliced loaf on July 7, 1928.
Low-Tide Treasures
Many thanks to Notebook friend and Maine-lover Dale Nat for sharing the photos below from his recently completed stay on Mount Desert Island:
Dale and his family discovered this tiny lobster while exploring at low tide near Southwest Harbor. I've never come upon one while walking the low tide. A century ago the Maine shore was so littered with lobsters that they were served to jail prisoners virtually every night.
A brittle star that Dale's family found.
A multicolored collection of sea stars from their outing.
Just a reminder for those of you who haven't heard: Eli Mellen and Julie Olbrantz will be running a free shadow-puppet-making workshop at the Notebook this coming Tuesday, July 12, from 10 a.m. to noon. If you're around, come on in for some fun.