Glen Arbor Art Association offers fall classes

Press release

Inspiring opportunities await adult students during fall weekends at the Glen Arbor Art Association (GAAA). The lineup includes four different classes that will give students a chance to explore art through a variety to mediums including painting, knitting, and even meditation. The instructors are accomplished artists and bring impressive credentials and teaching experience to their workshops.

A September painting/yoga/meditation workshop with Margo Burian will present three disciplines under one unifying format. Burian will teach techniques for tapping into creative energy with easy yoga and meditation techniques. She will take the class into the field for guided sketching and painting exercises.

Margo Burian has been an illustrator since graduating from Kendall College of Art and Design with a BFA in 1992. Her commercial career has included projects for American Greetings and Mc-Graw Hill Publishing. In 2007 Margo was a GAAA Artists in Residence, and one of her paintings was selected for the 2008 Manitou Music Festival poster.

A workshop called “Wonders of Watercolor” will be taught by Charles Murphy in October. Murphy has a BFA in Studio Art. Teaching painting has taken him across the United States to France, Spain, Italy, Nova Scotia, Hawaii and the Caribbean. Murphy’s work can be found in numerous private and corporate collections including Kraft, International Harvester and John Hancock.

One student said of Charles Murphy, “I’ve learned more about how paint works and why in his class than in five years of painting.” His workshop will explore a variety of applications and effects. Compositional formats, pattern schemes, color mixing and glazing will be covered.

In mid-October Duncan Sprattmoran will help students explore color using acrylic paints in a playful two-day workshop. The class is ideal for painters who want to push into new territory and play with color and beginners are welcome. A past student in one of his workshops stated, “Duncan definitely makes it fun while getting important lessons across. Excellent, creative instructor.” Sprattmoran teaches at Pathfinder School and has taught at Northwestern Michigan College. He has won best of show at the Suttons Bay Art Fair, Algonac Art Fair and Petoskey Art Fair.

For the first time, the GAAA will offer three days of knitting workshops in October with Kalamazoo artist, Susan Ramsey. The three days will include instruction in Thrum-Scarves, Thrummed Mittens, which are fleece-stuffed mittens, and I-Cord, a simple technique that lends itself to many uses.

Susan Ramsey says she, “has been knitting since the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan”. She has taught hand spinning and knitting at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts for over 10 years. A hand knit, hand painted stole of hers won the Kalamazoo Knitter’s Guild award at the KIA’s 2008 Area Show and a Japanese-fold artist’s book alternating pages of handmade paper and hand knit lace was a prizewinner in 2009. She believes, “the great thing about knitting is how it allows beginners to produce beautiful, usable objects while never permitting experienced knitters to exhaust its possibilities”.

For more information on these classes call the Glen Arbor Art Association at (231) 334-6112.