ALL IN A DAYS WORK...SAN DIEGO WATERCOLOR SOCIETY WORKSHOP

Today is the second day of the Variations Workshop.  I am working with an exciting group of artists.  Everyone is so helpful and friendly. It is a real joy to be here.  Yesterday we worked on creating shapes and changing shapes in the morning.  The afternoon was spent working on value patterns for the morning drawings.  Today we had something to start a painting with.  Everyone made at least two paintings today.  There was amazing creativity exhibited.  We had a little show and tell at the end of the day.  I took photos but I am too tired tonight to make the slide show, so stay tuned for tomorrow night.

Tuesday is the meeting night of the society and I was the program!!  The top painting is my demo for the evening.  It was drawn and painted in less than an hour.  It is a fairly straight forward portrait.  The bottom painting is my demo for the class this morning.  It is a very stylized version of the same gentleman.  I want to do another painting of this image with a few changes,  The second image is painted with acrylic inks.  This is the first time I tried these paints on this particular paper.  It dried very fast, which I liked but the lines feathered quite a bit.  Not sure  why this is happening.  I will have to explore a little more when there is more time.  

Between the end of class and the demo, we made a little trip to a Dick Blick store which was lots of fun. Across the street was a great Italian restaurant where we had an excellent dinner and time to visit a bit.

PHOTOS FROM ISRAEL WORKSHOP

I am back home and now I have to spend a few days reorganizing my art and setting my house in order.  Looks like the mail and dust piled up during my absence.  In the meantime, I have some images to share with you.   Carol Feldman (Drawing Tel Aviv) did a fabulous job of photographing the workshop.  It was wonderful getting to meet her in person and have her in the class.  I'm not sure what I had to teach her, as she is incredibly accomplished.  Carol has all the photos posted in an album on the web.  You can click on the title of this post to see the entire album.  Here is a sequence of one of my demos.  I started on a gessoed surface.  After the painting was part way completed, I let it dry, then applied white tissue collaged over it.  When that was dry, I completed the painting.

DEMOS FROM ISRAELI WORKSHOP

I held a Beginning Watercolor Portrait Workshop in The Artists' House in Tel Aviv.  It is a most unusual building by American standards with exhibition spaces and work spaces tucked in and around in an irregular manner.  It was a bee hive of activity.  There was preparation for over 5 new exhibits this past week with an opening reception on Thursday night.  Over a thousand people came for the reception.  The space I taught in was very crowded but all 15 of the participants eagerly went to work and produced quite a bit of work.  I will be sharing more in the coming days but here are two of the demos I did for the class.  Because of space limitations, I worked on quarter sheets of watercolor paper.  The first painting was created by covering an unpainted sheet of watercolor paper with white tissue paper, glued down with diluted matt medium.  When it was dry, I drew the image with a brush and painted it.  The second image started out as a painting on gesso covered watercolor paper.  I wasn't too happy with the painting, so I added a layer of white tissue with the same glue mixture as above, and let it dry.  I then added paint on top.  

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.  

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER!

I realized I had enough of these daily drawings (see "Drawn to the Mirror" blog) to make a background for my next collage self portrait series.  I cut off the calendar information and laid them out, trying to keep the stronger patterns to the outside edges.  I used double stick removable tape to hold them in place.  It makes an interesting image just this way.

 I started to get nervous about proceeding with my idea.  How would it look?  I would hate to ruin all these drawings if my concept turned out "not so much"!  I am usually impatient and rush ahead, but today I decided to try a smaller version (15 x 15) to see the visual effect before I tackled the large (30" x 30") version.  Glad I did!  First off, I realized I needed to spray the papers with acrylic to keep some of the ink from smearing.  Not all of the drawings were done with permanent ink.  I had forgotten that little detail!

I added tissue paper over the top after collaging the drawings down.  I purposely added a some gesso stamped tissue in a few places to see what the effect would be.  It obscures the drawing too much.  I will leave that out of the large version.

 After the collage paper was dry, I drew an image in ink with a stick.  I didn't think the line was strong enough against the background, so I went over it with the wide Copic marker.

 I finished the painting with acrylic used in a transparent way.  I added some white gesso to recapture some lighter values.  These areas become more opaque but you can still see some of the background influences.

  Final evaluation:  Like the overall idea. I need to be a little more careful in my drawing so it doesn't get so "cartoon" like.  I find the heavy dark line a bit too strong.  I think I can tackle the larger painting with confidence now that I have worked out my strategy.

MEET JACOB!

This is the demo I did from the last workshop when we were working on children.  I chose Jacob because he is my cousin's new grandchild.  This beautiful child was adopted from Ethiopia.  I will be able to meet him in person in March.  In the meantime, this will be the baby gift for his parents.  Jacob looks like he is full of joy and personality.  I hope I did him justice.

In the meantime, I have taken all the thoughtful comments on my last post to heart.  I will set the painting aside for awhile.  I'm not sure what I will do with it.  I appreciate everyone sharing their perspective.  Ultimately, it is always the artist that must make the decisions.  It is helpful for me to know what others see in the image I have created.  I did work on creating some new collage papers today for the next painting.  I made some new stamps and a stencil then used them with gesso on white tissue paper.  Tomorrow I will collage them down and get started painting again.

In the middle of everything, I started working on my taxes.  I should have everything together by the end of the week.  Nothing will make me happier.  Then I don't have to think about it for another year!

PROFILE DEMO PAINTING ON TYVEK FOR SCVWS WORKSHOP

Today everyone worked on profile paintings.  The results were excellent.  It is a smaller group these last two days, so I will be combining the children's paintings with the profiles for a slide show on tomorrow's post.

This was a young man totally engrossed in his laptop computer at the airport.  He has that wonderful quality of young men who have grown tall and lanky but still have some of that awkwardness of  youth.

DEMO PAINTING ON A GESSO SURFACE: WORKSHOP DAY3 SLIDE SHOW!

I demonstrated how to put a texture into the gesso surface this morning.  I painted this image on the paper in the afternoon.  Everyone was working hard at finishing up their first painting after days of drawing!   Here is a slide show of the terrific results.  Notice the interesting compositions everyone came up with.

Answers to questions in yesterday's comments:  If you are interested in painting tissue paper for collage, the best information is found in the Creative Catalyst DVD by Carrie Burns Brown  "Water Media Collage Workshop".  Someone asked if I stretched my watercolor paper before painting.  Not any more! I am in too much of a hurry these days.  I flatten them out after I have finished and don't seem to have a problem.

IT'S FINISHED!

It was a wild weather day here in the SF Bay Area.  High winds and driving rains kept me from going to the critique group I lead, so I spent the day finishing this painting.  It is 30" x 30" which presented it's own set of problems.  The head is at an unusual angle creating foreshortened forms plus drawing the head this size was a new challenge.  I truly had to use all the skills I teach in my workshops carefully observing shapes, checking where things lined up, etc.  Painting in a vertical position helped a lot.  At lease I didn't have a distorted perspective.  All the color was from the Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks.  I like that you can draw with them and I like the intensity and density of the pigment when used in a fully saturated way.  I just held the color stick in one hand and brushed it with a wet brush and applied the color.  They get sticky when wet, so I laid them down on a piece of plastic to dry.  I realized I could use the plastic as a makeshift palette, wetting the patches of paint that came off the wet sticks when I set them down.   I am pleased with the final result of this piece.

This will be the painting I submit to California Watercolor Society rather than the homeless dude in the voting.  The other painting will be submitted to the National Watercolor Society.  Here are some facts to keep in mind if you work like I do in mixed media and like to enter these shows.  Many of the national watercolor societies do not allow collage as part of the painting.  With certain restrictions, CWA does.  So, my latest painting will meet the requirements.  NWS does not allow an entry that has been shown in another national show.  They want to be the first to exhibit a painting!  So, I enter my best work there first.  I am not aware of any other society having that restriction.  It can get to be a juggling act, but I find it rewarding to participate in these excellent shows.  It is always an honor to get in and disappointing when I don't, but considering the limited space they have to hang these shows, it is not a black mark against my work if I don't make the cut.  There are many more excellent paintings entered than can be accepted.

DEMO FOR SANTA CLARA VALLEY WATERCOLOR SOCIETY

This is the painting I did today in my demonstration for the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society. This is a companion piece to the last painting I posted on the blog....the same unknown, unsuspecting model, in profile.  I worked on the background a bit but I think I want to bring it to the same level as the first painting.  I will be conducting  two back-to-back Watercolor Portrait Workshops for SCVWS starting on Friday.  It will be a busy week as I am also conducting a one day texture workshop for a private art group in Oakland, on Tuesday.  If that one is a success, I will probably set up a similar one day workshop  later in the year, open to who ever would like to attend.

The demo today was especially fun because there were so many friends in the audience.  I usually am looking out on a sea of unfamiliar faces.  I had a little more time than usual.  This was finished in 2 hours with a break in the middle.  Actual working time probably somewhere around 1 1/2 hours.  I started with a blank piece of paper and drew directly onto the paper with a blue watercolor brush pen.  Everyone stayed attentive and there were lots of good questions as I worked.  Fortunately, I am able to talk and paint at the same time (most of the time!)

 I would like to thank Mary Paquet and her wonderful team of volunteers who made everything so easy today and who make the workshops run so smoothly.  I am looking forward to the workshops.  It is wonderful to be able to share what you know and always a joy for me to see how everyone improves in their ability to create a likeness.

 There was a lot of picture taking today.  If some of you would send me some of the images, I will create a slide show of the demo for the blog.

SAN DIEGO WOMAN FINISHED!

Here is the finished Tyvek Painting.  I posted a detail so you can see how the watercolor reacts on this exciting paper.  Now, back to my self portrait series.

DECISIONS AND SOLUTIONS!

This painting is one I re-photographed the other day.  It is titled "The Autumn of My Life".  It is on YUPO and utilizes lots of George James' special techniques.  It looks nothing like anything I have ever done but I like it and it was so much fun in the making.  That, in my opinion, is the purpose of my art...to have joy in the act of creation.

Well, when you are in the Autumn of your life, there is no time to waste!  With the help of my son, Bill, who actually understands how all this technology works, we discussed his research into recovering data from a crashed hard drive.  I only  had two companies to work with because it requires a special room with a super clean environment and local, small individuals don't have that set up.  I could go with company "A" who is an authorized agent of the manufacturer of the hard drive (which was only 2 years old and still under limited warrantee i.e. they will replace the hard drive for free but not pay for the recovery....the hard drive was $235.  This authorized agent's cost of recovery $700 up to $2700. OUCH!!!!  If they couldn't salvage anything, no charge.   Recovery company "B" agent of a competing brand of hard drive, equally qualified to do the work, even on my brand, BUT it would void the warrantee by the hard drive manufacturer.  Company "B"'s recovery charge a flat $1500.  No charge if they failed to recover data.  Everything on my computer was backed up except the photos, so that was the only data I was interested in.  I get to see what they recover and then decide if I want it.  No charge if I don't want it even after they did the work.  That relieved me of my biggest concern...paying $1500 for data I still have on my computer!   I reasoned that the odds of the cost being less than $1500 with company "A" were remote and the odds of them being the full $2700 was a real possibility, so I opted for the known quantity and forfeited the warrantee replacement.   Staples Office Supply is handling the whole thing, so we took it there and they will pack it up and ship it off.

Now, I still need a backup system.  A good friend who had this very nightmare situation a few years ago uses a device called a "passport".  It is so cool!  The size of an IPhone, it has a 500GB capacity and uses a USB port connection for $120.  I can get a second one as a backup to the first and store zillions of photographs without using up all the memory in my laptop.  My new Snow Leopard operating system is backing up the computer EVERY HOUR!  It has something called "Time Machine" which allows you to retrieve lost data.  Sadly, it wasn't installed at the time of the big hard drive crash.

I will update this saga when I find out the results of the recovery effort.

I am sharing all this as a cautionary tale.  I hope others take the time to back up their valuable information so they don't have to go through this.  There are businesses that store data for you on the internet for a yearly fee of around $45.  In retrospect, that sounds like a bargain compared with the cost of retrieving lost data, plus there is no guarantee that it is even possible to get it back.  Blank cd's are cheap and a good way to store your photographs.  This is the best new years' resolution you could make.

I FINALLY GOT MY BRUSHES WET!

I was determined to get some painting done today.  With a demo scheduled in a few days, I went looking for an image I could use. I didn't have a lot to choose from but this image was still in the computer.  I think this woman has an interesting face. The image was quite washed out with little contrast or color.  I was able to create some interesting effects with Photoshop Elements.  It was wonderful to get my brushes wet again.  I wasn't able to keep working and finish this piece, but it's good to have something ready to go in the morning.  I started out vertically for the drawing.  I even attempted to paint it in an upright position but with Tyvek the paint just runs off the paper.

2ND BLEACH PAINTING EXPERIMENT

After completing the first bleach painting, I wondered what would happen if I used different dilutions of ink and bleach. That's what this painting is investigating. I let the computer do the hard work and broke the image down into 4 values, printed out the results and used that as my guide. I drew the shapes of the values in with a charcoal pencil and then painted away. This ink is decidedly blue when diluted. I let stage one dry, then went about bleaching out the ink areas. I diluted the bleach about 50/50 and it seemed to work. There was practically no odor, so this is a good discovery. I played around with a little stamping. I can't seem to help myself! I'm not sure if I took too much off or not. Tomorrow I will be sitting at Gallery Concord, so I will take my paints and put the color in. If you are in the area, stop by and say hi.

SCVWS AWARDS CEREMONY

Today was the reception and awards ceremony for the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society's annual show. It was a gorgeous day and there was an excellent turn out of artists, family, friends and patrons of the society.

First off, the committee did an outstanding job. The show is beautifully hung, the refreshment table, festively decorated, was overflowing with delicious treats. Wine was flowing, live music was playing as everyone was greeting old friends and meeting new people. Everything ran smoothly. This organization is fortunate to have such a wealth of active and exceptionally talented volunteers.

I was excited to learn that my painting was awarded 2nd place!!! It is a very high honor. There were so many truly outstanding paintings in this year's show. A very difficult job for the juror. We were fortunate to have such a national figure in the watercolor world, Christopher Schink, take on the task. The show is up for a month, so if you are in the area, be sure and stop by. Everyone gets a chance to be a juror and select their favorite painting in the show. People's Choice will be announced after all the votes are counted. The show is at the Rose Shenson gallery on the grounds of the Triton Museum in Santa Clara.

"KITCHEN SINK" Day at the Stroud workshop!

Well, here is the result of throwing everything at the painting, including the kitchen sink. Betsy's demo painting is below mine. It is spectacular. It is even more special because it is of a good friend, Jane Ferguson. I think I have a better idea how to go about this now that I have gone through the motions. The actual figure got away from me. Her hair and shoe are the best part. I may continue to work on this painting to see if I can resolve the figure better and produce better skin tones. The important part is that I learned a lot of new processes which I can incorporate into my own style of work (what ever that is !)

One of the exciting things we did was make collage paper out of newspaper! We also carved our own stamps. That is something I intend to do more of. Pretty easy with the few simple tools.

Another great week. Art fills my life with such pleasure. I feel very blessed.
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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....