Back to the Drawing Board- in a good way!

My old and beloved copy

I was going to burble on about inspiration and education and my heros of the art world. Instead I'm going to just give you two links to two things. 

One is David Jones' Sketching The Portrait in Oils class that I started last week and I have already learned a whole new way of drawing. I thought I was pretty good at it but David is a master, and he's really young. He's teaching this old dog some much needed new tricks (I have got lazy in my drawing approach). I have fallen in love with drawing again after one class. My pencil and sketch diary are my constant companions!

The other is this- and I am VERY excited. The IllustrationMaster Class in Amherst, near Boston. Children's book writer and illustrator and long time buddy, Ruth Paul went this year and I was inordinately jealous. But it's her turn for green eyes now, because I have signed up for 2014 and she's too snowed under with book deadlines to go ( a nice problem to have!). But even more exciting is that the Brian Froud will be there- the illustrator of the first book I bought when I was a design student that impressed me more than anything I'd seen since I was 6 and received RieCramer's 'The Silver Thimble Story Book'. Brian and Wendy are running a special focus on illustration and I'm doing it! I'll be taking my battered and loved old copy of The Land of Froud, my paints and brushes and a sponge; my grey matter.

I love learning and most particularly when it concerns what I love most- creativity. And when I come back from it, I'll share. To 2014- a year of magic :)