Sheridan, ROM and Birds

Sheridan's been awesome so far. I am enjoying the experience of drawing for hours and hours everyday. I have been drawing from life, still life and boxes mostly.

The first week I just happened to stumble into like-minded people who (with intensity) wanted to get better at making art. We were sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch talking about art and artists mostly. We somehow got into a discussion of making a sketchgroup that would go around sketching things, people, environment, etc. While we were still discussing the details, I suggested that we get started without wasting precious time discussing it. Usually when you want to do something, you end up talking about it for hours and hours and when the time comes to actually do it, you are too tired to actually do it. If you still have the energy to do it sometimes you feel gratification for just having discussed it. You feel satisfied that you discussed the idea and think you can get away with delaying action. I was not going to let that happen to us.

So I said "Let's do it!" and we began sketching people in the cafeteria. I discovered that I really enjoyed doing this. Not only because some people are really cool and you get into interesting conversations with them while you sketch them but also because in the caf, people are talking, gesturing, going through series of facial expressions, eating lunch and moving around. These moving faces and hands are very difficult to draw... and I found I really enjoyed this challenge.

Yesterday, we took our sketchgroup to the Royal Ontario Museum to study things like dinosaurs, animals, birds and carpet motifs. Yes carpet motifs. For my Hari Singh Nalwa piece, I wanted to study Indian carpet, bedsheet and curtain motifs so I can make the painting look authentic. I want to have the painting look historically accurate and have a royal feel to it. After my study, I will paint similar designs onto the carpet and walls, which right now are the only major things that are left in the painting.

I studied the hanging bedsheet/curtain thing for an hour or so before moving on to birds and animals. People were walking by complimenting us and asking us question about our program and why we were drawing etc. Sometimes hovering too closely to look at the work... which sometimes got awkward... Good times. :)