Graham Toms

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At Full Sail University, Larry Lauria brought in Graham Toms, a former co-worker from Disney University. Today, Graham is a spokes person for New Tech Lightwave 3D modeling software. He basically showed us samples of his work using the software. He was asked by a Texas cattle rancher once to paint his prize bulls. Graham modeled and posed the bulls in Lightwave and then used those renderings as reference for his painting. I had never considered using 3D software in that way. Having a traditional background and embracing new technology gives him more ways to express himself.

His daughter was traveling with him and she sat in the corner doing her homework. Most of his modeling is of fantastical creatures. His paintings are extremely detailed allegorical works.  He showed us how he loosens up when he draws by drawing circles and waving lines just to get his hand and brain warmed up. He doesn’t like to listen to music when he works although he knows of other artists who do amazing work while listening to classical music. It seems like a pretty sweet deal to show samples of the work you love to do, while discussing your process.

Graham also demonstrated the software by modeling a horse quickly in 3D using Sub-D’s. The fact that he has sketchbooks full of drawings of horses made modeling a quick and intuitive process.

The Big Dog Show

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At the foot of a walkway bridge that leads from the Mennello Museum to the suburban neighborhood on the opposite side of Lake Formosa is a “Red Dog” sculpture by Dale Rogers.  I love walking across that bridge as the sun sets. Snapping turtles leisurely paddle their way through the thick green water for a breath of air. The bridge is now part of the Dinky Line Trail, an exercise trail that will weave through the Virginia Drive, Ivanhoe Village, neighborhood. Under current plans, the trail ultimately could stretch from the new
arena in downtown Orlando past Lake Highland and the city’s Loch Haven
Park before terminating at Mead Garden in Winter Park, where it could
eventually tie into other trails. Also on the drawing board: a spur to
Lake Baldwin.

Driving past the Mennello, I saw a pack of huge rusty dogs, which were giant versions of the “Red Dog” in he Sculpture Garden and around the entrance to the museum. I had to pull in. The museum has welcomed back Rogers with a fresh pack of twenty 8-foot-tall, 10-foot-long sculptures of dogs made of Cor-ten steel. Small  versions are available for sale in the gift shop. Rogers has said that he thinks his work gives you a dog’s eye view of the world, and he hopes art, the public and animal welfare can all come together for a good cause. The show is open to the public now through March 17th, 2012.

Today, Saturday DECEMBER 1st, there will be a Big Dog Show Happy Hour
from 4 to 6 p.m. Admission is free.
Bring your four-legged friends to this outdoor reception for Dale Rogers and the new installation of 20 Brown Dog steel sculptures. Refreshments for sale for dogs and their owners from The Spork Happy Food Cafe and Puppy Love Cafe, along with litter bags. Bring donations of pet foods and supplies to donate to local animal shelters. Adopt one of the rare breeds to benefit Canine Companions for Independence and A New Beginning Pet Rescue.

Art Reach Orlando

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At Urban ReThink, Brendan O’Connor started telling me about several mural projects he is helping spearhead.  He spoke excitedly about a mosaic mural that was in the planning stages in Apopka. Migrant workers were being asked to contribute items that came with them when they moved to Florida. QR codes and micro chips might also be embedded in the mosaic so that anyone with a smart phone could scan the mural and listen to interviews and history behind the items. He then invited me to Corner Lake Middle School in Bithlo the next day to sketch the beginning stages of a mural being started there. Christie Miga is the artist in residence who created the mural image.

When I arrived, the hallway was crowded with kids. Two young girls were tracing lines on an image projected on the wall.  The rest of the kids were sitting in the hall doing their homework or playing tag. Brendan O’Connor quickly introduced me to everyone. Brendan and Sarah Zimmer work for Art Reach Orlando as project managers. Marsha Selby is a teacher from the school. She’s a science teacher that does art on the side in her own free time since the school doesn’t offer it. Unfortunately the traffic on Colonial Drive got me to the school about half an hour late. All the kids were packing up to get back home.

I decided to try and get a sketch anyway. Do to a minor glitch, Christie needed to readjust the image.  Those adjustments gave me time to finish my sketch. Sarah and Brendan helped her make all the adjustments.  The work went quickly now that the hall was quiet. I remember similar adjustments had to be made the first day I had students help me with the Mennello Museum Mural. I asked them to cover the wall with pencil grid lines every foot. I went inside the museum to sketch several people for the mural. When I came back out, I  found the grid started out good but then the grid lines arched upward by the time they got to the other end of the wall.

Christie Miga’s mural image was developed in Illustrator on the computer. She explained that they were just projecting the background elements today. Later other elements will be layered on top. The image to start had large arching shapes that looked like hillsides. Time will tell what the final image looks like. Christie wanted to keep the image simple to start.

Arles

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I was excited when we got to Arles, France which was the home base for Vincent Van Gogh when he did hundreds of his vibrant post impressionistic paintings. We went inside the asylum where he was interred after he cut off his ear. The inner courtyard  garden was supposed to be planted exactly as it was when he painted it a hundred years ago. It was instead ripped up with all the soil in chaotic piles. It was a depressing sight so I decided to settle instead in a bustling public square called Place de La Republic. The street to my left was full of shops which Terry explored as I sketched.

In the center of the square is a fourth century Roman Obélisque. It was first erected by the Roman Emperor Constantine II in the center of the a large open-air venue used for public events in Arles. After the circus was abandoned in the 6th century, the obelisk fell down and was broken in two parts. It was rediscovered in 14th century. And it was re-erected in its
current location in 17th century on top of a pedestal designed by
Jacques Peytret. A fountain at the base was designed by Antoine Laurent Dantan in 19th century.

Diet Coke was being offered for free from a tricycle with a portable refrigerator on the front of it. Large groups of boisterous school kids sat at the base of the of the Obélisque. Empty coke cans littered the ancient paving stones at my feet. It is a shame I don’t like Diet Coke, I was offered some every fifteen minutes or so.

Palais Des Papes

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When Terry and I arrived in Avignon, we immediately took a walking tour to the Palais des Papes, or the Pope’s Palace.The entire city of Avignon is surrounded by a fortified stone wall. We followed the wall and winding cobbled streets to the Palais. I settled in and sketched from the public square while Terry explored the gardens. The sky turned slate blue and threatened to rain. I considered sitting under a cafe umbrella but it blocked my view. I got half way through the sketch before it started to rain. My compact umbrella got me through the rest although the page still got soaked.

 When Terry got back, we climbed the steps to explore the gardens together. I walked the streets of Avignon often since I needed to find an internet cafe from which to post. I was exploring back alleys and narrow roads like an expert by the end of our week long stay. We discovered some really wonderful places for dinner but we also discovered that reservations are always required.

Terry witnessed a woman at the Palais church who was screaming during the recessional, and had to be forcibly removed.  We later saw the same woman at a restaurant and Terry said to me, “Hey, that’s the crazy lady I told you about.” Unfortunately, the woman understood English. And she told Terry that she wasn’t crazy. She does however have conflicting viewpoints from the church. I thought for a minute that the woman might be the owner of the restaurant. The Maitra d asked us if we had a reservation, which unfortunately we didn’t. As he walked us to a restaurant around the corner he did relate that the woman was a bit of a character.

Nimes France

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After a week of exploring Paris, Terry and I traveled south to Provence to explore the smaller, and warmer cities. We used Avignon as our home base staying in Lumani, a bed and breakfast inside the ancient Medieval city walls.  One of the owners was a working artist and her studio was at the back of the public courtyard.  One evening it was illuminated and I sneaked in to catch a glimpse of her abstract paintings. Grape vines covered the old stone walls. Nimes was a short ride in our rental car, an automatic Porche, which was a hybrid car that unfortunately lurched whenever the foot was removed from the accelerator. When we got to Nimes, we parked in a shopping district but after examining the street signs, we decided to drive into an underground parking garage.

We walked to this historic Roman Amphitheater, Arenes Colosseum, built in 70AD and remodeled in 1863 to be used for bull fighting.   The ring is used twice annually today for bull fights. Pablo Picasso was inspired to create many bull fighting themed paintings after attending a fight at the Colosseum. The bull fighter in my sketch is a bronze statue and I didn’t catch the name of the artist. One woman approached me asking for a donation for her cause. She would have made a good Public Relations professional. Terry explored the inside of the Colosseum while I sketched the outside. It has seen plenty of wear and tear through the ages, but is just as functional as the day it opened.

Sacred Slave Stories

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“Sacred Slave Stories,” created by Dario J. Moore, tells the stories of actual slaves through original music and the emotional impact of dance. The Center for Contemporary Dance has received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which it will use to produce Moore Dance Project’s “Sacred Slave Stories” for Orange County schoolchildren. This is the second year that “Sacred Slave Stories” has received a grant through the program. The contemporary dance program will be presented to 1,000 students from Orange County Title I public schools throughout February in partnership with the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in Sanford.

Student presentations of “Sacred Slave Stories” are further supported by funding from United Arts of Central Florida, the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs, Darden Restaurants, Inc. Foundation and Target Stores.

I went to the Center of Contemporary Dance to sketch a rehearsal of “Sacred Slave Stories.” The personal stories gathered are harsh and real. A woman related how severe a beating she got when she ate some bread she found while she was cleaning a home. The contemporary dance was narrative and powerful. A dancer raised a fist in anger but was held back by his lover. Male dancers moved huge imaginary loads on their backs, pausing under the weight. The dance is meant to convey hope while acknowledging the harsh and brutal realities of slavery.

The Center for Contemporary Dance 
presented its 2012-2013 Season Preview, which took place 
on Sunday, November 18, 2012 at Trinity Preparatory School in Winter
Park.  This season preview introduced  the organization’s Eleventh
Annual Season of Dance, and included sneak-peek performances of upcoming
works in the 2012-2013 event season.

Eiffel Tower

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Terry and I eventually make it to see the Eiffel Tower. We had seen it in the distance from the other side of Paris from the Pantheon. The whole tower lights up with blinking flash bulbs. We decided to go to the tower at sunset to catch the light show. Neither of us wanted to to go to the top of the tower. Large crowds stood in line at the base of the tower to get in the elevators that go up into the lattice work. The structure was named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World’s Fair, it has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world.

Police were walking along the hedges keeping an eye open for abandoned packages. In the park across the street vendors hawked metal models of the tower hanging from metal rings. I never actually saw anyone buy one of these tourist trinkets, but there were dozens of these vendors aggressively selling their wares. As the sun set, the tower caught the warm orange light as the park turned blue in the shadows.

There must be billions of cell phone photos of the tower. Tourists stood and sat on the stone steps taking pictures of their loved ones with the tower in the background. The steps grew cold as it got darker and we bundled up. Once the sky was dark enough, the tower finally flickered on. The crowd murmured. Terry scrambled to find her cell phone to take a picture. The last time she saw the tower she didn’t have enough  time to take a photo. The blinking light show only lasts for ten minutes every hour to save energy.  

When it was built, not everyone liked the tower. A committee of 300, one member for each meter of the towers height, wrote, “We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of
the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength,
with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against
the erection…of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our
arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower
dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its
barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe,
all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream.
And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the
hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal”

Upon the German occupation of Paris in 1940, the lift cables were cut by the French so that Adolf Hitler would have to climb the steps to the summit. The parts to repair them were allegedly impossible to obtain because of the war. When visiting Paris, Hitler chose to stay on the ground. It was said
that Hitler conquered France, but did not conquer the Eiffel Tower. A
Frenchman scaled the tower during the German occupation to hang the French flag. French hearts in time warmed to the landmark.

Notre Dame Cathedral

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The Pont de l’Archevêché bridge over the Seine had thousands of small padlocks, locked onto the iron grating. They sparkled, golden and silver in the sun like so many jewels. Known as Love Locks, the trend took off more than three years ago, thousands of padlocks have been locked to the bridge by lovers looking to symbolize their endless passion. A Paris municipal authority announced that the locks were becoming an eyesore. He further added that the practice “posed the
question of preserving heritage, and that in time the padlocks would
have to be removed”. In May of 2010 all but a handful of the padlocks
vanished overnight from the bridge. All eyes turned to the Mayor’s office, but he denied authorizing the removal. Some suggested the locks were removed during the night to avoid negative
publicity, others speculated that it was the work of scrap metal
thieves. But as soon as they were removed, shiny new locks started to
reappear. I wasn’t about to try and sketch thousands of padlocks, but I felt I had to sketch Notre Dame.

I escaped the crowd on the bridge by walking down the stone steps to the Quai. I set up my artist stool against a tall tree and started to sketch. There was an artist doing an oil painting less than fifty yards away. Restaurant barges dock here and tourists were filing in for lunch. It was rather quiet and peaceful down on the Quai whereas the bridges and the island Notre Dame sat on were a constant mob scene. A group of tourists gathered at the water taxi stop. The trees were turning orange with the first fall chills. I seldom sketch outside in Orlando since is is always so darn hot.  Thus it was a real pleasure to relax in the shade to sketch hundreds of years of Gothic architectural history.

Terry and I did go inside Notre Dame and the Rose windows were gorgeous. The shear scale of the space is humbling. An angry french woman shouted at the tourists in the square in front of the cathedral. In the evening, roller bladers, musicians and performers of all kinds converge on the square to seek tips from tourists. The Île de la Cité on which Notre Dame was built is the true heart and center of Paris.

Bella: The Beauty of ME Dance

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ME Dance, Inc. is the Newest Professional Dance Organization located in the heart of
Central Florida.
I went to one of the final dress rehearsals for Bella by the Marshall Ellis Dance Company.  Bella is the second series of performances by this dance company. When I arrived, dancers were stretching and Marshall was sweeping the stage and applying what I’m guessing was a liquid wax to the flooring.  One dancer was wearing a white tutu and of course I felt compelled to sketch her. She was the first dancer to perform a solo. A large screen was set up onto which a video of this dancer was projected. She walked through a park and then began writing in her note book about life’s challenges and emotions. Each dance was preceded by one of these video segments in which she wrote about various aspects of life as she grew and matured. The human experience of love is designed for the sole purpose of showing you
who you truly are and it is expressed vibrantly through dance.

After a full run through, Marshall Ellis asked the dancers if they could recite the dance company’s mission statement. It is, “To introduce innovative ideas through
dance to create growth in the arts community. Our goal is to enrich the
arts community by providing an outlet to feature talent in art through
entertainment.”  He felt the first run was technically amazing but he wanted to feel that undefinable spark, the magic and joy of fully expressed emotion through entertainment. It wasn’t just about a smile, but about absolute commitment to artistic expression. With another hour to rehearse, the dancers performed a second time. This time they performed “all out”. A high energy 80’s dance number had all the dancers trying to catch their breath. Marshall has invested so much of himself to make ME Dance, the premiere dance company in Central Florida. That takes plenty of blood sweat and tears. As I left around 11PM, the dancers were still hard at work. Art isn’t easy.

Show Times:

November 23, 2012 – 8pm

November 24, 2012 – 8pm

November 25, 2012 – 7:30pm

Ticket Prices:
$20 General Admission 

Venue:
John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center, The Mandell Theatre
Orlando Shakespeare Theater 812 E. Rollins St. Orlando, FL 32803