Drawing as a Way of Knowing has been offered through the Honors College, and in a lighter version in the College of Arts and Sciences Teacher Advisor Program (TAP). With the financial crunch at UVM, this year it will be offered in the Fall Semester in Continuing Education in the GAP program (Guaranteed Admission Program). The advertising blurb for GAP is below, taken directly from the UVM CE online catalogue. The time and place are yet to be determined, but it will be a 4 hour studio class, once a week, with a substantial advising component.

GAP PROGRAM
Have you thought about attending college, but have been hesitant to take that first step because you are not prepared for admission to a degree program?

Maybe you are the high school student who wasn’t ready for college upon graduation, but now has decided that college may be for you.

Perhaps you are the individual who dropped out of college, and now wants to re-explore what college has to offer.

Or maybe you are the adult who simply wants to continue your education.

The Guaranteed Admission Program (GAP) is designed with you in mind.

Through a series of approved college courses and one-on-one advising sessions with an academic advisor, you will develop a curriculum plan that helps you enter a UVM degree program.

This year I THINK Drawing for the Terrified will also be offered through UVM in the summer session (perhaps in July) as a non credit course for the general community. No one has confirmed this with me yet. I would also like to do a beginning course in solvent free oil painting with calcium carbonate (chalk and or marble dust) and boiled linseed oil in North Hero for the group that has been meeting up there. This would be a mini version of what Tad Spurgeon is doing at the Shelburne Art Center, and perhaps I can convince Tad to come up north for a session or two there. I can’t do all of these things of course, but it is likely that one or the other would not generate sufficient enrollment, so they are all on the stove at the moment.

I’m still painting, though more slowly (with cortisone shots in my shoulder joint, lidocaine patches above it, ibuprophen and weekly massage therapy). I’m not convinced yet that I have exhausted all the possibilities prior to more drastic measures. Acupunture might be on the list, but aromatherapy, Rolfing, homeopathy, moon chanting, Kabbalah, and prayer are not. We shall see.

These will evolve with RYB and zinc white layers to follow. 

The top image is Hub, layer two.   Am working with chalk and linseed oil on this layer.  I warmed up the face tones and the background and tried to progress more with the hair.  The latter is still an issue and will require much more work.  It looks very much like him, but the end is still a long ways off.  The bottom image is a quick 10 minute block in with transparent red earth of some apples.  I like the chalk medium.  It’s smoother than the marble dust and flows better.

After about five years of successfully teaching and developing several drawing classes for UVM in Continuing Education, the Honors College and the College of Arts and Sciences (“Drawing as a Way of Knowing,” Drawing to Learn Science,” and a few others) UVM has now pulled the plug because of the financial shortfall. First the Art Department, after kindly letting me crosslist these efforts as art courses, demurred. They were good enough to let me do my thing for a few years, but I was, after all treading on their territory. The Dean (Joel Goldberg) kindly cranked up a course number – Arts and Science 095 – sponsored by the College of A&S and not by any department, to let me teach in the Teacher Advisor Progream. That allowed me to continue for a couple of years. To do that, A&S had to pay extra, and the funds are no longer available. I thought this might happen. I am grateful to have been able to go as long as I did.

So now what? Try and find another institution to sponsor a course? Most are feeling the crunch just like UVM. I’ll continue to teach a small group up in North Hero, but that may be all. UVM Continuing Ed has enthusiastically let me offer a “Drawing for the Terrified” course this summer, without credit (so the Art Department need not be involved). But it is very likely that the cost per credit hour may keep the enrollment so low it won’t fly. That’s what happened this last summer with “Drawing and Writing to Learn Across the Curriculum,” a course we designed for teachers. When the economy is this bad, it seeps in everywhere. Maybe I’ll have to market myself as a chemist again? Not likely.

On a positive note, I’ve got three exhibits coming up. One is currently at the Healthy Living Market Cafe in South Burlington. This July I have one at Fisk Farm, up near the Canadian border (they have teas, music, etc. along with the exhibits), and the last one in December at the Gruppe Gallery in Jericho. I no longer put prices on paintings because they are worth more to me than anyone would ever pay in the current economy, or maybe ever. Eventually some will go for free to friends and family who may want them. The rest will find their way, in a future far, far from now I hope, to the local recycling center. I think I paint now more for the process and the moment than for any other reason. There are no expectations that cannot be met.

Monday I met my famous friend Norma of Norma Knits while I was hanging the HL exhibit and we chatted awhile. She said kind words about my work in her blog, which has a gazillion bazillion readers, and linked her post to my site. My Google Analytics plot of readers shot up from a normal 3 to 5 hits a day to 90 on January 13! Wow! Amazing! I think Norma has so many readers because her blog is like a combination of SNL, Seinfeld, Mad Magazine, a Betty Crocker cookbook and a craft store. Entertaining almost every day. She writes up a storm!  Norma is the third famous person I’ve met and chatted with, after Donald O’Conner and Gloria Swanson.  Only old timers know who those people are.

The hair isn’t yet done, and that’s a large task. The bridge of the nose on top is too wide, and the relative eye heights need just a slight adjustment. The light/dark balance is better than the earlier layers, and the dimmed down background helps a lot. But there is a long journey yet to go with this. The drawing has been lost and found several times, so the grid is slowly disappearing, which was intended.  The photo below at 8 x 10 inches has a grid of about  1/2 inch squares.  The painting is 16 x 20 inches, oil on canvas, using a marble dust medium with only three colors (in addition to zinc white):  permanent yellow, permanent rose and ultramarine blue.  Raw Seinna was added in the 2nd layer, which helped a lot with skin tones.  The hair will NOT be so white in the final version.

I may not continue with this one past the point of getting the grid to disappear!  It’s  12 x 12 inches, oil on canvas, using the red, yellow, blue triad only.

Much too much forhead, but more hair is coming Hub.  I’m just trying to get the overall head shape correct.