1ST SLIDE SHOW OKLAHOMA WORKSHOP!

This was the Tyvek demo I did today.  Everyone finished up their painting today.  Some had a chance to do more than one.  For some, this was the first portrait they had ever done, for others this is a continuation of their exploration of portraiture.  As always, a wide range of experience, but everyone tried something new and worked on stretching their skills.  Here is a slide show of their efforts.

GUALALA WORKSHOP FINAL DAY "HEAD & HANDS" DEMO AND SLIDE SHOW

Knowing how to draw and paint hands is critical when painting portraits.  Otherwise you are severely limited in your options.  The last day of the workshop we focus on ways to approach drawing hands and incorporating them into a painting.  This was my demo.  I decided to collage over tyvek since I had never done that before and wanted to see how it would behave.  This was the result.  The slide show is the student work for the day.  Great job!!

We had a wonderful week here in Gualala.  I hope I have the opportunity to come back again to teach.  This is a fabulous community and a charming place to spend some time.  Just south of Point Arena on the Pacific Coast amongst the Redwoods with the Pacific Ocean lapping at the shore.  Ah Paradise!

SELF PORTRAITS STUDENT SLIDE SHOW!

Today we worked on creating self portraits by looking in the mirror as opposed to working from a photograph.  I was impressed with the quality and output today.  This is a fun group of people to work with.  Tonight most of us went out for dinner and great conversation.  Tomorrow is the last day.  I will be sad to say goodbye to everyone.  Hopefully I will be back for another workshop.

DEMO AND SLIDE SHOW FOR EXPRESSIONS! DAY 3 GUALALA WORKSHOP

Today everyone did a bozzetto sheet with various expressions of the same face.  I have a wonderful series of photos I took of Preston Metcalf, the assistant curator of the Triton Museum in Santa Clara, Ca.  He has a wonderfully expressive face and was generous in letting me use these photos however I saw fit.  I like to use them for this exercise because the expressions are genuine, not an actor posing.  I decided to do a sheet based on a children's book, Sesame Street Opposites featuring Zero Mostel mugging his way through the book.  Talk about over acting!!  I also thought it would be instructive to demonstrate adding some collage elements.  This piece doesn't photograph true to how it actually looks.  Another fun day with lots of great student work!

DAY 2 ADVANCED WATERCOLOR PORTRAIT WORKSHOP GUALALA

This is the demo I did for today's demo.  The idea is to change the lighting on the face you are painting.  It takes quite a bit of concentration to translate the light pattern you see on another image and transfer it to the one you have.  The following slide show is the result of lots of great work today.  Everyone grasped the concept and ran with it!

LA CROSSE DAY 3 DEMO: LINE

I have been admiring Norman Laliberte's work lately.  This is my tribute to him.  Torn black paper silhouette and white and black ink with some matalic paper collage.  Everyone is really in the spirit of the workshop and all are having fun.  

BROMMER WORKSHOP DAY 5 : FRAMED!

Day 5 is almost always shorter than the rest of the days.  We were only going to create one painting.  The last design format he talked about was "Shapes within Shapes".  Basically, the idea is to put a border or frame like structure around the painting which serves to contain and organize what is inside.  Often if the painting is busy and feels chaotic, this device makes it work.  The border doesn't have to be continuous.  Sometimes it is more implied.  He showed lots of different examples.  Here is my version and the sample painting  Jerry painted while we worked.  Everyone was very intense in working during this workshop.  Often we kept working through part of the lunch break because and there was very little talking.  We were really "into it!

Jerry spent more time lecturing in the morning than usual, and since he had just juried the awards for the International Society of Acrylic Painters, he talked about the jurying process and some insights about how he selects the winners.  He said the awards reflect only how the juror feels at that moment.  If he juried the show a day later he might pick differently.  Ultimately, he looks for paintings he would like to take home, the ones that touch him in someway, the ones with "content".  It's not just about technique and design. Ultimately, he feels the purpose and value of these shows is to inform, educate and inspire those who come to see it. The awards are not that significant because they are just how one person feels at one moment in time.  At the end of the day, many of us went over to see the show.  The variety of paintings was impressive.  It was fun to look at the different works and "see" the design construct.  Most of my favorites received awards.  Congratulations to all of the entrants.  You are all winners.

A big thank you to Barbara Leites for all her hard work putting on an excellent workshop.

BROMMER WORKSHOP DAY 4: 8 MORE DESIGN STRATEGIES!

Day four of the workshop focused on quite a few more design strategies.  He discussed 8 additional compositional ideas.  After talking about the concept behind the design, he would show us lots of examples using this format.  There was always a wide range of subject matter and styles which was very helpful to understand how one might use this design for their own work.  Some of the examples were rather subtle and Gerald had marked those with black lines to help us see the division of space.  We were expected to produce two paintings and had the option of picking which design schemes we wanted from those that were discussed.

  Since I am not usually an abstract painter, my first choice was the Opposing Forces composition.  I can invision working this into my paintings more than some of he others.  A real challenge for me is to see how I might utilitze each design idea within my work.  I plan to play around with this idea in my sketch book when I get some breathing room. As you will see in the slide show, this was a very popular format.  I was pleased with the final piece.  I discovered some new textural techniques along the way.  I was working over old paintings.  I like how the original color shows up in very subtle ways.  For my second painting, I decided to do a vertical composition because I noticed that I have a tendency to apply collage papers in a vertical manner.  I was working on varying the width, color, and breaking up the space in an interesting way.  Not so sure about the outcome but I sure was having fun.  Here are the results of the rest of the class having so much fun it should be illegal!

SLIDE SHOW FROM PORTLAND WORKSHOP OREGON SOCIETY OF ART

Here is the result of 3 days of hard work by the wonderful group in Portland! Move the computer mouse over the image to see the artist's name. If I have misspelled anyone's name, let me know and I can change it on the slide show very easily. You can also stop the slide show to study any of the paintings by clicking on the middle circle on the lower left of the slide show that has the two parallel lines. We had a lot of fun and I am excited to be asked to return in January to present the "Variations" workshop. I am looking forward to seeing everyone again.

SLIDE SHOW OF KANUGA!

After a few days of recovering from my week at Kanuga, I am off again to Portland for the week.  I am giving a 3 day workshop for the Oregon Art Society on Wednesday through Friday.  It's filled!!  I finally have a slide show of the beautiful grounds of Kanuga in the gorgeous North Carolina mountains.  Tomorrow I will try to make a slide show of the art work created in Mary Alice Braukman's workshop.  Enjoy!!!

MY DEMO AND SLIDE SHOW OF FIRST PAINTINGS FROM WORKSHOP!

I did a quick demo showing how diluted mat medium coated paper works with watercolor.  Struggled with one eye forever!  I don't panic because I know students like to see that these things happen to all of us.  Here is a slide show of all the paintings so far.  I was impressed with how hard everyone work, how willing they were to take chances and do something different and the success they had.  Many had time to do a second painting.  Things get better and better as you try it again.  Once the drawing is established it takes no time to start another painting.

Enjoy the slide show!

FINE TUNED AND READY TO MAT!

I think this is finished, now. You may not be able to see any changes, but it is the little touches here and there that can make the difference. I fixed a few highlights, corrected the shape of the lips, changed the color of the shadow under the nose, softened a dark shadow by the nose and integrated the garment with the rest of the painting. This image is the closest to accurate color of the actual painting, but it seems to be impossible to get it perfectly matched. For my purposes, this is good enough.

Someone suggested a slide show of the steps to this painting and I liked that idea. I hope this inspires you to rework a piece of watercolor paper into something totally different.

2 DOWN, 18 TO GO!

Continuing with my series, here is the final result of today's work. I created a slide show of the steps. I included some details as well. I am really enjoying working in a vertical position. I can see accurately and can step back periodically and take a better look. I also like letting gravity do it's job. I made some changes in this collage. I started with the printed instruction and then drew the image with a fine brush and Venetian Brown Hydrus liquid paint. I was surprised it didn't run and stuck to the surface well. Since I had used undiluted mat medium to stick the paper down, I wasn't sure the watercolor would take. The next step was adding some of the tissue pattern. While I was doing this, the idea of paper dolls popped into my head, so I cut a doll chain from tissue paper and stuck some of those down. I liked how this looked. In the end, you really don't see them. I did do some negative painting around them with the Venetian brown but it all pretty much disappeared in the end. I decided to do an overall wash of diluted gesso to push back the importance of the printed paper. While the paper was still damp, I redrew the lines with a Daniel Smith watercolor stick and then started painting. I think I have found the perfect way of working with these paint sticks. I can draw and paint at the same time. I really loved being able to work this way! The line quality was interesting because it dragged in places that were dry. I could also wet it and blot to lift back if I got too much color on because of the mat medium coated paper. I decided not to use a black line this time. I am happier with the more colorful version. Not much evidence of a grid. I will emphasis that more in future pieces. Overall, I think this was a successful days work.