Oil Painting Lesson: Dick's Art World!

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The Art of Drawing The Figure: Essential Exercises [Interactive DVD] $21.99 Bill Buchman demonstrates how to make successful figure drawings-one step at a time. Look over Bills shoulder-and listen-as he demonstrates 25 fundamental figure drawing techniques and reveals his methods for developing proficiency with Conté crayon gel pen ink wash Sumi brush soft pastels watercolor crayons and reed pen. This DVD presents an inside view of the creative process and shows just how…

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Rainy Days at the Cabin; Past and Present

Another summer has come to an end and this year there was more rain than usual. That meant lots of days cooped up in the cabin with a bunch of bored kids. The cabin, the rain, and the restlessness were all exactly the same as when I was a kid. What was different, however, was what happened during that time.

You can’t avoid rainy days altogether during summer at the cabin, and Mom was prepared. Under the hinged bench top she kept a stack of board games: Monopoly, Clue, Trouble, and Mousetrap. She also had a huge pile of comic books, which she literally kept locked up until a rainy day came, so that she could keep us out of her hair for awhile.

The smell of popcorn would fill the cabin as Mom set a big bowl down on the table where we were playing our games. There would be much chatter and laughing and sometimes fights when the pent-up energy couldn’t find release because of the inclement weather. When the racket got too much, Mom would pull out the comic books and we would all be silent, engrossed in the comics usually with a big cup of cocoa in our hands.

You have to keep finding new activities for kids, so while we were reading a few comics, Mom was usually setting up the table with watercolors or sometimes clay. My brother and I enjoyed repairing and painting our toy trucks, getting them ready for the hoped-for sunny days ahead. We kids would all sit around the table, working on our crafts until late in the day.

Contrast that scene to this summer’s rainy days:

Bored kids draped themselves over the furniture, with beeping and buzzing gameboys in their hands. We tried a board game, but the kids seemed distracted and unable to concentrate. One didn’t bother to join in at all, prefering the solitary gameboy.

They all sat together in silence watching a DVD, but complained that we couldn’t get any TV stations on the old antennae. The old comics weren’t much interest anymore, since they had read them already the first few days, when the sun was shining but they didn’t know what to do with themselves. Making popcorn wasn’t a big deal since they eat microwaved popcorn nearly everyday now.

Painting and building doesn’t happen outside of the computer; if it isn’t digital, they aren’t interested. The puzzles and watercolors and clay are played with by the adults in the room while the kids stare into tiny screens.

I found myself thinking that rainy days at the cabin were some of the best times I can remember as a child. I’m not sure these kids will have such memories.

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