Fine Art Portraiture by Mark Roberts

Our April meeting was very informative. Mark Roberts was our guest for the evening and gave a presentation on portraiture and figure drawing. Mark is curator at the Lynn House Gallery in Antioch, an instructor at the San Francisco Art Academy and at Walnut Creek Civic Arts. He works in oil in the tradition of impressionistic realism.
With the assistance of our Education Director, FROgard Butler as a model, Mark produced an excellent graphite sketch over a period of about 40 minutes while maintaining a continuous stream of commentary about the technique. Many thanks to Mark for his wonderful presentation and to FRO for consenting to “model” for us.

Graphite drawing of FROgard Butler by Mark Roberts

Our April Art Contest winners are: 1st place Mark Pemberton, 2nd place Cheryl Crews, a three-way tie for 3rd place Egmont Van Dyck, Barbara Rockhold, and George Rammell. Our guest artist’s choice was Mark Pemberton’s “Urban Homestead” print. Congratulations! Thank you to all seven members who brought in work.

EBAG Celebrates John Muir’s Birthday

FROgard Butler coaching a young artist on the sculpting of a clay beaver. (Photo by Cheryl Reynolds)

On Saturday April 18th, the John Muir Association of Martinez, California celebrated John Muir’s birthday and Earth Day with an all day festival at the John Muir National Historic Site. Activities included exhibits for children and adults, live entertainment, self-guided tours of the historic Muir Home and the California Native Plant Garden, and much more. Michael Muir (John Muir’s great grandson) was also present.

As part of the activities, our Education Director, FROgard Butler was there to represent EBAG. FRO shared a booth with Cheryl Reynolds from the local group Worth a Dam, dedicated to protecting the beavers that have taken up residence in Alhambra Creek, downtown Martinez. Cheryl is also a member of EBAG. Working with a group of about 200 children they sculpted clay beavers and placed them in a diorama of the beavers home in Martinez. Activities began at 10 am and continued throughout the day until about 4 pm. Congratulations to FRO, Cheryl, Worth a Dam and EBAG for their efforts to build awareness about the environment and the arts.