Never Drink and Draw?

...so goes the saying. Under the influence of alcohol, everything an artist does looks to them like an award-winning showpiece. Until the next morning. Not unlike certain - um - bar experiences, they wake up, glance at what they did the night before and think What. On. Earth. Of course, it could be worse. An artist can always paint over disasters, unlike more...permanent artwork which sometimes happens after imbibing.

So, too many cocktails + artwork usually does not result in the desired effect for the experienced professional artist.

However, for those who have never painted before and are looking to give it a whirl in a relaxed setting, sometimes a little "Dutch courage" can be helpful.  It can sweep away those "there's no way I can make art. Not possible. I have two left hands!" thoughts.  For this reason, "sip and paint" events are all the rage; you can find them in every city.

Gallery Underground offers its own version, called "Painting Uncorked."  Budding artists show up to the gallery at 6:30 on Thursday nights ready to relax and create a painting in 2 hours that they will be able to take home, while sipping a glass or two of wine. The class is capped at 15 students, and every student paints the same image, under the step-by step direction of Justyne Fischer, a Fairfax County High School AP art teacher for 16 years.

"I find that many students have had either a bad experience, or no experience at all with art. This is a way to simplify the process while making it fun, in a social setting," Fischer says. She says that one problem some people have had with art is that they don't know where to start: "You need to be taught the foundation and principals. Once you have that, it's a lot less frightening."

Most people are surprised at how well their finished paintings turn out. Fischer says that though many students are a bit self-conscious about what they've made, they nevertheless are very pleased with what they created, and excited to take it home to hang in their homes.

So there are times when you really can drink and draw (or paint)! To register for an upcoming Painting Uncorked class, visit our website: http://www.galleryunderground.org/painting-uncorked/

A recent Painting Uncorked class shows off their finished work
  Teacher Justyne Fischer is far left, back row

--Sandi Parker, Gallery Underground Co-Director

Entering Juried Art Shows: Not For The Thin-Skinned

Artists have fragile egos. We work for hours, days, months (even years?) on a piece. "A masterpiece," we think. "This will get into that upcoming juried show for sure," we think. Only to check our email or show up at the jurying location to find out it wasn't selected. Suddenly our elation changes to, "Ok, not a masterpiece. In fact, no good at all. What was I thinking?" Try as we might, we cannot keep those thoughts from invading and we suddenly lose confidence in ourselves and our abilities. There is no artist on earth, no matter how celebrated and successful, who has not been rejected from a juried show. We are all in good company. Take, for instance, Mary Cassatt: those lucky enough to visit the Cassatt/Degas exhibit at the National Gallery in Washington DC will no doubt remember this beautiful painting, "Little Girl in a Blue Armchair"

Mary was clearly very pleased with this painting, and entered it into the Art Gallery of the American Pavillion at the 1878 World's Fair, where it was rejected. Mary was not happy. In a 1903 letter to her Parisian art dealer, Ambroise Vollard, she said:

"It was the portrait of a friend of M. Degas. I had done the child in the armchair and he found it good and advised me on the background and he even worked on it. I sent it to the American section of the big exposition [of 1878], they refused it ... I was furious, all the more so since he had worked on it. At that time this appeared new and the jury consisted of three people of which one was a pharmacist!" 

Even a painting worked on by both Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas was rejected from a show; in fact, the impressionists were often rejected from the great Parisian art shows. Although most shows these days are juried by - ahem - actual working artists rather than pharmacists, there is still quite a bit of head-scratching that goes on when artists find out what did - and did not - get into a given show.

Mary's painting was eventually accepted into multiple shows. Gallery Underground member Jane McElvany Coonce, a teacher for more than 30 years, loves to tell her students this story: she entered a painting into a monthly juried show over and over, only to have it rejected each time. She really believed in this painting, so undaunted, she thought, "Ok, I'll give it one more try," This time, the painting was not only accepted, it won Best in Show. And one of Gallery Underground's recent jurors, Mark Cameron Boyd, told the story at our opening reception of having had a painting rejected from a show by a juror only to have that same juror accept it into a subsequent show!

So, we as artists have to remind ourselves that often a "rejection" may have to do with a juror's mood on any given day, what they had for lunch, or a color they hate rather than the artist's talent. The good news is that there is always another juried show. And one after that.

--Sandi Parker, Gallery Underground Co-Director