GOOD THINGS DO COME IN THREES!

I received a phone call today telling me that I won 2nd place with this painting in the 2nd Annual Signature American Watercolor Exhibition "World of Watercolor" at the Fallbrook Art Center. It is always an honor to get into a show, much less win an award.  I am hoping to hear which other paintings received awards.  I have never been to Fallbrook but I understand it is a wonderful facility for workshops and classes plus they have several beautiful galleries.  In addition to this show, they also have on exhibit a collection of watercolors by the previous generation of masters known as the  California Style Regionalists from 1920 to 20000

I didn't make it into the Western Federation show, which was a disappointment.  I didn't make it into the American Watercolor Society show, either, but I pretty much figure that as I send in my entry.   It is never a forgone conclusion that your painting will be in the show,  much less receive any extra recognition.  But you lose 100% of the time you don't try.  I got over being devastated not making it into a show the year Chung Kee Chee didn't make the cut either.  

So, what's the 3rd great thing that happened this week?  I FINISHED PREPARING MY TAXES!  Now I can get busy painting.  Nothing feels better than handing over my tax stuff to my accountant.

Tomorrow night is another life drawing session at the Palo Alto Art Center.  Maybe I'll see you there!

SURPRISES!

I flew home from Portland this afternoon and found several wonderful surprises!  First was this tote bag I had custom made by Flashbag.  I didn't know they had sent it already.  This is a practical form of advertising if you have them put your artwork on one of the bags.  It cost extra to have a custom image, but what the heck.  I can't wait to take it out for an airing!

The second wonderful surprise was finding all three of my blogs mentioned on Donna Zagotta's blogsite highlighting 29 blogs to watch this coming year.  She had asked for nominations, so a big "Thank You" to Donna and all of you who mentioned my blogs.  It is such an honor to be singled out.  There are some other terrific blogs on the list, so check it out.

Tomorrow night is another live drawing session at the Palo Alto Art Center, so I will have something new to post to Drawn from Limb to Limb.

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.

BACK TO WORK!

 I am still putting things away after my return from LaCrosse.  The studio is finally looking like I can work out there again.  After a little editing, I will show another slide show from the workshop.  In the meantime, I came across some drawings I had done on tissue paper and a sheet of watercolor paper that ad a layer of colorful collage covering a failed painting.  I decided to collage the drawings on top of the paper leaving a nice colorful border around each one.  I managed to get three of the six images completed.  It felt good to paint again.  I hope to complete the painting tomorrow.

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.

IN THE MEANTIME...

I am frustrated that I don't have time to work on some painting.  I have managed to do some work in my sketchbook but mostly I am doing catch up activities, office tasks and other uninteresting but necessary activities.  I am preparing for a workshop in LaCrosse next week and converting my clip files of examples to a digital presentation.  I am anxious to see if this will be as helpful to the students.  In the meantime, I found this amazing video of Vincent VanGogh's portraits morphing one into the other.  I don't know how to resize it to fit better on the blog, but you can see most of the image and the startling effect! If you double click on the screen, it will open up and you will be able to see the entire image full size.

 One artist. one face and so much difference in each image.  Will the real Vincent please stand up.  It makes me wonder which image comes closest to his actual appearance.  I would love to know how this smooth morphing technique is done.  It would be fun to apply it to my own self portraits.

NOW TO COME UP WITH A TITLE!

 

I am excited about how this experiment turned out!  I learned a lot and had the most fun painting on both sides of the paper.  There are a few things I wished I could correct but it isn't possible.  Overall, I like the image a lot.  This was painted with acrylic inks in a very watercolor like manner.  I was able to do some lifting and changing by brushing rubbing alcohol over the dried ink.  Interesting, I could not lift thinly applied color.  I was able to lift areas of concentrated color.  It was a little tricky painting back in and getting it to blend in.   The background behind the head turned out as I had hoped.  I used clear contact paper as a mask to keep the stamping from overlapping where I didn't want it.  This paper made positioning (and repositioning) the sticky paper very easy and it lifted off when I was done with no problem.  

Coming up with a title for the painting is a fun family game.  So far we have "Contemplating getting accepted into AWS" and "How about this one?" Feel free to jump in with any suggestions.

Painting on this surface was rather slow (for me).  I was constantly having to wait for areas to dry so I could check out how it looked or turn the paper over to work on the other side.  While I was waiting, I started reading a great book, "The Element" by Ken Robinson..  I am always interested in ideas about creativity.  I had seen Sir Ken on U Tube delivering a speach for the TED convention.  He is charming, witty, and entertaining besides being brilliant.   This book talks about all the different kinds of creativity, matching your talents with your passion and how we need a revolution in education so that everyone can find their uniqueness and harness this talent pool for the benefit of our country and outselves.  Now I want every member of my family to read it.  

MASK SKETCHES COMPLETED!

I am satisfied with the mask images.  Can you identify these artistic women icons?  I was able to use my iPad at the Gallery even though there is no WiFi connection.  The 3G feature worked like a charm.  I googled the artists I wanted to honor, find images and enlarge them well enough to work from them.  I hadn't envisioned this benefit when I got the iPad.  For someone as myopic as I am, this is a fabulous feature.  

Perhaps today I will find the time to work on the rest of the compositions so I can start the painting next week.  I am enjoying  revisiting the life stories of these special women.

2nd DRAWING FOR NEW PAINTING!

It is difficult to photograph these drawings as they are graphite on tracing paper and I am not pressing all that hard on much of the drawing.  

I am pleased with this one as I was able to recreate the spirit of the contour drawings that Elizabeth "Grandma" Layton is known for.  They are full of spirit, imagination, intelligence and emotion.  She is a special discovery of an amazing woman with an incredible story. For some people, there are not enough superlatives to describe them.   I had the rare privilege to see a large exhibition of her work in a gallery in Lawrence, Kansas a few years ago.  I was in the right place at the right time!!!   I try to introduce her to many of may classes.  Check her out if she is not known to you.  Take the time to read about her background.  There is an out of print book published on her.  I was able to find it in my local library system.  There is a therapist in the Kansas City Area who worked with Elizabeth's daughter to create a "coloring book" of many of  her drawings as a therapeutic tool.  I have this book.  If you click on the title to this blog post it links to a website where you can purchase this book.  The t-shirts and bag images are of such poor quality that I passed them up but did purchase a poster.

This idea of mine is shaping up.  I can see there is going to be a challenge in scaling all the drawings.  Perhaps the computer can help with that.  

I will be sitting at the Gallery Concord tomorrow.  If you find yourself in the area, I hope you stop by.

UNDER THE WIRE!

Sorry, Gordon, too late.  I already painted over the drawing.  I took this painting to critique this morning and they declared it "finished".  I was thinking of working on the hands a little more but everyone thought  it was okay having a difference of opacity from the face and the hands and arms.  I had hoped to keep the face a little more transparent but things got too dark too fast, so I added white to the colors and that adds opacity.   Now all I have to do is fill out for forms for "Strokes of Genius 3" and submit it.

DRAWING DONE & READY TO PAINT!

I did the tissue paper layer Monday and didn't get around to drawing on the image until today.  My great plans for painting yesterday got waylaid but I did get caught up in my office to a reasonable degree.  Of course, the rest of the house is tragic!  Too bad...........today we draw and paint!!  I am going back into the studio and paint this in a few minutes.  I thought I would post the stages since I am documenting them.

Along the way in sticking to this general idea for a series, I am learning lots of little helpful techniques and adding to my art knowledge bits and pieces at a time.  I love that I make these small discoveries.  Everyday there is something new which keeps life fresh and exciting.  I can't imagine doing the exact same, safe thing over and over.  I am fortunate that I don't have to in order to survive.  If you have a choice, I hope you don't settle for "safe".

THE START OF SOMETHING KNOWN BUT NOT KNOWN!

In the middle of trying to unpack from my Oregon trip, deal with end of the month matters, doctors' appointments and all the other "stuff" that gets in the way of what I really want to do (paint) I started my next 30" x 30" painting in the self portrait, quilt collage series.  I figured that the necessary things of life will get done somehow and if I waited until I had free time, I would never have time to paint. The deadline to enter the next "Stroke of Genius" book is the last day of the month.  I thought this might qualify, so I am madly trying to finish the painting, photograph it and submit the results!  This is the first step, collaging all the squares onto the paper.  I then collaged tissue paper torn in strips over all the drawings (haven't photographed that yet)  Tomorrow I will draw a full size self portrait in ink on top and then add paint.  All these drawings were done on assorted yellow page ads.  I really like the maps and venue seating plans.  I have enough old phone books, I could probably do a background with just that imagery. This painting will be more subtle than the last one as the background material is muted in tone.  I have a general idea in my mind how the layered elements of these collaged pieces will look when finished but it is impossible to know exactly what will happen......and that is where a lot of the fun is.  It's always a revelation.  Each time I do one of these paintings, it generates more ideas for the next one. Right now I have about 5 ideas percolating in the back of my mind.  I keep a notebook to write things down as these thoughts are often fleeting.

IT'S DONE...NO FOOLING!

My critique group acts as my expert eyes.  Often, they see something I missed.  Sometimes their opinions are different from mine and I am not swayed.  Either way, I find it very helpful to know what others see and I value the knowledge at expertise from each of them.  Thursday morning we gather to share the week's efforts.  Right now, I feel this piece is finished.  I am happy I managed to keep much of the transparency of the background pieces.  I was particularly delighted where some of the pattern fell on the face in a serendipitous way (beside the eye and crease down from the nostril)

A WORK IN PROGRESS!

Here is the painting on my easel.  These insulation boards used instead of gatorboard to support the painting are great.  Not only are they cheap, lightweight and easy to cut to whatever size you want, you can also pin into them.  I have some long pins with beaded heads left over from my sewing days.  I unpinned the bottom so the edges are curling in this photo.  

I took a large sheet of tracing paper and placed it over the background and drew my image on.  I surprised myself and got it almost right the first try!  I am getting better at judging space and distance working this large.  All that practice I have been getting.  I made a few small corrections then transferred the image and went over it with ink drawn with my favorite coffee stirrer stick.  I used some white gesso in the highlighted areas.  Now I am building up the color with very diluted fluid acrylic.  I should be able to finish in with an hour or two more painting.

I want to thank those of you who took the time to comment on my last post.  In response, I want to share my thoughts with you.  I put aside the very best drawings without a plan for their future at this time.  The rest I decided to not see them as too precious. I want to focus on the "doing" more than the results.  If I produce enough work, some of it will turn out special, lots will be "okay" and some will be suited to the trash heap.  But all will have engaged my artistic muscle and fulfilled my desire to explore, express and make something with my heart and hand.  For me, that is where the fulfillment is.  I have photographed each drawing as I created them and plan to make a book at the end of the year long project as a way of documenting it.  I also had purchased a second calendar.  I have used a few of these pages when a drawing went particularly bad!  I feel I don't need to keep 365 drawings in tact and I am having fun finding new ways to incorporate them into larger pieces.  I used drawings I was unhappy with for my practice piece, so I was not concerned how that one might turn out.  If anyone has suggestions for other uses for these drawings, please send me a note.

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.

BLEEDING HEART: FINAL VERSION COMPLETED!

I think this painting is finished.  At least I am finished messing with it.  I was surprised I was able to make some major changes, repositioning the eye on the left significantly.  Gesso is magic stuff!  I have posted the finished painting along with the previously published start to show the difference.  I struggled with the eyes on this one.  I don't think they are perfect but are close enough,  I was able to shorten the nose and change the mouth so that all the features seem to work together in a natural way. I also had to enlarge  the dangling hand and lengthen the finger on the supporting hand.  

I do like how the patterned paper comes through in different areas.  I attempted to have a looser feel to the painting by leaving some of the drips.  Overall, I like this painting.  I was ready to cover it up and totally start over, but the encouragement from many of the comments helped me to work through the problems.  I want the next one to be in a much looser style.  I have it planned in my mind's eye.  It will be fun to see how close I get to my intention.

CONTINUING WITH THE SERIES...NEW PAINTING STAGE 1

I was looking forward to getting back into the studio...well maybe not in the studio exactly because it is slightly trashed, so I worked in the dining room to mark the shapes and cut the hand painted collage tissue paper.  I glued it down in the studio (that's the stage shown here)  and then I moved to the kitchen, drew the image on with charcoal and started to paint.  Hopefully, I will be able to work on it tomorrow.  This is the second painting on a sheet 30" x 30".  It's going to be another scary big face!    

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.

UPDATES

Half way finished with this painting in my self portrait collage series.  I  based it on one of my Drawn to the Mirror images.  I start teaching a 5 day workshop tomorrow, rest for 2 days, then do a second 5 day workshop.  I don't know if I will have the energy to work on this after teaching all day, but I am anxious to see how it will look finished.  It is the largest head I have ever attempted.  I finally read my biography of Chuck Close, cover to cover.  I am feeling the influence of large scale heads.  It is fun to work this size.  I have it upright on an easel.  It helps to keep unintentional distortions from creeping in.

I heard about my crashed hard drive.  Good news...the disc was not damaged so they were able to retrieve everything, will put it on a new hard drive and send it back to me.  Bad news....say goodbye to $1500.  I hope all of you are backing your photos up to dvds.  They don't crash!

The American Watercolor Society has posted the names of those who will be in the 2010 show on their website.  Darn, didn't make the cut.  When over 1200 artists submit their very best work it is hard to be one of the 100 who get in.  Something to keep striving for.

Did you notice the insane traffic on this blog this past week?  I was getting over 13,000 hits a day. Seems like the "next blog..." button got stuck for 4 days and a blog by Santana and mine were the only two blogs that came up!  Things are back to normal now but it was a fun ride.  Like winning the blogger lottery!  I sometimes think of the internet like the cosmos.  So many countless specks of light out there.  For four days, all those specks found me...what are the odds of that?