Art Fluent Award

 An artist friend suggested I enter the Art Fluent Animalia exhibit so I sent in a few of my safari drawings. I was really excited when I learned that this drawing Majestic won one of the two Director's Choice Awards!

We met this beautiful elephant in Amboselli National Park in Kenya. We were riding in our safari jeep when he came out of the bushes and stood in a field not far from where we parked to observe. This elephant proceeded to put on a show for us by throwing dirt on his back to cool himself off as well as swaying and moving around. We must have stayed right where we were and watched for at least thirty minutes. I had plenty of time to study and photograph this beautiful creature. 

Image size is 13x14", colored pencil on rag mat board.

My Exhibition 'Into the Wild'

Here are several photos from my exhibit Into the Wild at the Providence Art Club Dodge House Gallery. The exhibit ended in mid April but was so rewarding to me. I spent over a year preparing and pretty much spent the last six months drawing, painting and framing. It was quite a journey, at time frustrating but in the end, very rewarding!

The opening was well attended by family, friends, colleagues and new friends. I was so thrilled to talk to the guests about my work and my safari travels to Africa. 

The last two photos are of my artist talk a few days before the exhibit ended, which was also well attended. Again I enjoyed talking about colored pencil, my work and my experiences on safari. 

I was thrilled to sell eight pieces during the exhibit and I am donating a portion of my sales to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy  Lewa focuses primarily on conservation of the white and black rhinos, Grevy’s Zebra and elephants. Lewa also promotes things like education, healthcare, clean water and youth empowerment for its community.

I thank everyone who came and supported me and my work and also to you reading this post!

 

Solo Exhibit at Providence Art Club

I'm excited to have been asked to display my colored pencil drawings in a solo exhibit at the Providence Art Club Dodge House Gallery. The exhibit opens on March 26 and runs through April 14. My exhibit is titled Into the Wild and features drawings of animals and scenery from our safari trip to Kenya and Tanzania, Africa.  I am donating a portion of sales proceeds to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy  an organization that works toward to conservation and protection of its animals particularly the white rhino. 

See the invitation below for more information about the show, opening and artist talk.

Fall Colored Pencil Workshops

I will be teaching two colored pencil workshops this fall. The first will be on Tuesday, October 4 from 9 am to 3 pm at Portsmouth Arts Guild, Portsmouth, RI. We will be drawing from still life objects and learning about layering, blending and burnishing techniques as well as working with value and form. Students will also learn different techniques and approaches to create a vibrant drawing while drawing from a still life. 

Colored pencil is a versatile medium that is portable, inexpensive, and great for combining with other types of media such as watercolor. Through layering and mixing translucent colors directly on the drawing surface, a luminous image is produced.  Experience with drawing in any medium is required but beginners to colored pencil are welcome.

Information and registration can be found on the PAG website (link above) or you can email me at kjfdesign13@gmail.com for more info. 

The second workshop is a 3-hour workshop at Bristol Art Museum on Saturday, October 22 from 1 to 4 pm. This workshop focuses on Drawing the Autumn Landscape. We will work from photos and/or still life objects such as colored leaves to capture the glorious colors of autumn in colored pencil. We will also learn about creating values, textures and composition as well as layering, burnishing and blending techniques. 

Because this is a short workshop, this is only for students with some drawing experience in any medium. See the website for more information and to register. Or contact me. 

Looking forward to the workshops and hoping to see lots of wonderful students!!

 

Safari Drawing in Colored Pencil

I used a variety of reference photos from my safari trip to create this scene for customers who were looking for a custom wedding gift for their son and his wife. The newlyweds are very fond of cats so the lioness and her cubs were fitting as the main subjects. We decided on the other supporting animals and landscape for the middle and background. I used warm colors for this piece to depict the beautiful light of the Africa afternoon. My reference photos were taken from Kenya and Tanzania.

This drawing is 18x24" in colored pencils and drawn on cream Canson Mi-Teintes paper. I used a variety Prismacolor, Caran d'Ache Luminance and Faber Castell Polychromos pencils for this drawing. I choose different pencils because I want to use both lightfast pencils and certain colors to create my work. 

I sweated this one out because I hadn't worked on a piece so large in quite a long time and also because I had the concept in my head but could I put it on paper? My biggest struggle was what to do with the midground beween the animals to make it interesting yet still add some 'quiet' areas for the eye to rest between subjects. My second biggest struggle was depicting all those blades of grass in the foreground!! All in all I am happy with the result. 

Below is my beginning of the lioness and cubs. I may recreate them again just by themselves.

 

Weekend Workshop at Cape Cod Art Center

I will be teaching a 2-day colored pencil workshop at the Cape Cod Art Center in Barnstable Massachusetts on Saturday and Sunday, July 30 & 31st, 10 am to 4 pm each day. Cost $220/members and $250/non members. 

In this studio workshop we will focus on creating drawings of exciting seascapes. Learn how to capture the atmosphere of smooth water, sea foam and waves. We will cover the transparency and reflections in water as well as building form, light and shadow and working with surrounding beach and land formations.

For more information or to register follow this link to Cape Cod Art Center website. 

Material list is below.

 

Drawing at the RISD Museum

The spring semester of 2022 I took a class through the Providence Art Club which was Drawing in the RISD Museum (Rhode Island School of Design) lead by instructor Frances Middendorf.  Frances has been living in Italy and teaches at the Rome Art Program so we are fortunate to have her teaching through PAC. 

For our class we were given assignments and a group of artworks from which to select one or more to draw in pencil while observing and studying these work(s) at the museum. Each week we had a different assignment and each week we were to incorporate our lesson into a piece for homework and critique. Below are some of the my drawings from the 8-week class which I really enjoyed and I feel this class has helped my artistic style to grow. 

This Mary Magdelene (left) was painted by Lippo Memmi in 1330. On the left is my drawing of this painting. I chose it because I like this style of gothic painting inset in the fancy gold leaf panel. This panel was once part of an alterpiece in a church possibly in Siena.

This sculpture in the RISD Museum called Standing Figure was created by artist Arnold Price, carved from soapstone. For my homework project I chose to draw it among a grouping of vases.

For our landscape assignment I chose to draw this Louis-Jules-Frédeéric Villeneuve painting titled Aqueduct near Tivoli, 1827. I wanted to portray the beautiful light shining on the stone arches against the dark of the sky.

This lesson was in conjunction with an exhibit called Trading Earth, Ceramics, Commodities and Commerce. The exhibit focuses on global trade, ceramics made to store and serve, and luxuries of commodities such as sugar, tea, tobacco and alcohol. It looked at the trade routes for production, trade and consumption and the diversity of classes. We talked about oppression, slavery and exploited labor. In my drawing I have included three of the objects in the exhibit as well as the wealthy persons turning away from the realities of slavery. 

For this small colored pencil drawing, I chose to put my small still life objects on a print out of tapestry we studied and drew in the RISD museum. 

The top pencil drawing of the tulips is from an etching we studied by David Hockney. The vase of tulips were in front of a window. In my bottom drawing I have recreated the tulips in front of a window and added a scene. Our assignment was also to show the tactile qualities and textures of the objects we drew.

I drew this Japanese print by Utagawa Hiroshige in pencil then in colored pencil. The original print is a long vertical but I chose to make it into more of a rectangle or square format. Below is an Indian (attributed) drawing called Circle of Rabbits.  I recreated this drawing with colored pencils on textured paper. 

My final drawing (below) is one by Vincent Van Gogh titled View of Auvers-sur-Oise. I chose to draw this piece because I liked the contrasts of the rigid buildings against Van Gogh's traditional dramatic brush strokes in the sky and foreground. Drawing this colorful painting in black and white pencil can be a challenge getting values to correspond with colors in the painting. 

High School Guest Artist

In April I had the opportunity to work with high school students and art teachers at Silver Lakes Regional High School in Kingston, Massachusetts. I was brought on a grant as a guest artist to work with students on colored pencil drawing. Students in this high school have a great art department with lots of opportunities to work in many different mediums but didn't have much exposure to colored pencil drawing.

On day #1 I gave a presentation and colored pencil drawing demonstration over the course of the day to all of the art students. 

Days #2 & #3 I was able to work with each art class creating a small drawing. The assignment was to bring in a photo of a favorite place or subject and create a small drawing that would later be presented as a Polaroid picture and all grouped together. 

I enjoyed this opportunity of working with students and seeing their creativity expressed in their drawings. 

 

Upcoming Colored Pencil Classes!

Upcoming Colored Pencil Workshop and Class with Kendra:

Mystic Museum of Art
Mystic, Connecticut
One-Day Colored Pencil Workshop

Colored pencil is a versatile medium that is portable, inexpensive, and great for combining with other types of media such as watercolor. Through layering and mixing translucent colors directly on the drawing surface, a luminous image is produced. Students will be shown different techniques and approaches to create a vibrant drawing while drawing from a still life. Students may then implement these techniques to continue on their own personal project.

*Limited to 12 students.

Saturday, March 26^th 9am-3pm

Members $115 / Non-Member $130

Register on Line at MMoA

Bristol Art Museum 
Bristol, Rhode Island
Colored Pencil Drawing with Kendra Ferreira

April 19th, 26th, May 3rd,10th | 9:30am-12:00pm
Fee: Members $125/ Non-Members $135

Discover the vibrancy of colored pencil in this 4-week class. We will be learning the many versatile ways of drawing with colored pencils. Topics will include: layering, blending and burnishing techniques as well as working with value and form. Each week we will work on a different project and small still life set up. Some colored pencil experience is helpful but beginners are also welcome.

To register or for more information, please contact Kendra kjfdesign13@gmail.com

I am exhibiting these colored pencil drawings (above) at the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, Massachusetts with our group Nineteen on Paper. The exhibit is on through March 12th. 
 

Spotted Hyena Drawing

I've been working on this drawing of a spotted hyena, my reference photo is from our African Safari trip. As hyenas are scavengers, this hyena was sitting in the dirt and watching a lion with a wildebeest carcass. Just waiting for a chance to pick up the scraps. My reference photo is at the bottom of this post, I was intrigued by this messy looking animal with matted fur and decided to clean him up a bit. I wanted to capture textures of the fur and the determined look in his eyes.

Using Adobe PhotoShop and Lightroom, I was able to lighten his eyes and nose to see the details and distinctions. I chose to leave out the background and focus on the portrait of the hyena. The paper I chose is Fabriano Tiziano drawing paper. I usually don't work on a paper that is this textured but for this drawing I think the background color and the texture lend itself to the fur and features.

I used Prismacolor Premier, Caran d'Ache Luminance and a few Derwent and Faber Castell polychromos colored pencils. In this photo I have also included my color swatches on a scrap of the Fabriano Tiziano paper. I like to try out different colors before choosing which ones I will use. 

Please excuse the inconsistencies in my photos, they were taken with my iPhone but in different lighting during my process!

 

 I am happy to have one of my colored pencil teacup drawings featured in February's issue of Color Magazine by Ann Kullberg. Here is the link to Color Magazine:  https://annkullberg.com/collections/color-magazine-all-issues

Happy Valentine's Day to all!