Guest Blog - Artist Robin Roberts

A note from Dot:
Robin Roberts was so kind to send this to me... and I want to share it with you...


Dot Courson's Guest Blogger.... 
Robin Roberts....


Scary vs Fun...

It went something like this:   one of my ardent painting students requested a class about faces and suggested we use a photo of a pretty lady she noticed in a blog.   It just happened to be my friend Dot Courson of Pontotoc Ms.   The student liked the smiling face and the straw hat.  So I requested a printable photo from Dot that she graciously supplied.   The students who attended are the brave ones willing to learn and tolerate boo boos.   I told them this would NOT be the portrait in a curly gold frame.   The class was intended to let them experiment and play with a face and not worry about having a finished "portrait" .
You can see the reference photo of Dot that we used in the top photo . 
We talked about the axis tilt of the head, and some basic proportions of the head.  I didn't use formulas for face colors, letting them play with their own mixtures.   The compositons were similar, but you can see interesting differences in how they put it all together.   One was finished, and the others show how far they got in about 2 hours.    None were experienced in faces or portraits other than family photos .    So hats off to the brave students.    I think they had fun.






 

MY DEMO IN STAGES:   looking strange at this stage

Dot minus real eyeballs.  I'm painting fast as a sketch at this stage, and as usual, the students out run me.  We talk about the color of hair and try some experiments noting the color is not what we would think.  

this is close to how I left it.  I'm going to cheat and say I caught a few aspects of Dot's face after this photo.   But the point was to have fun, stay loose and learn something.    And we did.

Now for the even funnier part of Dots painting class and painting friends:

Oil painter Robin Roberts has lived in 5 states, but north Alabama roots keep her grounded. Inspired by ordinary views by the side of the road, Robin seeks nobility in the everyday scenes we encounter. .Originally from north Alabama, Robin’s family lived in Iowa twice, Texas twice, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana. That southern orientation emerges in the oil paintings. Now Alabama again presents wonders begging to be brought to life.

Robin’s collectors find her art at: Dragonfly Gallery in Fayetteville Tn; ARTifacts Gallery in Florence Al; Renaissance Gallery in Northport Al; Kathleen’s Fine Art in Decatur Al, Ashland Gallery in Mobile Al, and Charleston House Gallery in Montgomery Al or www.RobinRobertsArt.com

Artist Workshops

My husband Jackie and I host workshops for artists. 

If you are an artist you understand about workshops. If you are not a painter, just think of it as education and continuing education for artists.

These workshops are for students, intermediate artists and professionals. Sometimes the students are professional artists studying with another artist that they admire. Sometimes even the professional artist instructors themselves study with the other professional artists that they admire! No artist ever stops learning and we all learn a lot from each other. 

I see lots of different styles of painting and work that I admire and their work styles range a lot. We recently invited and hosted a workshop with Anne Blair Brown. Her work is loose and she has beautiful sense of color relationships within her works. A lot of what I love about here work is the beautiful colorful "grays" she mixes. I also like the way she lays in the work on the canvas. She limits her brushstrokes and some of the exercises she had the students do was to "count" brushstrokes and to keep it under 40 strokes. What a challenge!

Anne talks with students at lunch break on the square in Pontotoc, MS

Anne's demo on the square.

Ann was so caring about her students needs. She is a good clear communicator and her demos also speak. She painted several demos at the student's request and had them painting some of the scenes in our little town that drew the mayor, editor of our newspaper and reporter, and the director of our chamber of commerce to our painting site in the middle of our little park area of our downtown square! One of the local opticians downtown also came out and even joined our group the last day of the workshop.

In June - a few days after the Plein Air Richmond, I will be teaching a workshop with the Delta Art Association. There are lots of great artists in the delta and I love to paint that area. Here are some of my paintings of the delta:

If you are interested in this workshop please contact Iris Mitchell at lilyiris@suddenlink.net for details. This is for the Delta Art Association in Greenville, MS and they may want to put you on a wait list until the members have a chance to register unless you are already a member. Not sure how that will work.

  In July we have artist Lori Putnam from Nashville here teaching her still life workshop. I like her work- especially her still life work and we are looking forward to hosting here here for the first time. This workshop is full for now- but do let me know if you want on the waiting list. There could be an opening last minute- you just never know! Here is a painting I did in Memphis when I took here workshop. It is very loose:

Sunflowers 20x 16 ©2011 Dot Courson, Oil

Here is one of Lori Putnam's works:

Painting ©Lori Putnam, Oil

New!
We have added another workshop this fall. Robert (Bob) Harper will be back again and we love Bob. He is one of the most energetic and funny and sharing instructors you will ever meet. Here is a painting of his behind country recording artist Amy Grant.

Amy Grant bought his painting - actually Vince Gill bought it for her --and she loved it so much that she put a larger copy of it on the stage for her DVD that won a Grammy. That is amazing to me to see Bob's beautiful painting that large. What a huge honor. That image had to help account for Grammy!

I have not started advertising spots for Bob's workshop yet but if you are reading this and want in to it please let us know. Dates are October 22-24- That is a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday-3 full days and is $295. Contact us at artist@dotcourson.com to register.