A HAND PAINTED CARD FROM MY SISTER

This is the beautiful card my sister in Israel sent me for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. It arrived by e-mail so I don't have it in my physical possession but I wanted to share it with everyone. Harriet is the one who got me back to painting. She is also the reason I am working in watercolor. We took a workshop together in Cape Cod and I bought all these tubes of watercolor. The rest is history. We have shared a love of art our entire lives. Here is a photo of us painting inside the entrance to our apartment in this little town Porceno in Umbria, Italy. We have painted together in Israel and France as well as Ashland, Oregon; Taos, New Mexico and of course, Province town, Massachusetts. Next spring we are planning a trip to Spain. Since we live a half a world away, it is a wonderful way to spend time together when we get the chance. Now with our Skype connection we can talk to each other for free through our computers and actually see each other. It's the next best thing to being in the same room.

DRAWING MARATHON TODAY!

Today I was able to go the the quarterly drawing marathon in Palo Alto and stayed for both sessions. It took a little trial and error but I finally figured out a combination of inks and pens, brush strokes and marks that gave me results I liked. I am posting my two favorite drawings from today and the rest that I liked are in the slide show. I was using India Ink with a brush, walnut ink with a brush and the Elegant Writer black pen and then a permanent fine point uniball pen. I took the phone book, my new pad of YUPO and a Watercolor travel book that I wasn't too fond of the paper quality. It was perfect for the materials I worked with today. The morning session had my two favorite models. In the afternoon, I switched to the long pose but didn't have an interesting vantage point so I started drawing the other artists around the model a la Charles Reid. That was fun. I was so happy life didn't interfere with art today.

STOP THE PASSAGE OF THE ORPHAN WORKS BILL!

Here is a message that the Senate has passed the Orphan Works Bill. I followed the easy steps listed below to send a message to my congress person. You don't even need to know who that is. You put in your address and the proper person is sent the letter. Just click on the title of this blog and it will take you to the link. We artists have to band together. This bill is a very bad piece of legislation for us.


FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: Risking Our Nation's Copyright Wealth

The Senate has just passed their version of the Orphan Works Bill

Now we must try to stop the House Judiciary Committee from folding their bill and adopting the Senate version.

We've supplied a special letter for this purpose.

PLEASE EMAIL CONGRESS TONIGHT.

USE THIS LINK
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

-Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
__________________________________________________


For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 70 organizations are united in opposing this bill in its current form. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

The Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public. Sample letters have been provided. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

THE MAGIC BLUE FOAM!

Yesterday the weather was gorgeous and my two friends and I had a date to go see the Frida Kahlo exhibit in San Francisco. We drove to the subway station and took BART into the City, had lunch at the Nordstrom complex (can't remember what they call the new expanded shopping center, I just know how to get there!) and then we walked a few blocks to The Museum of Modern Art...and read the sign that said "Closed on Wednesday" AAAARGH! You would have thought at least one of us would have checked this little detail. The Museum Store was open and doing a brisk business with all of the other clueless folks who came to see the show. Naturally, we did a little shopping. I controlled myself and only bought one big book and one little one. With no car, I had to carry everything for a few hours. By the time I got home, the day was gone and no painting.


Today, I had critique group in the morning, then a trip to the art supply store and then a hair cut and then to the shoe store to check out the tread on the exercise shoes. I found some fun stuff at the art supply store, one being a flexible masking tape about 1/8" thin that can create curves. I'm going to try that on my next painting. I also bought a small pad of YUPO to try things out on before I work on the large sheets. Again, not enough time to paint but I did do a little experimenting after dinner.


I got this idea in my head that all the exercise shoes have different patterns of tread on the bottom and that some of them would make good stamps. I have these neat little magic blue foam rectangles called PenScore Magic Stamp Moldable Foam. (That is what you Google to find a supplier). You heat the surface with a hair dryer or, better yet, a heat gun (for stripping paint) and then press it into any surface that will give an impression. If you want to "erase" your impression, just reheat it and start over.



Here are my little experiments I did this evening with a photo of one of the foam blocks with the impression. I used my new YUPO pad. I know they work with stamp ink, so tonight I tried brushing some watercolor over the block and stamping it. Them I wanted to see if Caran d'ache watercolor crayon would work. The turquoise and yellow green are from the crayon. It worked better than I thought. I am very excited about the patterns. I have a few blocks left, so I will return the 3 pairs of shoes and get a few more to work with. It doesn't harm the shoe in the least. The bigger the shoe, the more area to print.

FRENCHMAN: LINE AS COLOR #1

This one was a lot of fun to create. I used my drawing from the "wire sculpture" challenge. I created a few value studies since I just completed a workshop where that was the emphasis. I really didn't know how to approach all the color so I just started making colored lines. I knew I wanted the background dark and a contrast in value with the outside edge. I used Caran d'ache for the colored lines and then used the Hydrus Liquid watercolors. This one is on Tyvek. The paint did a surprising thing. It appears it slipped under the resist crayon line and seeped into the next area in a very interesting way. The paint went through the paper on this sheet. It normally doesn't. I like the effect but I'm not sure I could recreate it again.

This marks the FIRST ANNIVERSARY of my blog! I can't believe it has been a whole year. I want to thank all of you who have followed along and helped to make it a big success.

UPDATE ON AWS CONTROVERY

The American Watercolor Society has posted a statement on their website. There is a very thoughtful commentary on the statement and the situation by Katherine Tyrrell on her blog. By clicking on the title of this post, you will reach her blog. If you follow some of the threads, there is mentioned a place to learn about the legal ins and outs of using other material, etc. I think we all need to learn this information, especially myself. I think I am skating on thin ice photographing strangers. I need to check it out.

I'm sure you all understand that the excercises you are doing from the Frenchman photo are ineligible for competitions because it is my original photo. I am sharing it only for the purposes of learning.

While going through a few of her postings I found a very interesting artist who has been creating large portraits of controversial political and financial figures with a 'LINE AS TEXTURE" look (squiggly paint lines and drips) and then takes these paintings to a public place and has people write comments on the subject in the negative space around the head. Considering the dramatic events on Wall Street this week, this is a timely marriage of art and history in the making. He has auctioned these paintings off for major dollars. The blog address is below. Be sure and click on the individual images to read what people have written. What an interesting and creative concept. Wish I had thought of it! Darn, another great idea already taken by someone else.
http://www.theannotatedfuld.blogspot.com/

NEW LINE CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK!

The challenge for the coming week is to create a painting of THE FRENCHMAN using LINE AS A DOMINANT ELEMENT WITH THE EMPHASIS ON A COLORFUL LINE. This version of Vern has colorful line work done with torn paper. It's one of my favorites but, unfortunately, I didn't realize the paper (cheap colored tissue) will fade! Now I paint my own colored papers with light fast acrylic paint. I guess I should have a giclee made of this painting to preserve the image. Live and learn.

I am providing some additional examples of other artists who have done some fabulous work with colored line. These examples are to stimulate your thinking and come up with your own ideas. Wayne Thiebaud is the first artist that comes to mind with a shimmering color halo around his objects. Van Gogh's work can be considered texture and colored line.

I'm itching to get started!