(Summer22) Visiting Artist Workshop: Drawing (in) Place

Visiting Artist Workshop: Drawing (in) Place with Marthe Rowen
Days: Thursday & Friday
Dates: July 14 & 15
Time: 9:00AM - 1:00PM each day
Location: Day 1: Art Barn Studio and outside at Featherstone
Day 2: on location (location TBD)
Fee: $200 for 2-day workshop

This two-day workshop introduces artists to Drawing in Place - how to capture the character and sense of a place through drawing. We will draw on location and study the architecture, landscape and people, a particular moment of time and light. The workshop is open to anyone who loves to draw and wants to learn how to better draw the world outside of the studio. Artists of all skill levels are welcome - some drawing experience and comfort with a pencil is recommended. The first day of the workshop will introduce some basic skills and techniques for drawing on location. The focus will be on drawing space and place, rather than on drawing object. We will study how to choose what to draw, how to frame and draw what you see. Topics will include: line and figure, light and shadow, space and negative space, point-of-view, drawing vegetation, pattern and color. On the first day of the workshop, we will start in the studio, making a series of studies and sketches, addressing skills and techniques, and then move outside the studio to apply these to a drawing of the buildings and/or landscape surrounding Featherstone . The second day of the workshop will be on a “sketch crawl”. We will meet at a designated location, and make a series of drawings seeking to capture the character of the place. Students will first make several quick study sketches, before choosing a view-point to make a final drawing. Students may choose to introduce a bit of color to highlight their drawing, using colored pencil or water color.

Materials:
9 x 12 sketchbook, spiral or bound, drawing weight paper. Optional larger sketchbook 11 x 14. Pen felt, fine tip, .05 or .07; pencil (recommend full graphite pencil HB), pencil sharpener.
Optional: Colored pencil (Prisma-color or Derwent recommended) or water colors
IMPORTANT: We will be walking around as we draw, so bring a small tote bag and zipper bag to hold your drawing things. We will be drawing outside, so be sure to bring appropriate clothing and sun-protection: Hat or visor with brim, sunglasses, sun-block, comfortable walking shoes, bottle of drinking water.

About the Instructor:
Marthe Rowen is an architect, artist and teacher, and has been a part-time resident of the island for 30 years. She is currently Visiting Faculty in the the department of History of Art and Architecture at Brown University, and runs Rowen Barton Studio in Providence, engaged in both architecture and drawing practice. She has taught drawing and design at many universities around the country, including The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Roger Williams University, Princeton University and Arizona State University. She has taught Travel Drawing on Semester at Sea, and led study abroad programs in Travel Drawing to Portugal, Spain and Morocco. In between teaching, traveling and drawing while traveling, she practiced architecture in New York City and Charlottesville Virginia and raised three children. She has lectured and shown her work at The University of Virginia, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Brown University. In recent years she has completed several large-scale panoramic drawing projects, including a “circle” of drawings made at the edges of Martha’s Vineyard; a series of “blind” drawings of the earth from the sky, made on planes while traveling across the US and Europe; and “Scroll across America”, a series of drawings made continuously while on a train from Los Angeles to Boston.