A new exhibit of fine art is open for viewing now through July 30 at Rancho Cordova City Hall, with the theme “Black and White”. The Artists Reception was held in the opening week of the show, on April 13.

Black and white work lines the walls, the medium varying nearly as much as the subject matter with the vision of each individual artist. Pieces by artist Heather McCray demonstrated graphic pen and ink lines with pencil to add depth. McCray likes fantasy and is drawn to mythical creatures and fairies. She took a class in Zentangle, a method that involves making detailed designs by the use of repetitive line and pattern work. “The idea is that you’re zoning out,” McCray said. “You’re reaching a Zen state with this way of kind of tangling your lines and creating these patterns.” She decided to try combining the sharp, more realistic work with the Zentangle style and showed her results in her three works at the show, titled The Manticore, The Huntress, and Hidden Beauty.

McCray’s interest in art was awakened when she was 6 years old by Mrs. Goldsmith, her art teacher from kindergarten through 8th grade. “We’d suddenly start seeing all these colors, or we’d start seeing shadows, or we’d start seeing other aspects of things,” McCray said. “Her penchant for getting you to open your eyes, and how to see the world, and how to translate that into art, was just phenomenal.”

Robin Moyher’s black and white mosaic in this show also featured Zentangle – in fact, that was its title. Moyher’s commissioned work, Serenity, was unveiled recently at the VA Medical Center at Mather. Other artists in this show have incorporated Zentangle into their work, including Rick Sloan of the Cordova Recreation and Park District Board with his pen and ink art titled, Whimsical Journey.

Ann Greitzer’s three realistic pen and ink portraits brought her into this show for the first time. In fact, she had not been in a show since her art college days. Greitzer said she looked around at what artists were doing now and one of those things was urban sketching: going out into the urban environment with easel or sketchbook and drawing what is there. “What’s even harder than that?” Greitzer asked herself. “To me, what’s harder than that is trying to draw the human figure accurately. It takes years to be able to do.” So that’s what she is working on now.

Greitzer pointed out that a lot of artists prepare to make a living in some other field than art, and return to art later in life. “So I’m kind of getting back into what I used to do when I was a young girl,” Greitzer said. “Then I used to draw every day and I really loved it.” She said she now spends about an hour and a half each day practicing art, working it around her family life and her job at Franklin Templeton.

McCray also produces art around a full life as Assistant Chief Counsel for the Board of Parole Hearings.

The local art community will hold an interactive workshop for artists 7-8:30 p.m., Monday, May 15, at City Hall. Artists are invited to bring a sample of their work – framed, unframed, finished or in progress. Those interested will have an opportunity to personally review and critique their own work as well as to learn the process of small group review and critique. For information contact Lorna Sheveland at [email protected].