Author Archives: joanngilles

The Cat In The Hat turns 50 this year. It was created by Theodore Geisel in response to a challenge to write a book containing only the reading vocabulary of a typical 6-year-old that would engage and enthuse beginning readers.  Instead … Continue reading →

Val brought her eighty-something mother to class on Saturday.  After watching the demonstration, which was with the same image, on the same-size canvas, painted with the same materials as on Wednesday, she said to Val “It looks like in order to … Continue reading →

As I attempted to shake the hangover from the richness of the weekend or mine it for inspiration—having luck with neither– I got distracted trying to make a comment on Brendan’s blog, the Trader Joe’s Wine Compendium (which you all … Continue reading →

Observation when painting– the more anxious I am to grab what I want out of a painting the more it wants to escape. Have you ever broken a thermometer and tried to pick up the mercury? The most successful creative moments I experience are … Continue reading →

In Camelot, Arthur asks Merlin what is the best thing for being sad.  Merlin says “To learn something—it’s the one thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your arteries. You may lie awake a night and … Continue reading →

Working from the figure is the basis of classic, academic drawing. But more importantly, the presence of the model allows for a hard-to-define energy to seep into the creative process. My favorite term for this mysterious force is duende. From … Continue reading →

Reconcile the Picasso quote and the list of drawing instructions. Drawing is a kind of hypnotism: one looks in such a way at the model, that he comes and takes a seat on the paper. -Pablo Picasso Draw with your … Continue reading →

…..the police arrested a Mother Superior, a washing machine and the Eiffel tower….(thank you Prairie Home Companion Joke Show). Lessons of Picasso are many. Year-long college courses, books too heavy to lift, miles of gallery walls, movies and novels have all been … Continue reading →

On this Martin Luther King Day as the SAM Picasso exhibit many of us visited closes, we ponder Picasso.  Although they were at the opposite ends of the spectrum in personal integrity and ego and perhaps what they gave the world, both men were … Continue reading →

Kudos on so many levels!  Your efforts in the last exercise of letting go of expectations, of not holding tight to  pre-conceived imagery, of allowing satisfying  pages to go the way of the wind and your willingness to see what might be “around the … Continue reading →