Greenacres Artists Guild Fall Show

Time for our 3rd annual Fall show at Greenacres Art Center. 
The show opens on Oct. 16th and runs until Nov. 15th, with various special events held throughout.
First, What is the Greenacres Artists Guild? From their website:

"Greenacres discovered that there was a void in the Cincinnati area for artists who are committed to the principles, methods, and traditions of Cincinnati’s Golden Age.  Therefore, we teamed up with elite professional living artists from the Cincinnati area who are focused on the traditional approach to art and formed the Greenacres Artists Guild.  Each member of the Greenacres Artists Guild was personally selected and invited to join the organization based on their abilities and approach to art."

Of course you wanna see the show but I imagine your main concern is "when will Richard Luschek be there?!"
While there are a lot of different events going on you can see here: Click me 

Here are a list of time when I will be there in my fancy clothes, or there actually painting- in my fancy clothes. I have six pieces in the show including the one being held by Eva Gabor in the photo above.

Greenacres is a very lovely place to visit on its own. It is a wonderful old Restored English Norman style manor house. It has formal gardens and fountains, a greenhouse and old barns with horses. 

Greenacres Arts Center, 8400 Blome Road, Cincinnati, OH 45243 United States

 + Google Map

Occasionally people get scared away by the signage and the appearance of a fancy residence. But look for the signs directing you to the Arts Center.
 
Opening Night is this Friday, Oct. 16th of the Greenacres Artists Guild 'Fresh from the Farm' Art Show. This event is free and open to the public. Please join us from 6-9pm at the Greenacres Arts Center as we celebrate some of the finest Cincinnati artists. Log on to www.green-acres.org or call 513-891-4227 for more information. Facebook Event

Greenacres Family Fall Fest

October 24 @ 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Join Greenacres Artists Guild members Will Hillenbrand, Clem Robins, CF Payne, Loren Long, and Richard Luschek as they highlight the world of illustration in a family-fun fashion! Watch Clem and Richard work on art right before your eyes. Learn about the world of sketching with CF Payne. Hear Loren Long talk about how Otis came to be, and Will Hillenbrand speak about the process of creating picture books. Attendees will also be encouraged to enjoy hayrides, story time, book signings, make and take art activities, and more!
This event is free. Ill probably be drawing monsters or knights or knights being eaten by monsters.

The next two events are the ones I am most looking forward to, but they do cost some money.  

Greenacres Art and Beer Tasting Tour

Friday, October 30 @ 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Local breweries will be there to offer tastings and discuss their beer. Plenty of food and drink and art and me. I will be painting a still life- set up very close to one of the breweries so I can drink and paint. Should be interesting. Tickets are $50 and can be bought at the door or ordered here.  Feel free to come in costume, as this is the day before Halloween.

Greenacres Art and Coffee and Tea Tasting Tour

November 14 @ 9:00 am - 11:00 am

Instead of being tipsy on beer, I will be all hopped up on coffee, probably painting a still life with some coffee. Local coffee roasters will be there with coffee and treats.  Tickets are $20. They can be bought at the door or ordered here.

Extra Credit

 I recently taught a Beginning Painting class at Chatfield College in St. Martin, Ohio. I had a great time working with the students, most of whom had no experience with drawing or painting. It was very much a beginner course. There were a few students that needed to do some extra credit to make up for a missed class. I would generally just have them come in during the week to work on their paintings to make up the day. One student asked if she could write an essay about the class. I said, "Sure if I can post it on my blog." 

I offered a few suggestions for the essay, but just asked that she write about the class and its affect on her life. I think she did a great job on the essay- especially all the nice things she said about me.

I am finally just getting around to posting the essay now. I did a bit of editing and correcting on the essay- corrections are in italics.
The big change I did was to correct to spelling of my name- a grand mistake that I thought should have kept her from getting her diploma, but I decided to be nice and allow it.
Plus, as I said, she wrote a lot of nice things about me in this essay.

Crystal's still life painting in process.

Beginning to Paint

by Crystal Komala

Signing up for beginning painting with Richard Luschek started out as just a class to mark off my degree transcript. Contemplating between that and Art History, I decided hands on experience would be better than any sort of ‘history lesson’. Besides, I thought, it’s not like this guy is actually going to expect me to “paint”.

A couple weeks into the class  Luschek expressed his passionate dislike toward using photographs as a means to painting.  Telling us that there is no way a flat photograph can look as real as a painting. ‘This guy has lost his marbles’ I thought to myself, ‘I have been to an Art museum and I’ve never seen a piece that could even begin to put a camera shot to shame.’  Luschek informed us that we would be painting a still life scene, and we would be working on it for, what happened to be about 10 weeks. I thought this was totally unnecessary, I am excellent at coloring, in fact I can even shade with crayons – I thought for sure I would be done with this assignment early to be left twiddling my thumbs.

To my astonishment I was only given a few colors, expected to ‘mix’ the other shades I needed. Still confident in my coloring abilities I headed toward my setup, and began to stare at the blank canvas. None of the colors I needed were on my pallet, not even close. And apparently sketching out the scene on the white canvas was a ‘no-no’ so I continued to stare at the whiteness of the canvas. “Don’t be afraid, just try something” said Luschek to the class, who in unison were staring at their canvas just like I was. The next instructions were “In a big squint, draw what you see.”

After a long time of squinting and certain I had encouraged the start of my crows feet, I began to understand what he was trying to get across. I needed to see the whole picture, not to concentrate on the text on the box I was painting, or the flowers on the vase. I thought I was beginning to really get somewhere when Luschek came over to my painting and painted through the vase, and the table (which were roughly the same shade, a beige color). Mid-panic, He insisted that I wasn’t drawing what I was seeing.  I knew for certain he was wrong, so I interjected “No, I’m drawing a vase, sitting on a table.” He chuckled and spoke louder, as if to inform the rest of the class of this common error. I learned not to draw what my brain thinks that I see, but what my eyes tell me I see. No shade difference in the vase and the table would mean that my eyes would not be able to differentiate between the two.  To say that I fully exercised this ‘technique’ would be false, but I began to paint differently,drawing shapes and not objects.

About this time, when I’m really feeling confident in my abilities  Luschek brings in a painting he ‘threw together’. Amazed I looked at the painting from all different angels. It looked so lifelike! The dimensions, the shadowing, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Forget the Picasso garbage I saw in the Cincinnati Art Museum; I couldn’t decide if that man was an un-learned child or a crazy adult. Paintings like Luschek's…this was art.

I developed a sense of respect for the many paintings I had seen throughout my life. Along with the one I was painting myself; class after class new things would appear to be wrong to me, demanding my undivided attention. Brushstroke by brushstroke I managed to mold the picture into a similar scene of my still life sitting on the table. Each class I would need a little something different from  Luschek- help with a shade,  painting an angle, creating a shape, etc. You would think all the talent bottled up inside one man would cause him to be arrogant and judgmental of students like myself who didn’t know a Monet from a Rembrandt. Although,  Luschek always offered a different way to view the problem you were trying to paint. Never offering false hope, or comments on a rough-looking painting just to build your spirits, he just encouraged that this was our first time painting and “you don’t make music the first day”.

Not only was I developing a new way of viewing the very life around me, but I caught myself glancing at a flower, a sunset or a building and thinking “that would be so great to paint” sometimes going as far as guessing what colors I would need to mix to make the magic happen.

Has the art class changed my life? Absolutely. I will never take another piece of art for granted, whether it be a still life painting, a self-portrait, or a depiction of nature it all requires talent, patience and perseverance.

Thank you Richard for taking the time to teach us what is just the beginning of this unexplored world of art. I wish you the best; you have an immense amount of talent.