The studio is ready to welcome guests…

Sunday dawned bright and breezy…perfect weather for the annual Brown Rabbit Student Art Show and Reception.  I wish you could have joined us, but for those who were unable to attend, here are a few glimpses of the delightful artwork of twenty-five aspiring artists:

Dutch studies in blue…

Watercolor Botanicals

Eggplants!

Some close-ups worth viewing…

Eight year old Joseph’s version

Fifteen year old Andrew’s approach

Complementary palette watercolors: violet and yellow

Close-ups:

Brittany applies a delicate touch…

Lawrence is bold!

“Life is like an onion; you peel off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
Pastels were the perfect medium for these…

This and that…small watercolors

Rabbits galore by students of all ages

Warm palette, autumn reflections

Never enough wall space…

Down by the sea…

At the end of May one of the young artists shared some seashells gathered from the South Carolina coast

Watch out for waves!

The only photo I managed to take inside the studio toward the end of the reception. I was so busy refilling the punchbowl, I forgot to take photos of the guests…

Folks relaxing outside

A quiet moment

The festive atmosphere of Sunday afternoon still pervades the studio as I take down the student artworks and begin tidying things up to prepare for the upcoming summer sketching class to begin Monday, June 4. Hope you can join us…

Today we played around with doodles…rabbit doodles.  We began with a contour drawing of a rabbit head in profile ( there is simply nothing cuter than this) which was traced around a  template onto 8×8 card weight paper.  Using Crayola colored markers-the fruity scented ones-Young Artists doodled, sniffed, smiled, and doodled some more.  They were encouraged to decorate freely,  inside and outside the rabbit head, and the more they inhaled the fruity ink scents, the more imaginative they became!  Here are some of the best:

The Ravishing Radish Motif

Whirligigs, Rabbit, and Radishes?

Carrots and Curly-ques

Yellow Roses, Radishes, and Carrots

And everyone’s favorite, by a visiting not-so-young artist:

This one gets the prize!

A couple of young stragglers wanted to try their hands at some other doodles:

Dove Doodle

Chickie Doodle, by four year old Benjamin

Some up-close doodles:

From the winning doodle…

From the carrot doodle…

So what is the prescription for Spring Fever??  Doodles!  Try one…better still, try one and send it to me at:  susan@thebrownrabbit.com

Happy Doodling!

Lovely Leftovers

Sometimes I get a bit envious of my students.  They show up to paint on a regular basis and I show up to teach.  It’s true, teaching has its own rewards, but with twenty-six students and five classes a week to plan for, I simply don’t have that much time to do my “own thing”.

One by one eager souls step up to the canvas and indulge themselves while I stand by and act as coach and cheerleader.  Here is Isabella working on a landscape yesterday.  Her older brothers followed in succession each taking his turn with palette and paint.

When this talented group went home I was left with a fair amount of  palette  scrapings and decided to treat myself to creating a quickie little landscape.  I found this wrinkled remnant of a photo I snapped last summer while out on a country drive, and thought it might work for an oil sketch -in thirty minutes or less because I had to cook supper…

Photo taken on my way to Alma

The photo presented a few problems…the tree right in the center of the scene would have to be moved or eliminated, the distant overgrowth was hiding the Flint Hills which I wanted to show, etc.  Easy enough to change…Twenty minutes later, after painting to beat the clock, I had a decent  5×7 sketch, and plenty of time to clean my brushes:

Thanks to this Picassa file image I am able to more objectively judge the painting today.  The tree shadows in the foreground  are probably too dark,  so I’ll have to tone them down.  I’m on my way out to the studio now, and this will have to be a quick fix since it’s once again time to start cooking supper…  If you would like to add your comments or critique of this miniature  I would appreciate it.   Oil painting can be a work in progress!

With Mill Creek meandering right outside my studio window, I often make quick sketches of its ever changing surface.  Whether it’s the glittering green and gold of an autumn afternoon or the foaming mocha brown that follows a spring flood, the creek offers an alluring palette to the artist.  Here are a couple of watercolor, gouache, and ink sketches that I dashed off at different times…

As the ritual of daily prayer brings quiet and refreshment to the soul, keeping a painting  journal calms and refreshes us, enhancing our awareness of the gift of nature.  Cathy Johnson, nationally acclaimed artist, author, and naturalist, says it best in her delightful book, “The Sierra Club Guide to Painting in Nature”:

“One of the best side-benefits of painting in nature is that the more you do, the more beauty you find all around you.  Something you may have driven right by a thousand times is suddenly the material of a painting, once you are seeing with a painter’s eyes.  The world is infinitely more beautiful when we pay attention.”

Cathy Johnson's wonderful book

As Cathy recommends, I will be urging others to “pay attention” during the Mondays of  June and July as I direct a series of classes entitled, ” Butterflies, Bird Feathers, and Beyond”.  I’m hoping to infect others with the habit of keeping a nature journal and we will be spending most of our time outdoors drawing and painting everything from leaves and twigs to …well…whatever we find as we browse along the creek and adjacent grounds.  Details of the class can be found by clicking on the Brown Rabbit website picture at right.

These are the only supplies you will need to bring to class: sketchbook, pencil, eraser, and fine line permanent black ink pen. Everything else will be furnished.
Join us for six summer Mondays on beautiful Mill Creek! www.thebrownrabbit.com

A sketch a day can be habit forming...

The Big Brown One greets the twins as they arrive at the studio this morning...

What happens when twins square off on opposite sides of a table to draw each other’s portraits?  Cecilia and Angelika came to The Rabbit today for their last drawing class of the year, and this was the assignment I gave them-a test, of sorts, to see how they view one another.  Their tools: HB drawing pencils, erasers, and sheets of smooth paper.  I was at first tempted to have them draw each other from memory, but perhaps this would  have cost me an eleven year friendship, so I gave them an easier task.  They had about forty-five minutes to draw one another.Here you see Angelika sizing up her sister and wondering where to put Cecilia’s nose…

She decides to put it between the eyes and the mouth.  Good choice!

Cecilia jumps right in and starts drawing.  She knows exactly what Angelika looks like…

Some random comments that passed between the two as they studied each other’s  faces and drew:

Cecilia:  “I’m going to give you a perfect mouth.”

Angelika:  “Your hair is going to be the fun part.  It is kind of interesting, but your chin is too narrow.”

Cecilia:  “Your nose has some slight problems…”

Angelika:  “I’m sorry, Cecilia.  I think this drawing is kind of cool, but it doesn’t look like you at all.”

Cecilia:  “Your shoulders are narrow.”

Angelika:  “No they aren’t!”

Cecilia:  “Yes they are!”

Angelika:  “Yours is almost done and mine is still in the early stages of a disaster!”

Cecilia:  “You haven’t stopped talking since I started drawing you.”

And so on, until at last the rabbit rang the bell for the lesson to end.  And here are the portraits:

Angelika as seen through the eyes of Cecilia

Cecilia

The twins were quite happy with their faces, in spite of  ‘narrow shoulders’  and equally ‘narrow chins’.

Still smiling!

Lingering after class along the edge of the creek...

Every Tuesday afternoon  a trio of brothers, Lawrence, Brendan, and John,  come for their own art class.  Today I invited their mother to stay,  and held a sort of open house for some of the younger siblings so they could have a peek inside The Rabbit while the class was in progress.  We decided to try creating a group effort oil painting as the Young Artists did last week so that all could sample the wonders of painting a landscape in oil.  Using a magazine photo of a painting  for inspiration, Lawrence bravely began…

He worked for about ten minutes and surrendered the brush to younger brother, John.  While John worked on the oil painting, Lawrence retired to a quiet table to put finishing touches on a watercolor of a Puerto Rico scene he had begun a few weeks ago…

Here is Lawrence finishing his Caribbean scene while John paints at the easel and the younger ones watch...

John confidently mixes his colors...

Meanwhile, mother and baby relax on the front steps of the studio. Looks like baby is eating the flowers...

Sister Catherine spins around on the rope swing...

And strolls through the garden with little sister Claire.

The panel of judges watch John...

Finally Brendan gets his chance...

Joseph watches and thinks he could do a better job...? Oh, well, it's time to go, so the painting will have to wait for the finishing touches next week!

French Botanical, Watercolor and India Ink

Painting spring, fresh from the garden!  This is what we’ll be doing in The Brown Rabbit Studio, Paxico, on Saturday, April 21 from ten in the morning till 3 pm.  There are still openings for this all-day workshop that will include “live models” and lots of colorful demonstrations.  A phone call will suffice to reserve your place, and all materials for the class will be provided.  Bring a friend and receive a 10% discount!  Details are on the website at: www.thebrownrabbit.com

Honestly, I am getting a bit anxious to fill this class, so please don’t be a scared rabbit…just sign up for some fun!   Who can resist painting a ravishing radish at this time of year…

There are flowers galore inside and outside the studio just begging to be painted…

Join us for a celebration of the color and freshness of spring!

To reserve a place call 785-636-7550 and ask for Susan...and plan on taking home some of your own delightful botanical paintings...

The Big Brown One offers a lift...

I can’t resist posting this photo taken on Monday just outside the studio.  I was horsing around, or should I say rabbiting around, with two of my grandsons and the Big One offered to give them a free ride.  Referring to the Easter season, Christina Rossetti wrote, “Spring has sprung!  Christ is risen and all the earth’s at play!”   I hope you are continuing your celebration as well.

The fact is,  I have been having fun all week taking pictures rather than painting pictures, which is what this blog is supposed to be about.  Here are  a couple that I snapped in the kitchen early this week:

I stole these tulips while on a walk downtown...Next year I'll have my own.

These tiny wooden chickens were a prize find in one of the Paxico antique shops

On the subject of photography, you might want to visit my sister’s website to see some really fantastic and downright inspiring photos.  Check out www.mfitzgeraldphotography.net  and keep celebrating!

Catherine is reaching!

Oil painting can be a messy and rather expensive undertaking for a group class of  Young  Artists.  So in the interest of streamlining an introductory session for this willing and eager class I proposed doing a joint-effort painting with each child taking turns at the easel in rounds of about 15 minutes painting time until we had a near finished landscape.  This way everyone shared in the success (and possible failure) of the outcome, and each one experienced the pure pleasure and joy of mixing and pushing paint.  Oil painting is generally reserved for older aspirants, but since it is actually far easier and more forgiving than watercolor or acrylic, it seems a shame to hold the young ones back…so here is Catherine full of confidence painting clouds like a master!

Before reaching for the clouds Catherine had dabbed these delicate blossoms on Joseph P.'s tree skeletons. Joseph's comment, "Wow, Catherine, those are beautiful!"

Joseph P. is holding a loaded easel for the first time... looks like Renoir

Rachel's turn...she decides to add some cattails to the bank of the creek

Joseph S. puts finishing touches on his goldfish...enchanting...

In one hour these four capable artists had produced this spring landscape complete with a squirrel, a pelican, and some goldfish. The fish are jumping. Watch out for the pelican!!

The children's palette scraps are almost as pretty as the painting. Doesn't this make you want to paint?? Don't be a scared rabbit. Reach for the sky!

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"At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: 'Let there be light'. The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus' passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again-creation is beginning anew. 'Let there be light', says God, 'and there was light': Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God's pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God's new day, new for all of us." From the Easter vigil homily of His Holiness Benedict XVI

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