the Painting Activist

Today was the last day we worked on pre-canvas activities. We started by combating cabin fever developed from sitting under the florescent lights of the 9^th Street Church if Christ for several weeks by playing kickball in the church parking lot. Working up a sweat definitely made the slide presentation of other artists’ work (such as Diego Rivera and Robert Shutterly) a much calmer experience.

Then we revisited sketching by taking turns modeling for each other for short 30 second poses. I told the students not to worry about “getting it right.” The idea was just to get their hands moving and something on paper without getting sucked into the details or attached to the outcome. I said they could even wad up their drawings after each pose if they didn’t want anyone to see it. Here are a few of the sketches that were volunteered for display (the first one is of me in a teapot pose; yes, I’m lame, I know).

Shortly after lunch we had to get down to business and use all of these flowing creative juices on the mural. Right now we are in the process of completing the outline on the canvas. We’ll begin painting tomorrow, so progress shots will soon follow, along with an explanation of how their design illustrates what they have learned over the last 2 weeks about the struggle for human rights.

And, as promised, here is one of the Frankenstein animals we created during yesterday’s drawing exercise. This is a dove-frog-cow combo.