Your Place to Draw: Wednesday Night Drawing Group

It's a Wednesday night at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri on Spanish Street in downtown Cape Girardeau, and local artist Craig Thomas is directing model Sarah Keith as she positions herself at the front of the room. Four other artists are taking out their drawing materials and getting situated at desks arranged in a semi-circle facing Keith. Attendance is light tonight -- usually there are about eight artists present. Still, the artists talk easily with each other, helping Keith find an interesting pose they want to draw.

This week, orchestral music plays softly in the background; last Wednesday, the group listened to The Flaming Lips. For the first two "quick draw" 10-minute poses, the artists catch up on each other's lives, asking about music preferences, the towns they grew up in and their other art endeavors. By the third 10-minute pose, the group settles into a comfortable silence, each artist engrossed in his work.

"I really enjoy it," Keith, who is a fabric artist, says of her modeling experiences with the Wednesday Night Drawing Group. "I enjoy helping out the local artists by giving them someone to draw. It builds my confidence, too -- it's cool to see people's different interpretations of my look."

The Wednesday Night Drawing Group has been going strong in Cape Girardeau -- and for a few years in Sikeston -- since 1979, started by Southeast Missouri State University professor Grant Lund with some of his students. In 1995, Cape Girardeau artist Craig Thomas began heading up the class after Lund's retirement, a natural transition as Thomas had helped Lund with the group throughout the years. The group became part of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri approximately 15 years ago.

The group's goal: to give artists and hobbyists the chance to work from a live model rather than from photographs. And to foster camaraderie.

Anita Dickerson’s hand sketches model Clarence Scott during a weekly drawing group at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri in Cape GirardeauTyler Graef ~ Southeast Missourian

"The two-dimensional visual artist is a pretty isolated individual occupation," Thomas says. "So I think it's a good way to bounce off other artists."

All ages and levels of artistic ability are represented within the group. During each Wednesday night two-and-a-half-hour meeting, the first half an hour is spent warming up, drawing quick poses. After a short break, the last two hours are spent drawing a single pose.

Terry Godwin, whose art is inspired by fantastical elements and usually includes people as the subject matter, works in pen and ink, colored pencil, watercolor and oil paints. He has been attending the group for 30 years.

"I enjoy the camaraderie," he says. "[It] makes me get out and do something different. I'm a financial advisor during the day, so [I do] a lot of left-brained activity. This is a right-brained activity, and it's ... just something completely different than I would ordinarily do. And since you're doing it every week, you can kind of get into a habit of creating weekly."

Thomas, who does figure and portrait work, plein aire, murals and street painting professionally, agrees: it is a good place to practice the discipline of creating. He is currently working with a group on anamorphic mural projects for the Museum of Illusions in San Francisco and Los Angeles; he says the Wednesday Night Drawing Group keeps him focused and ensures at least once a week he is practicing figure drawing, which he says is "the most challenging."

"It's a good tool to keep engaged in art," Thomas says of the drawing group. "It really helps me stay focused. I think for the community, there are people who've been coming to this group for 20 years. So some really good friendships have been formed, but also you can see people's skill level improve."

---

Grab your sketch pad and pencils

For more information about the Wednesday Night Drawing Group, contact the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri at (573) 334-9233. Or, show up with a $5 modeling gratuity and your art materials ready to draw at 16 North Spanish Street on Wednesday night, 7 p.m.