Workshop Monday [Carol Marine, Benalto, Alberta]

As I mentioned last Monday, the first day of our workshop we began with introductions.  What a talented bunch of ladies!  I’ve added the bloggers among them to my list of “Blogs I Follow” on the right side of my blog…  http://cherylsdailyblog.blogspot.com/

Here’s a photo of 4 apples Carol set up for her painting demo…  and her complete painting.  This took her about an hour, what with all our demanding questions [lol].  She’s fast and so fun to watch!

Carol had several teaching points Monday including:

• Boxing up fear…  she even provided a cute little folding box to put it in :).  We reviewed the wonderful benefits of painting small and daily vs big and infrequently…  I’ve experience many that she mentioned – reduced fear of failure, more playful, increased confidence, less emotional involvement.  Try it – really!!!
• Materials – lots of great points from Carol and tips from the other artists including:
• Carol’s medium mix – 2 parts linseed oil, 1 part stand oil, 1 part mineral spirits.  I’ll be trying this out after I’ve used up my current supply of Maimeri’s ecoblend
• using burnt umber [a color I don’t currently own]
• brushes – she needs a new one every month or so
• brush cleaning – she rarely does more than clean with mineral spirits.  Uses Murphy Oil every couple of weeks to clean them.  I LOVE this idea – brush cleaning is a pet peeve
• brush storage tool – PVC pipe and cap makes a good seal and then brushes don’t dry out.  That makes cleaning with soap and water less necessary :-)
• Painting method:
• try painting the most “vulnerable” bits of your painting first.  These are usually areas of color that would be harder to paint later [think orange slices on a blue ground – would get muddy if you did the orange first – so logical]
• Carol paints island first, ocean second.  This just means the background usually goes in after the focal areas. 
• don’t get hung up on painting inside the lines of your drawing, cutting in and/or overlapping the background in places creates some beautiful effects.
• Squint, squint, squint…  in fact we stopped on Friday morning and took a photo of the class watching Carol’s demo SQUINTING.  We had a great laugh over that – it won’t be easy to forget!
• There is no “right way” to paint

Painting Exercise:

Value [light versus dark] is essential.  Carol gave us 30 minutes to set up and paint a little still life that had a dark, medium and light monochromatic pattern.  We used dominant, secondary, and “smidge” values.  The dominant value in my still life set up  [the cup below] was “mid” [takes over half the painting], my secondary value was “dark” [takes up most of the remaining area], and there was just a smidge of “light”. First I wrote down my pattern, then I painted the cup in a neutral color to match the pattern I had noted in my subject.  Good exercise in SEEING.

All week, Carol amazed me with her ability to SEE in every way possible – the value, color, intensity, shape, etc. of both her subject and the painting she was making. More tomorrow!

C’mon In! [12”x9”, acrylic on birch panel]

Vicky loves the water… I used a photo taken July 2009 as the basis for this painting.  In that photo, her left arm was waving around like a cowboy’s so I had to do some adlibbing and decided I didn’t need to do much, just suggest that her arm is behind her.  I think it’s fairly convincing.  I really, really struggled with her facial features, particularly her mouth.  I found myself smiling while doing this painting…  the expression on her face is so cute and she’s a bold little gal.  What fun!

For those of you that paint, I thought I would share a few “in process” photos.  The support is a birch panel [1/4” prepared with GAC100 isolation coat].  You can see the warmth of the natural birch glowing through the painting and it pulls the whole thing together with a “warm day” look.

1.  Drawing and highlights…  Left photo below: I increased the contrast on my photo reference and collaged over her left arm as a test.  Right photo below:  After sketching her features on the panel, I painted the lights in her features and reflection with titanium white. 

   

2.  After glazing some hair [quin gold] and skin tones [yellow/red] as a base, I struggled to find the right colors for her facial shadows. The reflections from the water looked to be blue.  Blue, yellow, and red…  all side by side.  At times she looked like she’d been given a serious beating – bruised!  I persisted with what I saw rather than what I think her skin color should be.  Difficult and patchy!

Again, I found the acrylic paint [both fluid and heavy body Golden] dried very, very quickly.  That left brush strokes and bit’s of paint raised.  In this shot I was still struggling with the shape her mouth and just that one little issue and she looked like…  a blonde Rachel [a cousin].

3.  I’ve darkened the water, puttered a bit with her mouth/chin shape,and darkened highlights in her hair.  I’m happier with her facial expression now.  I mixed up a very light skin tone [zinc white, yellow, and red] with glazing fluid.  I glazed all of her skin with this mixture.  The glazing fluid extends drying time, thus giving me more time to change the color up a bit and time for the brush strokes to flatten out.  I think it worked well to unify all her skin tones!   

Onward to the next painting…  Cheers!

Tissue paper painting

The sky is the limit when it comes to collage paper. One of the interesting things I've done recently (again, in class) involves very thin tissue paper and it makes a really pretty, unique pattern. It's so fragile just a drop of water will dissolve it so care must be taken in preparing it. Finished paper is shown in photo to left.

To get around that problem you can use these steps:
1. Scrunch the tissue and then flatten it out onto a plastic surface but leave some interesting hills and valleys for the paint to run into/out of.

2. Mist with water lightly to help the paint to spread on the tissue.

3. I pre-blended two acrylic colors in squirt bottles - golden fluids indian yellow and quinacridone burnt sienna. I dropped this paint onto the damp paper and misted to increase the paint spread here and there (see photo). Do not move the paint around with a brush or you'll be ripping the paper. It's fragile.

4. Keep some white areas if that's what you need for your collage - don't wet the tissue quite as much and keep some higher scrunch peaks.

5. Leave it alone until completely dry. The back of the paper will be shiny in places as more medium will settle and dry against the plastic.

6. To attach to collage cut the piece to size, apply the medium/glue to the support and lightly, gently press the tissue onto the surface and smooth gently. Once dry I coated it lightly with medium so that it didn't dissolve when I over painted on it.

Enjoy!

Tea Party Monoprint

I worked on this monoprint over the weekend using Yupo for a printing plate. I missed taking a photo of the plate prior to printing because I was in a hurry. This first picture is the Yupo plate after I printed it - not much paint left so I would call the printing process fairly successful.
I began this project with a farm theme in mind. The trees and barn were cut out of drywall mesh and stuck on as a resist. I expected that some paint would seep down into the grid pattern as I applied it with the brayer but the paint mix must have been too dry. The sky started out blue with just a bit of purple but the dioxazine purple is so strong it overpowered the blue. So, I just went with it and played the yellow /purple compliment game. I rolled gamboge on top of the tree area. The dish pattern was done by dampening cotton lace, laying it over the painted yupo, covering with wax paper, brayering over and then lifting the wetted area with a kleenex.
This second picture shows the resulting monoprint. I left myself a decent sized light value area thinking I would do an image transfer there.
Tomorrow's post - how to nearly wreck and [hopefully] rescue a painting from disaster... stay tuned!

Composition 101 - Monday Morning (20"x14")

Monday morning wash hangs in a gentle breeze in this painting I completed yesterday. I wanted to capture some of the sense of home that a scene like this gives me. Think of those wonderfully scented sheets on your Saturday night bed - relaxing isn't it? Anyhow, that's what I was trying to capture in this painting.I took the photo reference for this painting while visiting Matthew and Christina (our son and DIL) where they lived near Finch, Ontario in fall 2006. Something always bugged me about this photo reference so I tucked it away for a time when I could identify what that was... and fix it.
When Sharon asked the class to bring photo reference I grabbed this photo. As I worked through the process Sharon outlined (see below) I identified the issue that I needed to address - the clothes hung straight down from the line and looked HEAVY! What? Most of the time the sheets practically dried in the time it took to hang them on the line where I grew up in Saskatchewan (Eston specifically). Once I figured that out in my sketches I really wanted to paint this scene. I'm mostly satisfied with it as is but now that I see it condensed down to such a small scale I believe I will put one more wash over the front of the house - it should be darker than the side because it's in full shade in this early morning scene.
For those of you that are interested in such stuff, here is the photo reference I used for this painting followed by photos of the steps I took to work out my composition and values. Enjoy!
Photo reference
Composition - Identify interesting shapes both positive and negative







Value Study Thumbnails
Larger Sketch and Value Study for transfer to watercolor painting

Carving

Last year during a creative mixed media section in my art class I bought a lino carving set and a couple of blocks. I carved a small block and used it a couple of times then. Now that I'm doing more mixed media again I wanted to carve a stamp that's unique to me... here's a picture of the materials, tools, and the result. The pattern on a decorative pillow inspired the tulip and curlicue pattern.
I began by drawing the pattern I wanted on the block surface. Then, using the various knives that came in my carving set, I removed the material around the pattern. There must be a set method for carving with these knives but I just went at it intuitively... [why read the instruction manual? takes too long.] I managed to get a reasonably clean imprint area and I tested and adjusted it a few times on the watercolor sheet at the back of this picture. Lots of fun!

Color work...

For homework this week we are matching colors to a photo... I chose to attempt to match skin/hair tones. Wow, what a challenge. First match is to a blonde woman... I did this one directly on the sketchbook paper. As you can see in the first photo, the colors used are more vibrant on the swatches to the left. After attempting this I selected several areas of her skin, numbered them and matched them on watercolor paper where the colors are much more predictable and vibrant.

On the second photo I did the same thing. I thought this fellow's skin tones would be harder to match but I found it much easier. He has such deep tones and I found the colors easier to perceive... See what you think.

Creativity Workshop - Speedy Delivery

Ken Lampard, Sheila Schaetzle, Lindsey Stead, and I met here yesterday to execute our Speedy Delivery paintings. So, here are a few pictures of our day and the resulting paintings:
Lindsey planned, sketched, and painted Cherry in 1 hour. Ken, Sheila, and I had our paintings planned before arriving. We took a few minutes to explain our plans to each other (very helpful). Then at 2pm, we began painting and we cut it off at 3. There were a few shadows and minor things to do (which was okay in the rules - lol). We cleaned up, untaped our paintings and took these photos. I think it's an impressive 4 paintings considering the 1 hour painting rule.
Sheila had a lovely, atmospheric evening seaside painting. Ken chose a lake scape, I chose a backyard bench with a croquet game in progress on the lawn . ALL of us painted much faster than we usually do. This resulted in more wet in wet, puddling, etc.
Although we all began very wet we all found it difficult to maintain that through the hour of painting. This is something that would be worthwhile to do again.
It was fun! I'll submit this to Watercolor Magic for inclusion in their feedback about the event.

The four of us with our "1 hour wonders".
Ken and Sheila discussing the minor details at the end.

Lindsey with her Cherry Painting - lovely!

Black Pots (8"x8")

Stone staircases like these are the norm for old homes in Manitou Springs. I've got a thing for steps and stairs and the bright light and deep shadows on these fascinated me.

I've been thinking about chiaroscuro, the Italian word denoting the contrast between dark and light. Can anyone think of a word in English that means exactly that? No? Interesting concept isn't it? The Italians have been talking about chiaroscuro for ages. Mainly as it relates to art of course. For you Scrabble hounds, chiaroscuro is in my spell checker as a valid "English" word.

Try to imagine these stairs in flat light - no strong shadows, no strong lights... just straight pink rock. If we were to attempt to ascend that shadowless staircase we would have a hard time figuring out where to put our feet. Our eyes are geared to see light and dark and our brain interprets the information so that we can operate our feet, and climb the stairs to the top. Chiaroscuro is vital information for us.

Now, apply chiaroscuro to life. Would we appreciate or even notice a sunny day if we'd never experienced a rainy one? Would we appreciate a beautiful face without the highlights and shadows? Without contrast, our lives are boring, dull, lifeless. This can be applied in all areas of life - physical, emotional, spiritual. The next time I'm having a dull or dark day, I'm going to be thankful that I've got the ability to recognize one from the other. There's really nothing worse than being stuck in the middle... having a "gray day" or pondering a "gray area" of law/politics, morals. I can be thankful for the dark in the past because it contrasts with the light and helps me see. It makes the path clear. Cheers!

The How-to paragraph - The last putzing hour on this painting involved glazing the stair risers darker and warmer or darker and cooler depending on their location. Then I separated the rock wall that the pots sit on from the wall behind. To do this I lightened the staircase wall by scrubbing it with a sponge, then I cooled and darkened the wall of the house (behind the plants) by glazing it with dulled blue to push it back. A bit of dry brushing over the rocks gave them a rough look, a bit of lifting around the pots sharpened them. Then I added a bit of color for the flowers and it's done.

Creativity Workshop - Speedy Delivery - Aug 12 at my house

No painting today... Just a bit of housekeeping and a promise of another painting tomorrow! This message is going out to the folks that will be attending a creativity workshop hosted at my house August 12.

Hi all... I'm sending out this reminder to those of you that have committed to come to my place August 12th to execute your Speedy Delivery painting. Here's the latest:

• There are currently 5 painters coming - Cheryl, Ken, Sheila S, Sheila W, Lindsay. This will be a fun group.
• Ken Lampard challenges us to use a minimum 1/4 sheet of watercolor paper... Good Idea!
• Let's keep it simple and loose with smaller brushes. I challenge us to use a minimum of 1" flat and a large (minimin 16) round.

I suggest the following format for the Aug 12 get together:

• Hour 1 - while we have a coffee/tea, each painter will explain to the others what they have for a composition, review value studies, color scheme, painting plan. I think this will help us all by allowing us to learn from the others and possibly change our plans on the fly if we want to incorporate a new idea. By the end of this discussion, we should have figured out our work areas.
• Hour 2 - Paint... One of the problems with this method is that sometimes it's hard to leave a piece alone... we want to continue beyond the "done" stage. I recommend we get partner up so that we can give eachother feedback as we go.
• Hour 3 - discuss how we feel we did, take a group photo with our paintings, and wrap up.

The online instructions gives us most of the information we need to proceed. To give you a better idea of how you need to prepare I have the magazine which has ALL the instructions on how to plan the painting. The following is quoted from the full text of Kathy Collins' challenge in the Watercolor Artist magazine:

"Step One: Choose a composition. The simplest designs, such as a cruciform pattern or layers of color in varying sizes, usually work best for me and help me to connect large, dark shapes.

Step Two: Sketch a value study with a strong white pattern in contrast to the darkest darks (everything else in the painting will be mid-toned). For maximum impact, the value pattern should be simple and apparent to a viewer across the room.

Step Three: Have big brushes at the ready. I prefer flat 1 1/2 or 2 inch synthetics with a sharp edge. A large brush is a key element in single-session painting because it allows you to cover large areas and connect colors and shapes before the paint dries.

Step Four: Decide on either a war or cool color dominance and limit yourself to no more than four or five colors for unity. For example, if you're using a warm palette, you'll want mainly reds and yellows, but you'll need at least on cool color, such as a blue-green, for contrast.

Step Five: With the big decisions made, you're ready to paint. Starting at the top of the paper, brush in midtone colors and progress downward, laying in foliage or abstract shapes for the background. Next transition from mid-darks to the darkest darks, painting negatively around the centre of interest, such as people boats, houses or still life forms. Change colors every inch or so, using thick but fluid paint to enrich the most intense values around the focal point (were the deepest colors meet the white of the paper).

Step Six: It's critical to avoid having too much water on your brush. Keep the colors intermixing by charging in flowing, wet paint next to the still-wet colors already on the paper. The remainder of the work is done in dark to midtones, leaving some pinpoint whites for interest. Soften some edges to smooth the transitions or to achieve the effect of distance.

Step Seven" Finally, if need, push the values around the focal areas to make brilliant whites pop against an almost-black background. The painting is finished in one session."

See you August 12th!

Fat Fruit On Lace (7" x 5 1/2")

Just a simple painting of simple subjects... fat fruit. A plump plum and two very plump pears. Tomorrow I eat them...

Session 1: After I got the fruit arranged into a pleasing triangle composition I sketched them directly onto my watercolor paper. Since the light was stable I didn't take reference photos - something new for me.

I began on the pears by loosely painting yellows in and around them. Then I dropped in scarlet lake, cobalt blue and bits of violet. I also lifted out the highlights before it dried. On the plum I began with diox violet washed in loosely around the highlights and I immediately dropped in some cobalt blue and some burnt sienna to dull it just a bit. I softened the edges of the highlights and around the stem dent. Then I watched to make sure the soft edges stayed soft as it dried.

Session 2: I darkened and moulded the pears by glazing more warm yellow and dropping in the reds, blues, and burnt sienna... keeping the edges of my whites soft and lifting out some new highlights. The plum... I did the same colors as in session 1 but this time I kept inside the lines. Also, I extended the size of the plum on the bottom and inside.

I decided I wanted to add the lace detailing and it was as simple as negatively painting the holes in the lace and the shadows cast. I think the lace added something to this one

Hope you like it...

Sheep and negatve painting

The painting of the sheep is done... for now. I’ll be tweaking a few things on this painting before I sign it. This is normal for me – most of my paintings are at about 90% done when I park them on the wall or my table. If I knew what I wanted to do it would be simple. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and I’ll know, but probably not. I used to push until I finished TOTALLY – something I learned to do as an accountant. But, I don’t have to do that with paintings. I can let the back of my brain think about this while I do something else. This has been a huge learning for me – it’s true about paintings (for me anyways) and it’s true about life. I’m much more relaxed knowing that everything does not have to be finished today. And it’s a good thing too because sometimes life isn’t predictable, is it?

As I said yesterday, I want to make a bigger version of this painting sometime soon. I’ll take what I’ve learned on this little painting and, I hope, apply it on the larger one. Look for it here over the next weeks.

For those interested in the “how-to” this is what I did today... I painted the backs and rumps of the sheep by painting either the grass or the dark bits of the sheep body behind them. This is called negative painting... There are a few terms that I use in my posts that require definition. “Negative painting” is one of them. And no, it does NOT mean painting with a bad attitude. I had a hard time with this concept (maybe just me?). It’s as simple as this: the leaves on the left are positive and those on the right are negative. I painted the left leaves positively. Those on the right I painted around and I defined them by what I left white. We end up painting around lots of things to make them show up. Today I painted around grass and around sheep. I also dry brushed (dry paint onto dry paper) some grass areas in front of the sheep. And, that’s a wrap... I'll be sure to post the absolute final painting... but now I must get back to trees.

Blue Mountain Pottery and more Sheep WIP

This little painting is 5"x5" and was completed last year. I'm including it here as I'm currently side-lined from my usual painting time and I thought you'd enjoy seeing a painting as a reward for your "click".... This pottery was given to my paternal grandparents by my parents a LONG time ago. About 5 years ago Grandma M gave it back to my folks for one of the grandkids... I'm fortunate to have this tea/coffee set. Of course it reminds me strongly of my grandma who is still living in Fosston, Minnesota at the age of 102. And now... the sheep. As discussed yesterday I reworked the top right section and I like it quite a bit better now. In order to clean off the mess I made yesterday I wet the area I wanted to lift with clear water and then I took my dampened elephant ear sponge and gently agitated the paint until most of it lifted. I did a couple of rinse/repeats and by then I had removed the amount of paint I wanted from the paper. In this case it wasn't necessary (or possible) to lift all the paint... leaving the faint stains provides an underpainting and hasn't detracted from that area (IMO). I let that dry while I had another rest (back trouble, long story).



Later today, I repainted the top right much more loosely than before. Then I had time to round out a few sheep bodies... which has begun to define my centre of interest - the little male with his head upright. I hope to finish this tomorrow... this small painting (~10"x8"), if successful, will be one of the learning steps on the way to a larger painting. I might even try a half sheet (22x15") if I'm feeling brave. This is my first painting of animals... so, we shall see. Ciao!

Work in progress - sheep

Hi all... after several hours reviewing medical records today I came home exhausted. After the obligatory rest on ice I decided I'd better do some art therapy - I needed it! And what a gift it is to putter with photos and sketches until I get an idea for a painting. I enjoy it so much b/c it reminds me that I have just oodles of ideas to explore in the future. For now I'm working on sheep.

I transferred my sketch to watercolor paper & decided to get one round of paint on it today. So you are seeing a WIP here... I based this on a "failed photo" that I took of the bighorn sheep herd that hang out at the head of the Columbia River in Fairmont, BC. I call it a failed photo because only one little sheep had his head raised above the herd - in a photo I want more. but in a painting, especially one for the purpose I have in mind (check later for more info), he's all I need.

I started out with a pinkish wash diagonally from left top to right bottom. As I watched this dry I softened it in places, lifted out some sheep rumps, and put down the first darks for the tree trunk and rocks in the right foreground. Next I (over)did the tree area in the top right - I can see that's going to take some work to fix tomorrow. Finally, I washed in the grassy area and the shrubs on the left and puttered darkening the shrubs. Stay tuned and have a good night!