Availability:
In Stock
- Pages: 128
- Book Size: 6.25 x 9.25
- ISBN-13: 9781844096756
- Imprint: Findhorn Press
- On Sale Date: October 13, 2015
- Format: Paperback Book
- Illustrations: 50 color Illustrations
Bennet offers full instructions on how to start and run a drawing club and includes three 8-week session plans with specific art explorations. The purpose of the explorations is to build drawing skills and the qualities of curiosity, courage, and critical thinking that we need for making art.
The Drawing Club of Improbable Dreams shows how to create a drawing club to work with fellow artists to build skills and find our own genius. In the club we make art experiments and the bold mistakes that free us from unnecessary limitations. We also reap the benefit of witnessing how others solve problems. Inside are full instructions on how to start and run a club as well as three 8-week session plans with specific art explorations.
The purpose of the explorations we make is not only to build drawing skills but also to build the qualities of curiosity, courage, and critical thinking we need for making art. We will learn how to work from the inside out to make art that is fresh, vital and authentic. The book offers two important rules that will help us be the unique artists we are meant to be. As artists we dream that we might make something fantastic and be fully who we are. We dream that art matters, even that it might change the world. Improbable dreams but, in a club, things start to happen that we didn’t imagine possible. Working together we discover strength we might not have on our own. A club can take us to places we hardly dared to dream of and can show us how improbable dreams are where our hearts are truly meant to be.
The purpose of the explorations we make is not only to build drawing skills but also to build the qualities of curiosity, courage, and critical thinking we need for making art. We will learn how to work from the inside out to make art that is fresh, vital and authentic. The book offers two important rules that will help us be the unique artists we are meant to be. As artists we dream that we might make something fantastic and be fully who we are. We dream that art matters, even that it might change the world. Improbable dreams but, in a club, things start to happen that we didn’t imagine possible. Working together we discover strength we might not have on our own. A club can take us to places we hardly dared to dream of and can show us how improbable dreams are where our hearts are truly meant to be.
Preface
Introduction: The Improbable Dream
1. We Start with Attitude
2. What Drawing Is
3. A Club Is People
4. Space, Time and Materials
5. Making a Club Plan
6. Who’s the Boss?
7. We’re Here to Explore
8. Two Key Rules
9. Exploring and Sharing
10. Before the First Meeting
11. Session 1: All About Drawing
12. Session 2: Stepping It Up
13. Session 3: Finding Our Genius
14. Mapping Progress
15. Inventing Next Steps
The Dream Expands
Cat Bennett is an artist who has taught drawing to adults for ten years in her Saturday Morning Drawing Club. Even those who came to the club having not drawn since childhood have gone on to make, exhibit and sell art, some in galleries, shops and museum shop settings. Cat was previously an illustrator for 25 years.
"Accomplished professional illustrator and art teacher Bennett (The Confident Creative) has led a productive drawing club for over ten years. Here she shares everything readers need to know to start their own club. Resembling a book club more than a traditional art workshop class, a drawing club has a free and supportive atmosphere that is conducive to experimentation. The author declares, 'Mistakes are okay, in life and in art,' which is a guiding principle behind this volume. The first half explains the virtues of exploring creativity together with other artists and provides detailed tips about how one might start and run a drawing club. The rest of the book presents exercises in three, eight-week sessions that are intended to launch a new club and inspire ideas throughout its first year. VERDICT This social and collective approach to stretching individual visual creativity will appeal to many readers and can be adopted by artists of all skill levels." Library Journal
"Offering a complete course of instruction under one cover, The Drawing Club of Improbable Dreams is exceptionally 'user friendly' and informative in content, commentary, organization, and presentation. Beautifully illustrated throughout, The Drawing Club of Improbable Dreams is very highly recommended for art class curriculum supplemental studies reading lists, as well as community and academic library collections." Helen Dumont, Midwest Book Review
"Offering a complete course of instruction under one cover, The Drawing Club of Improbable Dreams is exceptionally 'user friendly' and informative in content, commentary, organization, and presentation. Beautifully illustrated throughout, The Drawing Club of Improbable Dreams is very highly recommended for art class curriculum supplemental studies reading lists, as well as community and academic library collections." Helen Dumont, Midwest Book Review