I had a fabulous time teaching Introduction to Charcoal Drawing at the Denver Botanic Garden’s SBAI program! We explored with a variety of charcoal tools & techniques with seasonal natural subjects like pumpkins & squash, fall flora, exotic & native seeds, fall leaves, the garden’s conservatory, mini landscapes, and we ended with a feast from Wander & Graze and Gateaux Bakery. Thank you to all of my students for your hard work! This image features a selection of their art during the course.
Channel 9 News: The Center on Colfax at the Denver Art Museum →
It has been so amazing teaching with Kate Woodliff O’Donnell & organizing with Coordinator of Lifelong Learning and Accessibility Lindsey Miller + Special Projects Assistant is Maria Aschenbrener at the Denver Art Museum. We worked with West of Fifty Open Art Studio Group to create and explore art over several months in 2022. Marc Sallinger with Channel 9 news featured this amazing group at our program, check out the video HERE.
With West of Fifty Open Art Studio Club viewing the museum’s exhibit, By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind Objects.
Charcoal Drawings for the Ruby Red Workshop
I had the fabulous opportunity to take inspiration from the Denver Art Museum’s new sensory garden to create charcoal drawings. Experience the wonderful colors, textures, shapes, and scents of the garden and find my artwork near the entrance. To get there, enter through the Martin Building, Level 1, and head to the Creative Hub’s Red Ruby Workshop. I was inspired by the garden’s sweet trailing daisies, feathery Apache plume, and savory scented Lebanese oregano.
Donations 2021
Every new year I make donations from art sales to help support organizations that help the environment and also communities whose lives are altered by wildfire. This year I’m donating to the Boulder County Wildfire Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, and Colorado State Forest Service. Please consider helping the victims of these recent wildfires by clicking the link here.
Virtual Drop-In Drawing at the Denver Art Museum
Every second Tuesday of the month from 1-3 PM, I teach a free Denver Art Museum virtual class. I provide a variety of technique demonstrations, share artwork from the museum collections, and invite artists working in the community to share their techniques and perspectives with us.
UPDATE 1/2022: Drop-In Drawing will be virtual quarterly. Please join us for our first in-person session of the new year, January 11, 2022 from 1-3PM. For more info on in-person sessions click here. Our next virtual session will take place on March 8, 2022 from 1-3PM
For March 2021, we virtually explored select museums around the world to learn how to draw the lustrous texture of gold, create illusions of depth with linear perspective, and explore ancient earthenware. For these sessions, you are invited to create artwork using your choice of materials, methods, and subjects.
For more information go to https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/calendar/drop-drawing-online
How to Participate on Zoom:
Join us live a few minutes before the program start time.
This session is free and open to all who would like to join. Advance registration is not required to attend Drop-In Drawing.
Need help joining by Zoom? Use these English instructions orSpanish instructions from Senior Planet.
To request a sign language interpreter, CART service, or any other service, please email access@denverartmuseum.org at least three (3) business days in advance of program.
Anna Kaye’s colored pencil demo of a Shield Plaque in the Form of a Deer, scythian culture, circa 600 BC from the Hermitage museum.
Donations 2020
I will be donating a percentage of all sales to the following organizations this year to provide relief and support communities that are affected by wildfire:
Upcoming 2020 Exhibits
I’m excited to announce my solo exhibit at Sandra Phillips Gallery on view during the months of September and October, 2020. Heatwave includes charcoal drawings, watercolor paintings, projections, and video. Schedule a private viewing with Sandra Phillips and I. You can call or email us for an appointment. Sandra Phillips can be reached at 303-931-2991 or sandraphillipsgallery@hotmail.com and I can be reached at 720-384-6879 or annalouisekaye@gmail.com. Sandra Phillips is very attentive with social distancing requirements/rules, face masks are required, and she creates a safe viewing experience. We are excited to see you there!
Also, I’m hosting an Experimental Watercolor and The Natural World workshop at the Art Student’s League of Denver, September 12-13, 9 AM - 4 PM. This course provides artists of all levels with the opportunity to explore natural subjects through traditional and experimental watercolor painting techniques. You can register for the workshop here.
I’m excited to announce two, upcoming 2020 exhibitions. I am helping to organize and curate Pink Progression: Collaborations at the Arvada Center, on view through November 8, 2020. You can also be a part of this exhibit by participating in our community project, click here for more details. This exhibit incorporates a fusion of narratives through collaborative artwork. This collective process utilizes the power of networks to inspire social change influenced by over a century of suffrage movements. Themes of equality and gender identity are interwoven into mixed media approaches. I am collaborated with the amazing Sarah Wallace Scott who creates print, installation and mixed-media works that address human impact and connection with nature. We are creating an ecofeminist artwork that uses ecological concerns as symbols for societal issues.
New drawing for solo exhibit at Sandra Phillips Gallery.
Charcoal Perch, charcoal on paper, 54 x 34”
Donation to California Fire Foundation
In 2018, California experienced the deadliest wildfires in the state's history. So many families have lost their homes, livelihoods, and loved ones. Prairie Warbler is a watercolor painting that features a reviving habitat after a fire. I created this painting with a message of hope and survival. During a flash sale, Prairie Warbler sold, enabling me to donate all of my profits to the California Fire Foundation, a nonprofit that is distributing emergency funds to fire victims, including prepaid credit cards to help victims buy food, clothing, and shelter.
I also have a solar etching included in a sweepstakes to help Butte County firefighters, for more info click here.
Prairie Warbler, 36 x 25, watercolor on paper, SOLD
Drop-In Drawing at Nicole Anona Banowetz's "The Incubation Effect"
Artist Nicole Anona Banowetz created an immersive insect nursery, The Incubation Effect, at the Denver Art Museum with hand-sewn inflatable sculptures. The installation contains compelling interior and exterior spaces that invite a closer look at her incredibly creative, organic designs. You can create a creature inspired by her installation at the Denver Art Museum and she might use it as inspiration for a new sculpture to be included in the exhibit. For more info on this awesome artist go to http://www.nicolebanowetz.com/. We were so honored when Nicole joined us for our Drop-In session and described her artistic inspirations and process.
Drop-In Drawing at the Denver Art Museum's "Rembrandt: Painter as Printmaker" and "Claes Oldenburg with Coosje van Bruggen: Drawings"
During the months of October and November, Drop-In Drawing visited two major exhibits at the Denver Art Museum. In Rembrandt: Painter as Printmaker we explored the intricate, inked line work that he meticulously and masterfully used to render biblical, portrait, allegory, still life, landscape, and genre subjects. For Claes Oldenburg with Coosje van Bruggen: Drawings we explored loose, gestural mark-making and whimsical subject matter. We also considered what kind of monumental, iconic sculpture we would create if given the opportunity; participants came up with inventive ideas such as a large scale, interactive guitar and a functional bird bath. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen created the Big Sweep, a 31 foot tall dustpan and broom sculpture in front of the museum; their current exhibit features drafts of their large-scale hard sculptures including the Big Sweep.
Collaboration with Mark Basuell
During the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Conceptual Abstractionist Mark Basuell for a Pink Progression exhibit at the Center for Visual Art. Mark’s vivid palette, symbolism, and exceptional compositions have inspired me for years. The challenge of combining our marks became more exciting as we dissolved the boundaries between our artistic processes. Mark's expressionism is combined with my colored pencil rendering of circular shapes. This inset image, sewn onto pastel, presents a doorway into a new layer of space.
Drop-In Drawing at the Denver Art Museum's "New Territory: Landscape Photography Today" exhibit
Drop-In Drawing visited New Territory: Landscape Photography Today, an exhibition that features over 100 photographs. Through charcoal, graphite, watercolor pencils, and pastel we explored organic textures, shapes, and designs. We discovered the ways in which artists stretch the boundaries of traditional landscape to explore current environmental concerns and perceptions.
Drop-In Drawing at the Denver Art Museum's "Eyes On" exhibits
In “Eyes On,” Julie Buffalohead and Shimabuku use the depiction of animals as a vehicle to explore both familiar and unfamiliar narratives related to their personal heritage and the world around them. Buffalohead and Shimbuku inspired us to consider our own personal narratives, and the way in which animals can play a role in those stories. “Eyes On” will be on view through February 2, 2019. For more information check out: https://denverartmuseum.org/eyes-on
Drop-In Drawing at Denver Art Museum's "Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer" exhibit
For Drop-In Drawing we explored the Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer exhibition. Gibson takes inspiration from his Choctaw and Cherokee heritage, pan-Native American culture, alternative subcultures, and autobiographical experiences to explore colonialism and the post-colonial mindest. He works with universal themes of strength, community, love, vulnerability, and survival. We participated in the Denver Art Museum's collection of Instagram photographs #GibsonLikeaHammer and Carleen Brice wrote an article on our session for her blog, "Flex your creative muscles and have fun at Drop-In Drawing."
Drop-In Drawing at the Denver Art Museum's Plaza
We explored mark-making techniques with pen and ink on the Denver Art Museum's plaza. Taking inspiration from surrounding buildings, the Denver Art Museum's Hamilton Building, Beverly Pepper's Denver Monoliths, and other features on the plaza, participants experimented with contour lines, stipple, cross-hatch, scribble, and inventive pattern.
Visit to Green Mountain, Colorado
This mesa on the eastern side of the Front Range rises 6,854-foot (2,089 m) and is located in William Frederick Hayden Park. I hike here every year in June during peak wildflower time to explore the beautiful flora. These blossoms become inspirations for future watercolor paintings and drawings.
Drawn to Figures: Live Drawing Master Class with Anna Kaye and Marian Faustino
Taking inspiration from Drawn to Glamour: Fashion Illustrations by Jim Howard and Degas: A Passion for Perfection, this live drawing master class inspired participants to capture movement while accomplished dancer and artist Marian Faustino performed. We explored various gesture-drawing techniques with a variety of drawing tools. Participants discovered abstract mark-making while capturing Marian Faustino's incredible movements with continuous line, blind contour, and sustained gesture. Participants also had the opportunity to inform/assist in the choreography of Marian Faustino's final dance performance.
Drop-In Drawing at the Denver Art Museum's Western American Art Collection
We explored two centuries of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper at the museum's Western American Art collection. Participants were invited to use watercolor pencils, graphite, and/or charcoal and drew a range of subjects. One of the artists applied surrealism to a clothing display at Jim Howard's fashion illustration exhibition.
Drop-In Drawing at the Denver Art Museum's "Drawn to Glamour" exhibition
We explored local artist Jim Howard's award winning fashion illustrations, showcasing his four decade career. He started with Neiman Marcus in the 1950's through the 1980's, eventually becoming a freelance artist for major department stores and other clientel. His work has been a part of the advertising campaigns of America’s top department stores and cosmetic agencies.
Drop-In Drawing at the Denver Art Museum with Brian Essig-Peppard
For our March session, we explored comic art with Brian Essig-Peppard, an amazing multi-talented artist who works in the industries of tv, comic books, and film. He taught us the basics in comic book making, provided us with inspiring word prompts to get the creative juices flowing, and pre-started a panel to create a collaborative narrative. Many of the participants used the Denver Art Museum's Stampede exhibit to incorporate animals into their humorous narratives. Here are some photos from this fun session with Brian.
