Art at Los Medanos College

Old Masters style , originally uploaded by losmedanosart . Self portraits in David Tallitsch's "Introduction to Painting" class. Work by, Clockwise: Kris Basurto, Wiomy Sternbergh, Tony Gonzalez, and Pinky Navarro Students are using an old masters technique -- indirect painting -- where they use monochrome underpainting for value and composition, then add layers of opaque paint to build up light areas.

drawing class 2 2008 , originally uploaded by losmedanosart . Rosalie Cassell's drawing class works on drawing what they see rather than what they think by observing a scene through a container of liquid. Roaslie says the lessons they've worked on in value, texture, perspective are starting to come together as they start on landscapes.  She'd say more, but she has to sprint to the Nature Preserve and help drawing students there.

Bill Leach (see the sidebar for more links) teaches cartooning at LMC as well as Deer Valley High School. But he's also a drummer (google results for " drummer jokes ") who ran a "World's Fastest Drummer contest. Here's a bit o' Youtube video from the contest that we lifted from his myspace site. Feel the need for more Bill? He has an " All about Bill " video too! It was created for cable TV by the Contra Costa Arts and Culture Commission when Bill was honored with their Arts Recognition Award in 2008.

Students in the LMC Fall 2008 photo class had an assignment to make photos where the subject wasn't as important as the photo itself. They uploaded them to Flickr. Here's a slideshow of their work. Here's a link to a slideshow of some of their other work.

Here's the deal. Ken Alexander, the Art Department chair (Humanities chair too, but I won't get into that.) is a brilliant teacher and a true student of Art History. But the whole internet/blog thing... well, let's just say if it wasn't in the Renaissance, it may be outside his realm of expertise. But, he's trying. He just gave me this to post. Sure, it's just kind of an ad, and doesn't have a drop of the required snark a good blog posts needs, but he's trying, and that's what's important. So let's all be encouraging, OK? What is Art History? Funny you should ask… I was just thinking about that. Art, plus history! Whoa! That must be it. Like bacon and eggs, you could eat them separately, but they’re so much better together. The Art Department at LMC offers art history of course… we couldn’t show our faces to other community colleges if we didn’t. Unlike many of them though, we don’t jam, cram and slam big chunks of art and history into one or...

Eva Gonzales poster , originally uploaded by losmedanosart . The Art faculty doesn't just make students go look at art, they go themselves. In September they went to the Palace of the Legion of Honor to see the Women Impressionists show (thumbs up), and to the deYoung to see the Chihuly glass exhibit (thumbs sideways.) It turns out that they can't agree on much, but they at least found a Mediterranean restaurant they all liked.

September 4 through 26. Art, art and more art! Check out the work of the instructors you know and get to see the examples by our new Art faculty. Rosalie Cassell's painting