New Images

The new images are on the website now! The photographs are courtesty of my studio neighbor Barry Oxendine.

Photo Shoot

All day Saturday I shot slides with my studio neighbor, Barry. He is a lighting director and photographer. We had such a great time setting up shots and lighting my work. Many of the pieces are a shiny bronze, which is especially challenging to shoot without having white hot spots. We listened to Bob Dylan and old British pop and talked art and lighting. It was such a fun time! The shots turned out great, but something didn't go right when we put the images to CD, so I've got to go back to the studio and get the images uploaded to my PC.

Soon, the new images will appear on the website!

Portrait Demonstration

I just talked with the folks at Downtown Frederick Partnership about doing a portrait sculpture demonstration downtown and they loved the idea! So, it's official; I'll be sculpting a portrait all day on June 7th at the corner of Market and Patrick Streets outside the BB&T Bank Building. I'll begin work at 10:00am and wrap up when I get tired, probably around 5:00pm. When I wrap up downtown, I'll move all of my equipment back to my studio at 4 West 5th Street and invite folks in to see the studio for a few hours.

I've done portrait demonstrations before and people seem to really enjoy watching a sculpture come to life! It ought to be fun.

Hope to see you all there.

Sneak Preview

It is not so often that folks get to peer into the artist's studio. I took a snapshot when I was working last week. I have several sculptures waiting to be photographed, so very few people have seen them yet. You'll also notice drawings up on the wall. Every Tuesday I gather with some other artists and we share the cost of a model. Tuesday Night Drawing has become sacred to us, drawn us together as friends as well as enhanced our abilities as artists.

Last week, Walter of the Yellow Barn, shared with us his color lecture. In honor of this event, I brought a box of chalk pastels for drawing! I have had them since I was a child, but color has always unnerved me. I started drawing the figure in orange and added the shadows with blue. Then I added some red and went hog wild with color!

Walter has also inspired me to start painting outdoors. While I was on a mini-vacation this past weekend, I packed teeny canvases and enjoyed the beach while painting the sailboats pulled up on shore. Right now, painting is just for fun, but hopefully Hempel Studios will not only feature sculpture!