We arrived
safely back and were re leaved to find that out outdoor chairs and
the big mats were still there. We were laughing about how good it was
to be “Home” after being away “Camping” for the weekend.
We
started to hear people talking about leaving next week and realized
that February is nearly over. The Snowbirds are getting ready to
migrate back north. March 1st was when we left here 2 years ago too.
Most Snowbirds will be gone by April 1st when we leave.
Why
April 1? We want to see some Spring Training Baseball games!
For
our UK readers Baseball is basically like rounders in UK. It's the
National Pastime in the US. Winter is Football, Summer Baseball. The
season starts in April but it's too cold in February and March in the
Northern States for the teams get in the pre-season practice games so
the teams have training camps in warmer climates like Florida and
Arizona. Last year we went and watched the Baltimore Orioles play in
Florida and now we're watching the San Diego Padres. It's good to
have a couple of “Home Teams”.
The
O' Odham Tash Rodeo is in town also. Named after the Native American
tribe here, the rodeo has several events over the course of a week.
There's and All Indian Rodeo, a Canadian Roping event as well as the
regular rodeo which is a “Ranch Rodeo”. That mean the events are
more focused on practical farm and ranch work rather than the
Professional Rodeo that has bull riding etc,
We
like these events and have been to several on our travels. I shot
over 200 photographs in a couple of hours and there are several
paintings burning in the back of my head.
My
art side has been getting fed lately too. I joined the Casa Grande
Art Association and found they have a live model open studio on
Wednesday's. An open studio is an event where interested artists
gather with their on drawing/painting equipment and a model comes in
for about 2 hours. Each artist contributes about $5 to pay the model. The
model starts out holding poses for 2 minutes, then changes to another
pose for a further 2 minutes. After several 2 minute poses (During
which you have to try and make a drawing of that pose), the time
increases to 5 minutes, then 10 or 15 minutes and finally 30 or 30
minutes. Occasionally they have a “Long pose night” in which the
model holds the pose for perhaps 45 minutes.
No
instruction is given in these sessions, you are on your own.
Each
set of poses let the artist warm up with quick gestural drawings and
then gradually move on to more detailed drawings and/or paintings.
I
love the challenge of the quick poses and my figure drawings have
improved enormously. My previous portrait classes in San Diego helped
too.
Tuesday
morning is the Inter Community Art and Crafts Association meeting
where all kinds of art and crafts are done all at the same time. It's
a very inspiring atmosphere. I'm going to do a presentation on
perspective for the group soon. Most beginning artists have trouble
with perspective. I'm also giving a painting class at the “Adult
Day Camp” the library is holding. That should be good.
Thursday
is the Sundance 1 RV Resort zentangle and artists get together. They
have one of the craft rooms for the whole day and again it's a very
inspirational atmosphere with lots of good advice and encouragement.
We
bumped into one of the Photo Club Members during the Casa Grande Art
Associations annual “Studio Tour” and he asked if I was
interested n going on a Jeep ride out to an old abandoned mine. I was
in like a flash and had a great time. Thanks Darrel.
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