Sherrie McGraw
Sherrie McGraw, born in Kansas and raised in a small oil town in Oklahoma, left home at age 23 to study at the world-famous Art Students League of New York. Her first exposure to painting came as impressionistic landscape painting in Oklahoma. The League provided the most important influence in her development-exposure to chiaroscuro painting in the tradition of Rembrandt and Velasquez in the class of David A. Leffel.
Sherrie worked as a night guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, studying the paintings and drawings there intimately until she quit to paint full time in 1980. Seven years after leaving school, the League asked her to substitute for Gus Rehberger which led to her own classes in drawing and painting until her move to Taos, NM, a renowned artists colony, in 1992. McGraw’s work earned notice and respect with consistent awards from such prestigious art shows in New York as Grand Central Art Galleries, the Salmagundi Art Club, American Artists Professional League, Hudson Valley Art Association, and the National Arts Club. Major magazines have featured McGraw’s work including American Artists Magazine, Southwest Art, Art of the West Art Talk and a prominent art magazine in China. She has participated in numerous museum shows throughout her career, including The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Tucson Museum of Art, Gilcrease Museum, Lineberry-VanVechten Museum, and the Parrish Art Museum. In her new book, “The Language of Drawing: From an Artist’s Viewpoint” McGraw states that drawing is the indisputable foundation for a painter. The ability to see differently than the layman develops the “artist’s eye.” This specific way of seeing is invaluable to successfully navigating the more difficult language of paint. Once the student understands the vital differences of both the language of paint and drawing, solutions unfold easily, and learning becomes a simpler matter.”
Sherrie served as Vice-President for American Women Artists, and was instrumental in arranging a cultural exchange exhibition in Sorrento, Italy in 2000. Her classically rich, chiaroscuro paintings have found their way into some of the most prestigious art collections in the United States and abroad, including Senator John Warner, Forest Fenn, Howard Terpning, John Geraghty and The Mellon Family.
Classes taught by Sherrie McGraw
Painting the Figure and Portrait using Chiaroscuro
McGraw says:”Most artists’ desire to paint comes from a generous place, one of wanting to share his or her vision of beauty with another.” This generosity finds fruition when a student equipped with adequate drawing skills also learns to ‘speak’ the language of a painting. Through the discovery of paint quality, edges, color and value, the student can explore the logic behind visual concepts…those abstract ideas inherent in paint itself. McGraw will show how understanding this idea will in turn help solve problems that arise in conveying one’s vision of beauty.
There will be two demonstrations and individual critiques.
The Mystery of Figure Drawing Revealed
Drawing has long been recognized as the most basic foundation for the painter. The reason is simple: drawing teaches one to see. Seeing in the way an artist sees is different from the layman. An artist learns to read subtle information and make sense of it structurally. This includes wading through the plethora of optical illusions that mislead the eye if copied “as is.”
McGraw will lead the student through the skills and information that all good draftsmen know, using the clothed figure and portrait as the guide. Critiques will be one-on-one and the workshop will have some spontaneous class demonstrations, inspired by model and pose. Sherrie will also be demonstrating in the most traditional way on student’s pads. All levels of development are welcome. The only requirement is a willingness to learn.
The Still Life in Oil
Learning to paint—no matter what the subject matter happens to be—is the same for every subject. And although the commercial element is always quick to create a problem and then sell the solution, learning to paint is remarkably simple. Although it is not easy, it is simple. However, human nature tends to compartmentalize and complicate and that is why the “how-to” mentality thrives. As humans, we respond to work that resonates with something inside ourselves already, as appreciation is the first step to doing it oneself. Find the work that speaks to what you want to do, and the rest will follow. This class will deal with the elements that makes good painting good, regardless of subject matter. Good painting uses the abstract elements available in the visual language of painting (color, value, edges and paint quality) to play out parts in an abstract visual concept. Understanding why certain solutions work and why others don’t is how the student can successfully learn to paint well. There will be class demonstrations and individual critiques. All levels of experience are welcome.