Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

November 4, 2011

We went back to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art this morning. They had a free class explaining about artist John Marin. Today is the grand opening of the art exhibit displaying many of his oil paintings and watercolor paintings.  He does mostly scenes of the ocean since he lived primarily in Maine and New Jersey. He visited New Mexico and New York and all of these influences in the various cultures and places show vividly in his artwork.

The Director of Education named Stacy led us in discussion at various points in the exhibition where we gave our input into what we saw or felt looking at the paintings. We noticed how similar color palettes were used. We also were able to see some of the original frames that he used on his artwork, they were painted and also had some cutout shapes in them.  Mr. Marin died in 1953 and they said in the last 20 years of his life he did about 250 paintings. In his painting career he was very prolific.

After we walked around the gallery, we were invited to the members only lounge where we had some refreshments which included really good scones and muffins. While we snacked, we were given some drawing paper and oil pastel crayons.  The special events coordinator had us sit facing the Fort Worth skyline and she gave us 15 seconds to draw the skyline and what we saw out the window (we were on the 2nd floor). We were only given the 15 seconds and one color of crayon.  Then she gave us another chance to draw with 15 seconds and a new sheet of paper.  We did a little better.  Then we were given 30 seconds and were able to use a 2nd color.  It was interesting to see how different we all did our drawings. We were allowed to take our drawings home, but mine was not one I wanted to keep.  All in all, it was fun and very educational. 

Carol, Pat, Mark, and Sue

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