Submitted by Sheridan Rotary Club
The Sheridan Rotary Club welcomed an interesting guest at its last meeting: local Sheridan artist Melinda Spear-Huff.
Spear-Huff has a studio located on Sheridan’s Main Street where she creates most of her paintings, but she is also willing to travel regionally as well as nationally to complete commissions. She does a variety of work, including portraits of people and animals, and she also creates murals of various sizes. In addition, she also offers classes in her studio to those who enjoy drawing and painting. The demand for her works and classes has been steady, so she is a rather busy person.
At her Rotary presentation, she brought a large portrait of Abraham Lincoln she is making for a client. She used the painting to show the Rotarians how she typically brings her works and how she adds the finishing touches to complete the final picture.
She also gave the club members a 10-minute drawing project in which they each created a Sheridan Blackhawk pencil rendering using a variety of shapes. While the final detail was missing, she demonstrated how she breaks her subject into a series of shapes on a sheet of paper and then goes back and fills in the shapes with finer and finer detail.
When asked, she said she tends to see the world around her in shapes rather than whole objects, a technique used by artists ranging from Michelangelo in Rome to Spear-Huff in Sheridan.
It was an entertaining evening for Sheridan Rotarians, and they all got to go home with an art project for the refrigerator door.
About the Sheridan Rotary Club
Sheridan Rotary meets formally on the first and third Tuesday evenings of each month at 6:15 p.m. for dinner and a program. The Club normally meets in the Community Room of the Sheridan Public Library, 103 W. First St., but sometimes do off-site programs.
If you are interested in becoming a Rotarian or would like to come to a meeting, please contact any Sheridan Rotarian or call or email Steve Martin at (765) 513-7457 or shmartin1@comcast.net for further information.