Wednesday

Well yesterday we froze ourselves up at Mountain Dell, when we left the temperature was 4 degrees ( -15 C ). The parking lot was quite empty; manly just the diehards were up there, the rest deemed it too cold to even make an appearance. After a few laps around the course I felt as if the nose and inside of my lungs were frozen solid. It didn’t seem to matter how much cloths you had on, the cold would just penetrate though when ever you stopped and stood around. I guess the real cold front is in the Midwest with some highs for the day in the negative numbers !

Today I forfeited painting and taught Lina’s class at the Salt Lake Arts Academy. Her teacher, Lamar Holly is working on the Renaissance period and when he heard from Lina that I was a living and practicing artist I was enlisted into helping them learn about perspective and Chiaroscuro (strong lights and shadows on the form ). All of this, of course came about in the period of the Renaissance.

He has an idea of having the student’s paint the ceiling like Michelangelo did. Somehow I was envisioning paint dripping all over the cloths and floor of the school and the department screaming at the mess. Lamar considering the outcome of the project and quickly switched over to oil pastels. I agreed it would be less messy and you would avoid those frantic phone calls from irate parents wondering how the Hell to get paint out of their child’s cloths!

I brought some of my paintings in to show the perspective that I use and we went into showing the group, one point, two point and three point perspective. Then they all had a go at it on paper as I went around to see their progress. I was amazed at the different levels at which they could draw, some mastered it quickly and others for the life of them, couldn’t understand the concept at all. I have a feeling this will be one of those projects they will remember for the rest of their lives. It should be fun.

For me it was an interesting learning experience as well

Richard Boyer