Wednesday, June 12, 2013

welcome back, dina!

Last weekend, June 7-9, Dina Wakley was The Queen's Ink's featured artist-in-residence.


Over the three days! she taught a total of five workshops. I was lucky enough to take three (and wished I'd signed up for all).

We were introduced to a variety of art techniques and inspired beyond our wildest imaginations. In Dina's inimitable style, we were encouraged to experiment, play, discover, and told, in no uncertain terms, that we weren't allowed to  a) moan or  b) over-think. Always great advice and often, really hard to refrain from doing...but we did (or if we did moan and/or over-think, we did so surreptitiously.)

Of the three workshops I took, my favorite was "Facing the Facts." We learned to  draw faces. Yep, you read that right:  d-r-a-w! When asked, we all agreed that we couldn't draw and especially, not faces. Surprise, not only could we, we did! Take a look:

Dina demonstrating

Left: drawn; Right: painted

The next four faces are by some of the class participants:





Dina told us that she'd only been drawing faces for about a year and a-half...since being inspired by the book: 100 Girls on Cheap Paper by Tina Berning. So, in 2012, Dina also drew 100 faces (and many more)...and challenged us to do the same. We did draw at least three during the class - guess that only leaves 97 to go...

When I got home Saturday afternoon, as I'm wont to do, I did an Amazon search for a) the book (my used but in mint condition is on its way) and b) a web search on drawing faces - lots of great fodder out there. I, too, am inspired to draw at least 100 faces this summer. How about you? Want to join me? If so, please leave a comment and/or if you attended the class, let me know that also and share with us your take on the experience.

In my next post, I'll share some more faces...and also, some photos from Dina's encaustic tag book class. 

(a face in progress...)


Cheers~
Honoré

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