Hands flit across a white paper and a graphite shape slowly emerges — a dragon with fanning around his eyes and teeth poking out from a grimaced mouth.
The teens “ooh” and “ahh” at the figure and chat about how angry the beast looks and how fast artist Jessica Feinberg drew the picture.
“And then I like to...” Feinberg sticks her tongue between her teeth and lightly draws a butterfly perched atop the furious-looking dragon’s nose.
This gathering constitutes the fledgling Fantasy Art Group hosted at the Sam Lena-South Tucson Branch Librar twice a month.
The group is small. Just three teens and the teacher, Feinberg, who sit at a table in a small study room tucked into the corner of the library with books on drawing, dragons and snakes scattered about.
Ricki VanAlstine draws a dragon-cat, a creature of her own creation that mixes the mythical beast with the common house pet. The figure received kitten paws and ears but boasts a distinctly dragon-like body and face.
“Should it have a cat nose or a dragon nose?” VanAlstine asks Feinberg.
Feinberg decides on a dragon nose so the dragon cat can still breathe fire. VanAlstine is excited by this idea and immediately starts working on it.
This month’s topic, dragons, isn’t being embraced by all of the teens in the room though. Aaron Cadenas sits across the table from VanAlstine and Morales, drawing pictures of fairies and angels.
Last month, Feinberg taught the group all about Steampunk, a style of art that became popular in the ’80s and incorporates industrial elements of the Victorian era in a fantastical way. The example drawing that she shows is a rabbit with the innards of a clock.
“I’d never heard of [Steampunk] until that day,” Cadenas said. “It was a specific practice of drawing.”
Cadenas, an intermittent employee at the library, finds the classes to be an unexpected outlet reminding him of what he calls his passion.
“I decided to do it because I have had a passion for drawing for such a long time that I thought it would be especially beneficial for me and I thought that it would be really fun,” Cadenas said. “I learned so many new techniques from her.”
These lessons become obvious when Feinberg compliments VanAlstine on her lighter touch with the pencil since their last meeting.
The group chats and works while Feinberg furiously draws so that she can do a watercolor demonstration that the group requested at the last meeting.
The topics are diverse, from the usefulness of drawing as a communication tool to the kinds of feathers birds have so that Cadenas might draw a more realistic angel.
Feinberg guides them through the hour and a half session, suggesting ways to make the dragon-cat look less cartoon-like and teaching the entire room how light hits and bounces off of an object to draw shadowing.
“I need to figure out what kind of style I want to draw,” Cadenas said. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”
Feinberg tells him he doesn’t have to pick just one and encourages him to experiment, even if it’s scary.
“That’s a lot of what we’re trying to do here,” Feinberg said. “Get people past the fear of drawing badly. We’re trying to get people past whatever happened to them in their past or in school that scared them out of drawing.”
At March’s meeting, Feinberg will move on to less scary fare to teach kids, teens and adults how to draw fantasy settings.
Hands flit across a white paper and a graphite shape slowly emerges — a dragon with fanning around his eyes and teeth poking out from a grimaced mouth.
The teens “ooh” and “ahh” at the figure and chat about how angry the beast looks and how fast artist Jessica Feinberg drew the picture.
“And then I like to...” Feinberg sticks her tongue between her teeth and lightly draws a butterfly perched atop the furious-looking dragon’s nose.
This gathering constitutes the fledgling Fantasy Art Group hosted at the Sam Lena-South Tucson Branch Librar twice a month.
The group is small. Just three teens and the teacher, Feinberg, who sit at a table in a small study room tucked into the corner of the library with books on drawing, dragons and snakes scattered about.
Ricki VanAlstine draws a dragon-cat, a creature of her own creation that mixes the mythical beast with the common house pet. The figure received kitten paws and ears but boasts a distinctly dragon-like body and face.
“Should it have a cat nose or a dragon nose?” VanAlstine asks Feinberg.
Feinberg decides on a dragon nose so the dragon cat can still breathe fire. VanAlstine is excited by this idea and immediately starts working on it.
This month’s topic, dragons, isn’t being embraced by all of the teens in the room though. Aaron Cadenas sits across the table from VanAlstine and Morales, drawing pictures of fairies and angels.
Last month, Feinberg taught the group all about Steampunk, a style of art that became popular in the ’80s and incorporates industrial elements of the Victorian era in a fantastical way. The example drawing that she shows is a rabbit with the innards of a clock.
“I’d never heard of [Steampunk] until that day,” Cadenas said. “It was a specific practice of drawing.”
Cadenas, an intermittent employee at the library, finds the classes to be an unexpected outlet reminding him of what he calls his passion.
“I decided to do it because I have had a passion for drawing for such a long time that I thought it would be especially beneficial for me and I thought that it would be really fun,” Cadenas said. “I learned so many new techniques from her.”
These lessons become obvious when Feinberg compliments VanAlstine on her lighter touch with the pencil since their last meeting.
The group chats and works while Feinberg furiously draws so that she can do a watercolor demonstration that the group requested at the last meeting.
The topics are diverse, from the usefulness of drawing as a communication tool to the kinds of feathers birds have so that Cadenas might draw a more realistic angel.
Feinberg guides them through the hour and a half session, suggesting ways to make the dragon-cat look less cartoon-like and teaching the entire room how light hits and bounces off of an object to draw shadowing.“I need to figure out what kind of style I want to draw,” Cadenas said. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”Feinberg tells him he doesn’t have to pick just one and encourages him to experiment, even if it’s scary.
“That’s a lot of what we’re trying to do here,” Feinberg said. “Get people past the fear of drawing badly. We’re trying to get people past whatever happened to them in their past or in school that scared them out of drawing.”
At March’s meeting, Feinberg will move on to less scary fare to teach kids, teens and adults how to draw fantasy settings.
