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  ...



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!