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No meetings. No agendas. No rules. This group just draws

Home » News » Friday Extra

By Sue Cody

The Daily Astorian

Published: March 20, 2015 10:11AM

 JOSHUA BESSEX -- The Daily Astorian

Noel Thomas ponders his painting of Anna Lee Larimore during a drawing session at Vintage

Hardware March 12.

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 JOSHUA BESSEX -- The Daily Astorian

Robert Paulmenn holds up his watercolor painting of a Canadian Mountie during a group showing at

 Vintage Hardware. The Mountie appeared on a poster in the store.

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 JOSHUA BESSEX -- The Daily Astorian

Penny Treat creates a still-life scene at Vintage Hardware by combining different elements from

around the room.

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 JOSHUA BESSEX -- The Daily Astorian

Marga Stanley sketches "Freyja" at Vintage Hardware.

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 JOSHUA BESSEX -- The Daily Astorian Seen through a cracked window, Anna Lee Larimore paints a

still life scene of a horse at Vintage Hardware.

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 JOSHUA BESSEX -- The Daily Astorian Christi Payne sketches a scene using colored pencils and a

water paint brush at Vintage Hardware March 12. Payne uses Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils

because "the color gets really intense," she said.

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 JOSHUA BESSEX -- The Daily Astorian

 A sessions worth of art sits on the pavement outside of Vintage Hardware.

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 JOSHUA BESSEX -- The Daily Astorian

Penny Treat, left, claps her hands as she sees a painting by Noel Thomas, right.

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The Draw group gathers at Vintage Hardware

They sit spread out in chairs throughout the space as comfortably as if they were in a living room.

Some have easels, some prop sketchbooks on their knees, but all are intently studying a subject they

have chosen in the vast antique-filled cavernous Vintage Hardware store.

Between chests of drawers, signs, tables and sundry other items, 11 artists have gathered to simply

draw or paint. "No meetings, no agendas, no rules," laughs Christi Payne, one of founding members

of a loose-knit group called Draw -- A group for drawing. Since its inception in 2006, the number of 

participants has more than doubled, surprising her that the idea of gathering a few people together

to draw has taken on a life of its own.

"This is an inclusive group," Payne says. One doesn't have to be an artist. "If you want to draw, you

can draw."

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The group meets every other Thursday at predetermined places, such as the Liberty Theater, Coffee

Girl, Shively Park, Pioneer Cemetery, etc.

On March 12, Becky Johnson, co-owner of Vintage Hardware, welcomes the drawing group that fell

in love with the store's former space in the Astor Hotel. Many of the artists are her customers and

they find beauty in the new location where the displays change often.

"We have a very vibrant business," Johnson says, adding that 98 percent of the inventory is local and

people appreciate the artistry and repurposing items to make them useful.

"We are honored and thrilled that they come here. Their renderings are beautiful and delightful,"

she says.

The artists at work 

Bill Fitch

Bill Fitch, one of the founding members, sits studying a bright red "Antiques" sign on the wall in

 Vintage Hardware. Propped on his knee, is a sketchbook. But looking at the pad, one notices he left

out the first couple of letters in the sign, but included many objects on the shelves below as he

sketches with water-soluble graphite.

Like a photographer choosing a composition, he frames his drawing as he likes.

"I find it's better to not include everything in the design," Fitch says. "You can use artistic license --

leave things out."

Marga Stanley

Marga Stanley is drawn to a strange creature built from found objects, created by Sue Darms,

another group member. Stanley says she chose this subject because she likes Sue and likes fun stuff.

"And all my work is whimsical," she adds.

"This is a wonderful place to draw. They're so nice to let us draw here, to offer us this."

She holds the graphite pencil sideways in her hand, moving it up and down on her paper, creating

the edge of the creature's helmet, employing an eraser now and then to refresh a line.

She says she is not very fast and it takes her a long time to finish a project.

 A curiosity is that she chooses to make the image on paper larger than the object she is drawing.

"My style isn't very representational," Stanley says. "I like to interpret what I see in my own way."

 Jeff Donnelly

Using a water-soluble gray felt-tip pen, Jeff Donnelly is sketching another artist -- Anna Lee

Larimore.

"She's a great painter," he says as he looks beyond dressers to her standing at an easel. Donnelly

has been sketching for 44 years and with this group for several years. He says at the end of each

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session, the artists show their work and have a little discussion, where members might offer

constructive criticism.

"It's a good group of folks -- very kind," he says.

Penny Treat

Composition is everything to Penny Treat. Her sketchbook is about twice the size of everyone else's.

She sees her composition as a whole, with small, large and medium elements balancing each other.

She says she considers herself an athlete and it is important to keep up a daily practice to preserve

muscle memory.

"If you stop drawing, you are not as sharp as you were before."

In her drawing, a lamp appears to the left of a headless mannequin, but in the store, there is no lamp

in that position.

What's going on?

Treat explains she is interested in strong composition, the way things flow from one area to another.

She points out that the lamp she depicts is within the range of view, only far off to the right of the

mannequin, not on the left.

Her years as an interior designer seem to influence her drawing. Everything is movable.

Rearranging things is one of Treat's passions.

"You just kind of hone your craft -- like a fishermen finding a hot spot. He might be trolling forsalmon and he may get a surprise tuna. Something unexpected comes along. That's what sets artists

apart. That's the X factor."

Phyllis Taylor

She recently found her watercolor pencils, so that is what Phyllis Taylor brings to Vintage Hardware.

Taylor, who moved here a year ago is a retired graphic designer and illustrator from Indiana

University.

She is cellist and says drawing is like practicing the cello, experimenting with different techniques.

She enjoys drawing with this group because she gets to know others in the art community, she says.

"When hair chalk  we are in a group, it is interesting to see what others focus on. 'Where was that?'

someone will ask. We all learn from each other.

"Inevitably, their personality comes out in their paintings."

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 As she draws a green and yellow table with its legs strangely bent and partially covered with a

bright tablecloth, Taylor says she is happy to play with her pencils.

Rosalie Altena

 Another recent arrival to the North Coast, Rosalie Altena stares intently at the shapely red dress on

a mannequin. She chose the dress, she says because of the color and the fact that she loves vintageclothing. "I like the line and the form and the challenge of getting the contrast of the softness of the

 velvet and the hard lines of the cabinet behind it," she says.

But for this red dress, Altena uses a bright blue China marker, softening the lines with an eraser.

She is a painter who sees that work as coming from the inside and symbolic, while drawing she feels

is more separate -- a study of form.

 Anna Lee Larimore

 A carousel horse caught her eye. "It was beautiful and dramatic," Anna Lee Larimore says.

Using oil paint on a very small canvas, she shrinks her image while studying a life-size carousel

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horse. She says she usually sketches, but wants to up her game her game a little bit, painting with

oils.

Noel Thomas

His right hand is cupped, holding a piece of chalk and an eraser. With his left, he makes a smudge of 

white toward the top of the slate-gray paper resting on his knee. A couple of quick swipes -- again

with white -- and some hair emerges.

The hands juggle the pastel pieces. Now it's black. Black strokes make the stripe on her hat. Another

masterful swipe defines the shirt. A wide white mark suggests the easel.

This is how Noel Thomas works. Small smudges and swipes, a little blending here and a portrait of 

an artist appears.

This is magic.

This is art.

'You just kind of hone your craft -- like a fishermen finding a hot spot.'

-- Penny Treat

artist