Painting the Flamenco Dancer: Gesture, Shape and Color with Michelle Chrisman (Monday through Thursday)

Dive into the creative challenge of painting an important, colorful part of our NM culture, the Flamenco Dancer! We will paint the costumed live model in repose, as a dancer resting and contemplating between performances, as well as in dramatic, theatrical poses of this beautiful dance form. The contemporary approach is to simplify the gestural movements of the model into simplified shapes with defined light/shadow patterns, developing skills in gesture, shape, design, composition, and value. We’ll begin with Notans, then move into value studies and finally color. Poses will start short to quickly encourage the artist to “design the big, important shapes & gestures,” gradually moving to longer poses that incorporate background shapes and more descriptive, larger paintings. By pre-mixing correct color values, we are free to paint with a fresh response to the drama of the model while learning to see and mix accurate color relationships. Michelle is an oil painter, but all mediums are welcome, as well as all levels of painter.

Michelle Chrisman is an established painter of Northern New Mexico landscapes.  In her 20's, she studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, drawing fashion models, & School of Visual Arts in Graphic Design. Later, she studied at Denver Art Students League with Kim English, learning the power of the short pose in  figure painting, then with well-known figure painter, Peggi Kroll Roberts at Scottsdale Artist School.  Her work is represented at Wilder Nightingale Gallery, Taos, NM, Abiquiu Inn, Weems Gallery & Romero Street Gallery in ABQ. www.MichelleChrisman.com