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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