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. 

Fine Points Drawing Exhibit at Bristol Art Museum

I am really excited to have been asked to guest curate this drawing exhibit at the Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island. I invited six artists who are proficient in their mediums and profound in their works of art. They are Deborah Friedman, Holly Bedrosian, Elizabeth A. Patterson and Susan Tait Porcaro (colored pencil), Kathie Miranda (colored pencil, silverpoint) and Tatiana Flis (graphite, colored pencil). You can click on their names to see more of their works on the individual websites. 

I am also exhibiting some of my handmade books containing colored pencil drawings. 

The exhibit opening reception is Friday, July 26 from 6-8 pm. I am hosting a Curator's Chat at 5:30 mp just before the opening on July 26th. 

The exhibit is open for preview Bristol/Warren Art Night Thursday July 25 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm. See the flyer below for more information and all of the Art Night stops.

The works of art in this exhibit are amazing, please stop in and you will surely be impressed by the wonderful drawings! Five of us are members of the Colored Pencil Society of America.

The exhibit runs through September 1.

Handmade Accordion Book With Etchings

Last fall my husband and I took a trip to Amsterdam Holland and I was really intrigued by the wonderful characteristics of the Amsterdam canal houses; colors, shapes and how many are leaning forward or against each other. It was explained to us that property is taxed on its width not height - thus the reason the houses are so narrow and so tall. We were also told that canal houses were built on swampy land along the canals many years ago. Time has passed and many are starting to sink into the wet land as well as their support beams are decaying causing them to begin to lean. We saw construction on many houses that foundations were being replaced and newer support beams were being added for support.

I took many photos of the different houses and returned home thinking of how I could create art  with images of these wonderful houses. I decided to create an accordion book illustrated with colored intaglio etchings. I enrolled in a solar plate etching class and created six etching plates from graphite drawings that I had done of the Amsterdam canal houses. I even added a car, mini bus and some bikes. I experimented by printing the plates with different colored inks and on different types of papers. I created some with  chine-collé rice papers (glued) onto the printmaking paper as I ran the etching through the press.

I took the finished prints and cut out the canal house shapes and hand colored some of the windows, door and facades of the houses for added interest. I then decided on an arrangement and glued the canal houses onto a house-shaped accordion paper. The top photo shows the many cutouts I worked with as I decided on a layout for the pages.

The final step was to create a "house" shaped box in which to fit the accordion book. I shaped and glued book board into the box and covered it with handmade book cloth. I added a little door knob to the box.

I worked on this project from January though April of this year. It took me a while to create and execute the concept but I really enjoyed it and probably have enough prints for another book. 

I hope you like it also! It will be part of my upcoming exhibit at the Providence Art Club, Providence, RI opening Sunday, June 2nd in the Castelnovo Gallery.

Exhibit at Gallery 175 Pawtucket, RI

Here are photos from our opening reception Sunday afternoon May 6, 2018.  Our exhibit is titled Three Draw and the following is the press release sent out by the gallery:

Gallery 175 will be showing artwork of three artists who use drawing to make highly creative visual statements. Drawing is often a tool used by artists to sketch or explore ideas that lead to finished works of art in another medium. But the drawings of Mary Dondero, Tatiana Flis, and Kendra Ferreira are developed as finished works of art that stand on their own.  Joan Hausrath, who curated the exhibit, selected the trio of artists based on their unique ways of working both technically and thematically. 

Mary Dondero’s drawings capture energy through gestural movements that convey a fundamental human quality that transforms feeling into meaning. Filling the field of her paper, Dondero choreographs a buildup of spontaneous marks into complex webs, tangles and patterns that connect with the viewer at a powerful, instinctual level.

Tatiana Flis, on-the-other-hand, draws delicate forms and images that explore relationships between the human psyche and moments of chaos, solitude, tension, excess and absence. Employing a surrealist language, she combines diverse imagery of the built and natural landscape in unlikely ways. The meshing of the fluidity of water media with the tightness of ruled architectonic forms hovering in empty spaces infuses her drawings with intrigue.

Skillfully working with colored pencils, Kendra Ferreira depicts ordinary subjects in focused, heighted and extraordinary ways. Colored pencils permit her to fuse the expressiveness of painting with the control of drawing, and by doing so, she is capable of conveying emotion, luminescence and compositional rhythms. Her drawings are bold and delicate, transparent and sturdy.

The public is invited to enjoy the art work at Gallery 175, located at 175 Main Street in downtown Pawtucket in the Blackstone Valley Visitor Center.  The gallery is open daily free to the public; the hours are 10 am to 4 pm.  

Pictured below are Joan Hausrath (gallery director) and the artists Mary Dondero, 

Tatiana Flies and myself.

Tatiana Flis graphite pencil and gouache works (above). 

Tatiana Flis and Kendra Ferreira works. 

Works by Mary Dondero

My artwork, shells and beach stones.

More works by Mary Dondero

My latest colored pencil work focusing on wrapped candy apples.