Atlanta

Went to another fun Dr. Sketchy's at the Clermont Lounge last night.  The model was Ana Aesthetic, who wore very elaborate Scarlet Witch and Marvel Girl costumes. I wish Ana had been around in Dallas when Three Martini Studios was in session. Marc, James, Dorian and I would've dug the comic book themes. Many thanks to Lori for putting this on and to D.J. at the Clermont for his hospitality.

 After several months off, Atlanta's Dr. Sketchy group had a session on Monday. Dr. Sketchy started in New York and is now a franchised life drawing group in over 50 cities around the world. My good friend Lisa runs the one in Dallas. The tag line is "Art Class Without the Class". Well, that is especially true now with the new Atlanta venue. For the time being, the group is meeting once a month at the world famous dive bar The Clermont Lounge. The Clermont is indeed a strip club, although not the kind you normally think of in Atlanta. Oddly enough, even though I was at a life drawing group at a strip club, I didn't see any nudity that night. The models are typically in costume at a Dr. Sketchy's and apparently, the Clermont is more of a regular dive lounge earlier in the night. There was a great turnout session, and thanks to Lori for organizing the event.

I wasn't really prepared for the low lighting and large crowd, so I experimented around with my watercolors without much success. I do like this drawing. It has a bit of whimsy to it that seems to fit.

I got married yesterday! And during the day beforehand, I got to hang out on the square in Madison, GA with Dorian and do a plein air piece. It was a lot of fun getting to paint with him again, and many of the guests of the wedding stopped by to hang out with us. The wedding turned out perfect and now I'm very happy to have Kate as my beautiful wife. The painting is of some storefronts on the town square. The warm light that hit the building really caught my eye.

One of the many fine things about the Chattahooche River is that you get to call it "The Hooch". You also can enjoy it within the Perimeter of Atlanta (I-285). Today was a great day to be out there. Kate and our bluetick Illy joined me for a fun day hanging on a little beach area in the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area. There were several families and dozens of dogs for Illy to meet and charm with her easy going hound dog personality. I was able to catch her in a typical pose of hers while wading around.

I went out painting this weekend and did a couple of exercises recommened by Marc Hason (see previous two posts). I have also posted these items over on The Black & White Painting Challenge blog, which was setup by Jan Norsetter, who also took Marc's workshop. Jan invited all the students from the workshop to add content to this blog, and it started as a challenge to do 7 of these exercises in a week. While few took on the challenge, some of the folks have continued to complete several of these exercises.