Sherri McGraw's workshop.(1)

I just came back from attending the Sherri McGraw workshop in Scottsdale . All I can say is that it was amazing. Sherri is an incredibly accomplished artists and a wonderful teacher.
In a previous note I commented on the price of materials. Well, after attending Sherri's class they don't feel so expensive after all. Not because they are so much better but because she (as well as Clayton Beck) use them with such precision and care that they practically remain undisturbed.

Sherri's demos required no correcting, no wild brushing, no more than a couple of filberts. I don't think she even got the pigment too deep towards the brush ferrule! And the results were a gorgeous still life and a very rembrantdesque reclining figure. She did these in less than an hour and while talking and pausing for questions.

She was very patient and gave personalized advice. No wonder her class was full well in advance. Her palette and methods are similar to those of her partner and teacher David Leffel."The Language of Drawing". If you need to rekindle your love for drawing, that is the book for you. It has some great advice. There is no way to boil her class down to a few concepts and she certainly would resent it if anyone ever tried to come up with a "formula". She is the antidote to the formulas we have been fed and was able to convey that as artists, we DO NOT paint what we see or recreate "reality" but edit beauty and re-deliver it to the world . They both have published books and I enjoyed reading hers regarding