John Murray classes week of May 2, 2011

Oil and Acrylic Workshop and Postmodern Assemblage will have a model this week.

Painters please bring canvas, charcoal and paint...

sculptors please bring cardboard, twine, paint and plaster.

Supercharged Painting (Newart Center painters).

Since I have been unable to get a model for wednesdays if you want to work with the figure consider trading days and coming Monday...otherwise continue with your ideas for the deconstructed landscape, or your own painting concepts.

deCordova Supercharged painting artists (Tues a.m.). Continue with your deconstructed landscape paintings. For those who want a new assignment I will set up a simple still life from which to abstact and distill. See you next week....john.

John Murray classes week of April 25, 2011

Welcome to the artists who have joined my deCordova tues. morning Supercharged painting class.
All classes: please think about the abstract potential that is within the traditional landscape. Matisse's "View of Notre Dame" is an amazing example of where one can take a de-constructed vision of the commonplace. The artist filtered the view through the lens of formalism and eccentricity simultaneously and arrived at a fresh and challenging way to create a work of art. Working from a sketch or photo try this yourself.
On wed. the 27th at 7pm I will be giving a talk at the NewArt Center on the Isolated Artist, covering the work and lives of three artists: Michael Heizer, Bas Jan Ader and Ray Johnson...see you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of April 11, 2011

The quotitian object:

All classes, please try making a painting from a small and insignificant object that you find at home or here in the studio. The grandiose subject is not essential to the artwork...it is the freshness of interpretation that delivers the work. Postmodern Assemblage sculptors: try assembling/modifying the odd and ubitqitous pieces you have found and don't know what to with...this is a chance to embrace the trivial and see what happens. See you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of April 4, 2011

Welcome to the Spring term!

All classes: Let's try a celebration of Spring, (bring earplugs if music bothers you!). i will play a recording of Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" we will attempt to paint and/or interpret in plastic form our response to the music and the unsettling Vernal Equinox going on outside of the studio. Igor Stravinsky's famous composition was inspired by the painter Nicholas Roerich, who shared his vision with Stravinski of a pagan ritual in which a young girl dances herself to death. It was composed for Serge Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, and when it premiered on May 29, 1913 at the Theatre des Champs-Elsees in Paris caused one of the most famous music riots in history. The audience erupted in catcalls, whistles and fist fights.

i'm sure we can do better than that...see you next week, john.