One Show, One Workshop Down, More To Go

I have been away from the blogosphere, as probably many of you have, busy with spring shows and a Robert Burridge workshop.  The "big" show that has taken so much time was the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley, where the various art organizations show for the full month of April.  A few of the shows are still held in barns, which sort of added to the "ambiance" and nature of the Tulips Festival.  The group I belong to, Art League North, used to do "Art Bash" in barns as well, but we have been showing in in a very civilized venue for the past few years, the second floor of a Valley landmark , the Farmhouse Restaurant.  We don't have to use space heaters or wear long johns to work, but the lighting could be SO much better than it is.  Even so, I was pleased to sell four paintings and a number of cards.  I sold the heron in Stalking at Sunset the first evening at the reception, which pleased me no end!

I also attended a four-day Robert Burridge Workshop at the beginning of April here in the Valley, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was supposed to be Putting the Wow in Watercolors, but IMHO ended up being primarily a workshop that had a half a morning in watercolors, and the rest of the time we painted a great deal with fluid acrylics.  Not a problem for me, but the watercolor purists were sort of taken aback.  In the end, everyone learned a great deal and left with lots of Burridge-like paintings.

To that end, I usually recognize work done in a Burridge workshop, and really like it, but I don't want to show mine, because so much of the student work is the same. Pears, landscapes, figures.  Love 'em, but you can track them back to Robert Burrdige workshops.

So, I will tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed Bob and the workshop, and learned loads from him, and have, and will, integrate those lessons into my own work over time.   Bob, in his workshops and his DVDs, is absolutely wonderful and consistent with his lessons and "Bobisms."  As those of you who have attended his workshops know, Bob starts with warm-ups and doesn't paint from references.  Perfectly wonderful lessons for everyone, no matter what the medium! 

He spoke of the value of journaling, which reinforced, for me, the need to return to journaling, with a focus on my art.  Good kernels of wisdom, and I am benefitting from "morning papers" journaling again.

I am trying to do warm ups pretty much every day before I paint, which producesa mixed bag of results.  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Below are a couple of today's relatively "good ones." 

Am hoping to get back in the groove of keeping my blog up to date, so you may see some more warm ups as I go along.

5" x 7" Acrylic Poppies Warm up #1

5" x 7" Acrylic Poppies Warm Up #2

Jacqui Beck Workshop

Just got home from hosting  two one-day workshops at two of my teaching venues, the Anacortes Senior Center and the Burlington Senior Center, taught by Jacqui Beck [click here].  Not only is she a wonderful painter of intuitive, sometimes whimsical, often symbolic, acrylic and mixed media paintings, she is also a creativity coach, who is generous of spirit aside from being remarkably talented.  The two classes were full, and almost to a person, they want more.  We are hoping to schedule a TWO-day workshop in the area in the early fall, if we can secure a venue.

Last fall, I went to one of Jacqui's one-day workshops in Edmonds, and was taken by the way she approaches her teaching.  She is not a "how-to" instructor, she really does coach the students, and certainly helped me unlock a few of my creative places.  I just knew my painting friends and students would get a great deal from a day spent with Jacqui as I had.  And they did ...

And I got to be a student and particpate both days.  Woo hoo!  I am so pleased with all that I learned, and hope to really punch through again.  Yesterday's work was good, but I'm not loving it yet.  Today's was much better, because I allowed myself to play with absolutely no intentions.

Here it is ...

Sassy Tulips 18" x 18" Acrylics Texturized Underpainting

It's been a while ...

It's been a while since I posted, and I almost feel a little guilty.  But, like the rest of you, I have been slammed with getting ready for holiday shows, prepping for lessons, etc.  My blog just had to take a back seat to all of the rest!  I have missed my blog community.  Even though I haven't been around, I know all of you are here and will be here as I come and go!

I have held a couple of watercolor batik workshops in addition to my five weekly classes at three different Senior Centers in the county.  I have been painting up a storm, batik, watercolors, mixed media and plain old acrylics.  Love it all, but have felt the pressure!  I had to complete several new batiks to make a total of thirteen for my 2012 calendar.  Then, of course, Christmas cards, new projects, etc, etc and so forth!

One great thing I did for myself, well four great things since I have posted, I attended four mini weekend workshops that were wonderful.  Some more wonderful than others.  Funny thing, I didn't finish one painting in any of the workshops, but I was so inspired and really had a rush of creativity as I integrated lessons learned from all of them.  Will try to post a little more often as we near the end of 2011, and show a few pieces that were the result of some of my workshop lessons.

I'll start with a few of my new batiks, as those will be the first to make public viewing the first Friday of December at the Holiday Art Walk in Anacortes, Washington.

This is from a photo taken up at Shucksan in Mount Baker State Park  "December"  8" x 8" watercolor batik

Grapes on the vine from a photo of a friend's grapes on her deck "September" 8" x 8" watercolor batik

Watercolor Batik "November" for my calendar. November is when the snow geese arrive, and, yes, they are here! 8" x 8"

Busy, busy, busy, good stuff all!

Am just winding down from a really busy week, and, well, a busy month.  The past three and a half days [left early to teach a class], I spent in a Carla O'Connor workshop ... have been wanting to go to one of her workshops for several years, and found that she was doing one in La Conner at Dakota Arts this past week.  I couldn't pass it up!  Money was tough, but with gas costing so much, and not having money to fly or book rooms anywhere, it seemed like the right thing to do.  All my angst about money, etc., dissipated the very first morning of the workshop.  Carla is so lovely, funny and engaging, apart from her pure talent and generosity of sharing the work she does.  I intend to do more on the workshop in future blogs, but am so exhausted and want to "do" the workshop justice!

So, the other busy-ness had to do with our month long show ending, and finding out that I sold four paintings.  Am thrilled about that.  Three of the four paintings sold were done with the Dr Ph Martins Hydrus watercolors, which is sort of neat.  The fourth painting to sell was  the Tulip Picker, a palette knife acrylic from a photo I took several years ago, that was the image for the show's poster.  I was pleased to hear that the person who bought the painting is a local with a farm in the Valley.  Apropos, I thought.



Tulips of the Valley sold at ALN Tulip Festival Show



Snowed in and catching up

Well, it's not that there's so much snow, although there is a lot, it's the ice that makes getting off my hill pretty treacherous.  So, I am trying to pay attention to chores having gone undone for a while, and updating my blog.

I haven't written since I went to Myrna Wacknov's Variations Five Day Workshop in Portland [http://www.myrnawacknov.blogspot.com/ ], where, with one image she sent before the workshop, we worked with major elements of design, including shape, size, direction, value, line, color and texture, and relationsips of unity, repetition, donimance, balance, harmony, gradation, etc. [Long sentence, I know, but it tells you a little bit about why the workshop had to be five days!]

Myrna sent us an image of a San Francisco artist named Mike Johnson, who is a very interesting character.  Each day, after Myrna demoed and shared inspiring and creative ideas, we would paint one or two paintings using dominant elements and limited palettes.  Challenging but really liberating in some ways.

We had to roll the dice and a draw slips of paper to determine dominant design elements we were to use, and colors we could use.  My first "roll" and "draw" were Shape dominant with  Direction secondary, and a palette of blue/green and yellow/orange.  What does one do??

Here's one I did just to loosen up and try a "variation" with my Dr Ph Martin Hydrus watercolors.

These watercolors are extremely concentrated and dry permanently.  In all other ways, they act like traditional watercolors.  The fun thing to do with these is to "draw" with the droppers themselves.  The painting of "Big Mike" was done almost exclusively with the droppers, and watercolor crayon.  LOVED the process and am painting/drawing with them more than with traditional watercolors at the moment.



Will be doing a second post today if I can't get outside  ...



Thanks to Nick for my Geishas

I so enjoyed workshop with Nicholas Simmons at Kanuga Watercolors Workshop in Hendersonville, North Carolina, in April, that I wanted to do more.  I've been teaching both watercolors and acrylics at the local Senior Centers, and shared my experience of Nick's workshop with my students.  Nick showed us that these geishas [and his process] could be done in both watercolors and acrylics. Pouring,throwing, masking and layers were involved ...  Sometimes, I forget which medium was used on which painting.  At the workshop, Nick did his demo geisha with fluid acrylics, all while keeping a watercolor-like transparency in his painting.  The point was well taken that indeed acrylics can be transparent.

I did the first geisha here in watercolors only, for my watercolor class, and the second one is done in acrylics, both using Nick's pouring, throwing, masking processes.  I was pleased and surprised at the results of both.  The classes enjoyed doing them, too. 

The third in the series is an attempt to integrate yet another experiement of doing a quick acylic "sketch" of three geisha heads on a piece of scrap while I was preparing for class, and believing it turned out to be kind of fun, I fiddled some more, creating an acrylic background on a gessoed "bad" watercolor painting from my closet.  I attached the sketch to the background, applied a bit of modeling paste around its edges, then stamped and etched in a few spirals in the paste.   When it was dry [it seemed to take forever], I applied some gold fluid acrylic to the "ridges," then went over that with a bit of quinachidone gold and quinachridone burnt orange.

All of it was fun, and I felt as if I were evolving, blending lessons from Nick's workshop, with some ideas of my own.  Isn't that the way? That we learn from extremely talented artists in workshops, classes, books, etc., who share insights, techniques, style, and then integrate what we learn from them into our own creativity and style, then go on to teach and share with others.  Paying it forward, yes? 

Azaleas

I took a photo of one of my clients' azalea bush the other morning, because it was just after a gentle rain, and the sun was shining, causing the raindrops to twinkle on the blossoms.  I love the photo as a photo, but I wanted to paint more the impression of the blossoms than a botanical image [frankly I haven't the patience to do much detail!].  I also wanted to practice with the lizard lick brush I bought for Myrna Wacknov's workshop in Portland [in April].  I haven't mastered the brush yet, but it was fun trying.  Back to the drawing board! 

Workshop Two with Myna Wacknov

Coincidently the timing of the two workshops I attended this month was great in terms of visiting family and painting with terrific artists.  I was in Portland last week for the Oregon Society of Artists [OSA], who sponsored the three-day workshop with Myrna Wacknov [Myrna Wacknov's Blog], whose work has excited me for quite some time.  I have been following her blog, and have seen articles and images about her work in art magazines.  And, I met her at Kanuga where she was taking a workshop from another artist. Myrna is a fabulously creative artist and a lovely forthcoming person to boot.

She uses all sorts of methods, grounds, and styles to create mood, emotion and attraction to her uniqely painted images of people.  As she explained several of her design styles, she said that she "starts with the traditional, then 'plays around.'"  As I am, Myrna is a great believer in artists DRAWING, and not copying.  What's the point? 

The copying we did was a way in which she creates the image she might use, then draws it on tracing paper, and then transfers her DRAWING via a watercolor crayon, to "good" paper. The paper can be a good watercolor paper, or a piece of paper with either diluted matte medium, or gesso, or both, on it, which makes for a tricky start if one hasn't worked that way before!

Myrna also showed us several ways to interpret source material, including using pen, crayon and stamps, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but my favorite is the use of Tyvek "paper" for painting.  LOVE it!  The painting I did on Tyvek was of me, using a high contrast image [tweaked on Photoshop] with fluid acrylics!  Am not too sure of the outcome, but the process was fascinating!

Again, workshop paintings don't always work in terms of "frameable" paintings, but learning the processes are always worth the price of the ticket.    Can't wait to attend Myrna's five-day workshop at OSA in January!

The icing on the cake, literally and figuratively during my Portland visit was to spend the weekend with family to celebrate my granddaughter's sixth  birthday.  I am pretty confident she had a special full weekend with lots of loving and lots of gifts, and I know I had a great time watching her!

Am Back!

After two different workshops and two special visits with family [on both coasts], my batteries are recharged and I'm ready for lots of artmaking and sharing of wonderful lessons learned this past month. [Will post about Myrna Wacknov's workshop later today.]

The first workshop was for five days at the Kanuga Watercolors Workshops, in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where a dozen first class watermedia instructors hold classes in a "campus" setting. What a wealth of talent!

I chose to take Nicholas Simmon's workshop [Nicholas Simmons' Blog], which was watermedia and innovation on steroids. I have fallen in love with fluid acrylics, and learned several ways to work the medium.

I'll say right here, my caveat is that I don't believe any of my best work comes from workshops, but certainly the things I learn from them are life-altering, and truly add to my own art experience. So, I did two pieces in Nick's workshop that are not anything I might hang in a show, but I LOVED what I learned doing them.

For the first piece, we "threw" paint, then sketched a design, integrating some Asian characters loosely based on a few symbols Nicholas shared with us. We masked the characters and other bits of our designs, then poured some more paint. What a hoot! We finished those with a few details and then had the "Great Reveal," removing the masking from the characters to complete the pieces.

Nicholas was very generous in sharing his secrets and process. Lots of hair dryer use and lots of tipping and spraying. Lots of stories and kudos to other artists. I like that about Nicholas and most artists I have met or seen ... very generous with hints and tricks, and gracious about other artists' work.

One of the reasons I chose to take Nicholas' workshop is that he uses Photoshop as a tool in composing and manipulating his work. Although I have been using Photoshop Elements for years, I learned many other ways to use technology in my own art.

For the week at Kanuga, I was a "commuter," because I stayed with my sister, Jodie and her husband, Tom about five miles from the campus. It was the best of all worlds, as I was immersed in art each day, and had lovely visits with Jodie and Tom in the evenings at their lovely home. Jodie and I were able to catch up and paint together as well.

All in all, it was a terrific workshop, and I HOPE I can do it again next year! I have already chosen the instructor I would like to work with!

Another Painting

Just like putting the first dab of color on a clean piece of paper, I hesitated making an entry today, but I was so pleased with the positive feedback I have been getting about my maiden voyage into the Wonderful World of Blogging!  Am excited about learning a new thing, and even more excited about sharing art and thoughts.  Don't know what's next, but so far so good.

Some of you liked "Diane," and asked about the painting.  I did it in a workshop with Ted Nuttall http://www.tednuttall.com/, two summers ago.  Ted's style of teaching and painting [including his signature "sloppy dots"] are first class.  Although his style appears to be effortless and fast, Ted spends a great deal of time drawing his subject [primarily from photographs], so the painting has a good foundation.  

Here is the other painting I started in Ted's class. It is Shannon, my granddaughter, at age four.

When I returned to art classes, I wanted to paint and play with color right way.   You know, immediate graitifcation.  I was told I HAD to take a required basic drawing class, but I got that requirement waived because I could show that I had taken art in high school [hah!] and didn't think I needed drawing.  Well, for two semesters, I took watercolor classes, but then the following semester, there were no classes for me to take, so I signed up for the dreaded drawing class.  Little did I know that that class was to have an almost life-changing effect on me, and on my art.

First Post

Am not sure who, if anyone will be reading this, but I am posting for the first time, just to see how the blog works.  I am feeling a bit shy about "hanging" my art [small "a"] on the site, as there are so many excellent artists' blogs.  I think I will learn my way around the site and get a feel for who puts what on theirs.

It is because of visiting several really great art blogs that I finally broke down to do my own. Learning something new tends to keep a soul humble, and humble I am when it comes to my art.  I am forever seeking new ways to make art, having been a latecomer to the party. 

When I finally post some work, it may lack "unity," because I am trying everything, although as I have tip-toed into the field, I have spent a great deal of time learning what I can do with watercolors.  My intention is to move out of the "student" looking work, i.e., labored, overworked, less inspired and copied realism. 

I like doing work that is "fast and loose," even though I know often the illusion of fast and loose can be a long and disciplined process.

I am continually following the work of more successful and experienced artsts, attending workshops and demonstrations when and where I can.  As a result, I have learned a great deal from several regionally and nationally known contemporary artists.

I also have become an art book and magazine junkie, and soak up what I can from them like a sponge.  All of what I am learning is contributing to who I am becoming as an artist.

As I have moved through my own artistic journey, I have apparently helped a few along the way, as I have become an instructor ... in the Senior Center Circuit!  I so enjoy teaching classes, and, in turn, have learned so much more from my students over the course of this new stage of my journey.

As a late bloomer in the world of art, I intend to not waste much time, but to work hard at improving what I know, learning excting new ways to make art, and have fun in the process.  So here I go, launching this blog as the next part of whatever I am supposed to be doing in the wonderful world of making art.