‘Garage Sale’ Opening Tomorrow at Uptown Body and Fender in Oakland

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Ryan McJunkin

Garage Sale at Uptown Body and Fender

Garage Sale at Uptown Body and Fender

We hung this show last month for a private jazz and wine event. It looked great, but now it’s our turn. We replaced the Christmas wreaths with fresh work from some of our friends, and will have a DJ and a bunch of other cool stuff. It’s free, it’s from 6-9pm, and it’s on 26th street between Telegraph and Broadway in Oakland. Check out links to the artists’ websites below.

thomas christopher haag, David Polka, Ernest Doty, Erik Bakke, Linda Bakke

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Figure Drawing Studio

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Ryan McJunkin

I’m super excited to be setting up a brand new figure drawing space at the brand new Faultline Art Space. We have 34 pieces of beautiful salvaged mahogany to build tables, and about 260 square feet of northern facing windows to compliment the space with. I have a privacy wall to build, a heater to install, and a few things to find on Craigslist, and then we are good to go.

figure drawing studio Oakland

New figure drawing studio in Oakland, CA

The most fun figure drawing class I took was at art school in an old marble building with diffused natural light from skylights. The class was from 4-10pm and we would draw with no artificial lights until dark. For me, there is nothing better than natural light, and watching the light slowly shift while you are drawing is both a pleasure and a challenge. Often drawing sessions will be in a room with beautiful light, and then they close the curtains for privacy and set up unnatural looking spotlights, which makes for unnatural looking drawings. Stay tuned for upcoming session dates.

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Sgrafitto in ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams’

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Ryan McJunkin

Rhino in Cave of Forgotten Dreams

I finally got around to watching Werner Herzog‘s film ‘the Cave of Forgotten Dreams.’ I was blown away by the drawings and how modern-looking they were (30,000 years old). After taking a ton of drawing classes, I can tell you that not very many people, even with years of training, can draw with the grace and confidence of those cave drawings. I also noticed some sgraffito in many of the drawings. Sgraffito is the fancy Italian term  for scratching a painting or drawing to get back to an underlying color (I guess the Italians didn’t invent it, after all). I didn’t hear anyone talk about it in the movie, but maybe I missed it. It’s there though, the highlights around the edges of the rhino’s head and feet, scratched out where the artist is defining the subject by adding the negative space around it.

Here is the movie trailer on YouTube for ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams,’ in case you are the other person who hasn’t seen this movie yet.

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Almost Ready, But Not Quite.

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Ryan McJunkin

I’m hoping to get the keys to my new space tomorrow. It took a little longer than I expected to be able to unpack my stuff and get back to work. If you recall in some earlier posts, this space was full of boxes, and had no walls, hence the delay. Fortunately I have a commission to finish that I have been working on in the living room, so I’ve been busy at least. Here are a few pics from the new space. The windows are about 10 feet with frosted glass, which is great light for painting. I am going to replace some of the frosted glass with clear so I can get a bit more of a view. It’s a very Oakland view, with industrial buildings and train and Bart tracks with the hills in the background.

Them's paintin' walls!

View of Oakland Hills and the Bart train.

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Bacchinae at Zza’s Wine Bar

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Ryan McJunkin

This is sure to be a crazy, fun, and super packed art show with 14 artists organized by Obi Kaufmann. This is the last show Obi is organizing at Zza’s. I’ll have one piece in this show and will be there for sure. Many thanks to Mr. Kaufmann for all his work promoting the art scene in Oakland. He has a great blog and features many of the up and coming artists of the East Bay. Check it out and remember to bookmark it- Oakland Swee(t)art.

Obi Kaufmann's last show at Zza's

Obi Kaufmann's last show at Zza's

Featuring work by local artists; Holly Wach, Gina Tuzzi, Martin Webb, David Seiler, Hunter Mack, Michael Patton, Theo Konrad Auer, Alissa Goss, Alison O. K. Frost, Ryan McJunkin, Kelly Monson, Forest Stearns, Patricia Gillespie, and Elliot Fredericksen.

Bacchinae at Zza’s Wine Bar
Saturday December 17 6-9pm.
550 Grand Avenue, Oakland CA

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