DAY 3 PORTLAND WORKSHOP SLIDE SHOW!!!

I had a nice visit from  a blogger friend,   Gary Everest , on Friday.  It is one of the great things about this internet world...an opportunity to make friends you would never meet any other way.  Pen pals with faces and interesting work.  Check out his blog and his work.  This is a very talented individual.  He was immensely flattering.  It's always a surprise to find people think you are famous and intimidating.  I'm just "regular folks".  Stop by if you are in my neighborhood and say "hi".  I would love to meet you, too!   

PORTLAND DEMOS DAY 3: LINE!!! AND A SLIDE SHOW!!!!!

As luck would have it, my draw paired TEXTURE as a secondary element with LINE as the primary element.  These just happen to be my two favorite elements.  Here are my demos for the day.

The first painting is done on YUPO.  I used watercolor crayons, watercolor sticks and Dr. Martin Hydrus liquid water color straight from the dropper full strength.  Then I spritzed and sprayed with water and alcohol.  I am very pleased with the results.  I will work with this idea again!

The second painting was drawn on top of  an old painting that had been collaged with different hand painted tissue papers.  I used a Daniel Smith watercolor stick, a Stabilo watercolor crayon and acrylic inks.   I will be developing this combination of materials more in the coming months.

The class did some exciting work today.  Everyone is very engaged in the process.  I love when everyone gets into the spirit of experimenting and trying new things.  Sometimes what doesn't turn out is the best lesson.

I finally found a new place to create a slide show.  Thank you, Photobucket!!!!  Here are the paintings from day two dealing with shape and texture.

PORTLAND WORKSHOP DEMOS!

Computers can be so darn exasperating!!!!  I have had the worst time trying to connect to the Internet using my host's wifi connection.  Somehow I figured something out tonight because I finally was able to get it to work.  

We just completed day 3 of the workshop.  All 21 participants are having too much fun!  They are embracing the concept and running with it.  I am hoping to be able to create a slide show to share with everyone.  That will be my next tehno challenge!  In the meantime, here are the first two demos I painted on Tuesday.  The first one is showing VALUE as the dominant element. Painted on Tyvek. Everyone, including me, draws a slip with a color combination to work with.  This one was green, violet and orange.  

The second painting has SHAPE as the dominant element with analogous colors of yellow green, green and blue green.  This one was painted on textured gesso.

The group talked me into dealing with texture tomorrow instead of Friday.  Half the group are already texture junkies.  I think I draw them to me.  The rest of the class will be texture converts by the end of the day.  

LA CROSSE WORKSHOP SLIDE SHOW #2

Here are the rest of the paintings I photographed days 3 and 4 from the workshop.  Day five I shared lots of ways to make stamps and create texture.   Everyone spent the rest of the time focusing on making samples for future reference.  Friday is always a challenging day for workshops.  Many need to pack up and get a head start on the weekend.

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.  

SHAPE DEMO FOR LA CROSSE WORKSHOP!

With a roll of the dice, each participant discovered which element of design they would be working with along with Shape.  Can you guess which one I rolled?  This was done on photo paper using analogous colors Blue, Blue Green and Blue Violet.  Here is the slide show of student work.  Be sure and click on the little x in the right hand corner of the box to get rid of the stupid annoying "pet" ad.

VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE...HELP ME DECIDE!

I received the prospectus for the National competition sponsored by California Watercolor Society.  Christopher Schink is going to be the juror.  I was debating which of these two paintings I would send in for my entry.  I thought it might be fun to see what you think would be the stronger of the two entries.  If you would like to express your opinion, you can vote on the poll I created to the right." CWA is one of the few shows that allows collage but it has to be painted material.  All my collage paper is hand painted (no magazine or preprinted material).  If you would like to enter a painting of your own, you can download a prospectus from their website.  www.californiawatercolorwww.californiawatercolor.org 

I was very excited to book a "Variations: One Image, Unlimited Possibilities" workshop for October, 2011 in Hot Springs, Arkansas at the Hot Springs Gallery.  The area is gorgeous and the facility looks wonderful.  Vanessa Segraves has a big line up of great artists this year (including Katharine Cartwright) and I am very privileged to participate next year.  I will be posting it on my website as soon as I get a chance.  In the meantime, you can see more about this wonderful venue by going to : www.hotspringsgallery.com.  I have only 3 more spots available for workshops next year.  If you know of a group looking for a workshop, let them know.

LAST DAY OF WORKSHOP: TEXTURE!

The last day of a workshop is bitter sweet. Texture is my favorite element and I always get a kick out of sharing my ideas and seeing what they come up with. Here is the result. Enjoy this great slide show.

It was a great week and I enjoyed working with this fun group of energetic. Thank you for a wonderful teaching experience. One of the greatest benefits for me is making new friends. I look forward to staying in touch.

DAY 4 VARIATIONS: COLOR

Here is a painting I did as a demo. One of the students put too much red gesso on his paper so I transfered the extra and covered an failed painting that had lots of texture already on it. I finished the painting with oil pastels. Texture to the max!

Day 4 is color and we were working with Faber Birren's 7 forms of color. Lots to wrap your mind around. Everyone jumped in and gave it a try. Light bulbs started to go on and some interesting paintings were developed. The slide show follows.

DAY 3 VARIATIONS WORKSHOP: LINE SLIDE SHOW

Wednesday featured the element of LINE in all its manifestations, including perceived line. You can see texture is sneaking in although Friday is our Texture element day. I think I infect people with the texture virus. Watch out! I'm not sure there is a cure for it. The enthusiasm and comradarie are running high and all are producing great work. Here is a slide show of the paintings from Wednesday.

Tonight was a reception for the opening of the Minnesota Watercolor Society Fall Show. I was honored to be the judge of the show. It is always a difficult task as there were so many good paintings. I had the opportunity to meet the winning artists and make a few comments regarding their winning painting. If you happen to be in the Bloomington, MN. area, make the trip to the gorgeous Bloomington Art Center and check out the show. You get to do a little judging yourself and vote for your favorite piece.

Tomorrow is our last day of the workshop. I will miss this fun energetic group. Can't wait to see what they do with Gesso!

DAY 2 VARIATIONS WORKSHOP SLIDESHOW!

Here are the two demo paintings I painted today. One is on Tyvek and the other is traditional watercolor paper with some aluminum foil shapes, some acrylic medium resist and Dr. Martin's Hydrus liquid watercolor with GAC200 mixed in to adhere to the foil. You can make watercolor acrylic by adding acrylic medium to it.

Everyone was really into the assignments and did some fantastic work (as you can see in the slide show). Not everyone had their paintings at a finished stage, so I will be adding some more to the show tomorrow. Also, I am slow at learning names. I have left some names off for now and probably made a mistake or two assigning names to paintings. I was excited about the work and wanted to show it off tonight, but I will make additions and corrections to the slide show tomorrow. Be sure and check back! In the meantime, sit back and enjoy....

MINNESOTA "VARIATIONS" WORKSHOP DAY 1: SHAPE AND VALUE DRAWINGS

From San Diego, I flew to Minneapolis on Sunday. Today we started "Variations" workshop with 15 enthusiastic participants. Everyone is excited and working hard. I am seeing some great drawings and ideas emerging. Creating shape drawings in various modes fills the morning, then the afternoon is working on various value patterns for these drawings. Tomorrow starts the painting process. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. This is as much fun for me as it is for the workshop students. I will be doing a demo and then everyone will get to work. I will do my best to take some photographs to post tomorrow night.

Here are some variations and value patterns I created from one of my drawings to give you an idea of today's lesson. We are all working from the same image this week. Does she look familiar? I did a few paintings of this image the last few weeks as a warm up for the workshop.

ONE DOWN AND ONE MORE TO GO!

This is almost the last triad I will be doing. One more tomorrow and then on to split primarys. There are two versions of that. I am following Nita Leland's book and using her combinations. The truth is that there are limitless combinations of red, yellow and blue. So far none of these combinations I have tried work for all mixes. If the greens and purples look great, the orange range doesn't and if the orange looks good, the greens are dull. The split primary concept solves these color problems but I am getting ahead of myself.

This is the combination of a cool Yellow, Quin Magenta and Thalo Blue. Hansa Yellow was called for but I didn't have it, so I started to research. I do have Cad Yellow Lemon but I don't like working with Cad colors because I prefer a transparent color. Aureolin was the closest I came, so I used it. After all my research, I think Hansa Yellow Light is my prefered pigment for a lemon yellow color. Dull oranges with this combo because of the Magenta but the violets and greens are gorgeous I rather like this little man.

I spent a few hours roaming around Michael's craft store seeing what ideas I could get. I had it in my head that they had empty bottles with dauber tops.. I could swear I saw them when I was in Thousand Oaks. That is the biggest Michaels I have ever seen and they have lots more "stuff". Anyway, the closest I could find was a bottle filled with stamp ink remover. I will empty the bottle and fill it with a mid value liquid watercolor for fast sketching. I thought I could quickly lay in the mass and then go back with line. We'll see how that idea works out. If anybody knows where I can find empty bottles with this kind of top, let me know.

I bought a few $.99 magnetic picture frames for small 4 x 6 paintings I plan to give as little gifts for the holidays. They had ugly patterns on the frames so I covered them with thick gesso and stamped into them. I will paint them tomorrow. The frame is more trouble than the picture to go in it!

"VARIATIONS" WORKSHOP SCHEDULED FOR SAN DIEGO!

I am excited to report that I am scheduled to do a workshop in Solana Beach, California (San Diego area) at the Studio of Arts and Design the last week in February! The Frenchman series is in preparation for the workshop. We will be using a different face but creating as many "variations" as possible during the week. The space is limited to 15 people max, so if you are interested, contact Rikki at info@StudioofArtandDesign.com

All of my computer memory was used up with too many photos so I spent a few hours transferring images to an auxillary hard drive. I finally cleared enough memory to print a contact sheet of my distorted Frenchman and then made these drawings. I was also viewing the latest CCP Video by John Salminen on Urban Landscapes (lots of great ideas and info) and worked some on my collage painting. The collage painting is looking very "clownish" but I can tinker with it once all the papers are applied. I want to do some additional drawings and then I will have loads of material for painting. If you are working along with me, send in those images. I need a few more for another slide show.