Orange-haired girl ~ 5 x 7 acrylic study



Have just looked back at a few "recent" posts, and noticed that I have posted only encaustics since October.  I am so enjoying doing encaustics, but, honestly, I haven't stopped doing acrylics or watercolors.  I teach both every week, and certainly paint for the classes!

So, in an effort to get my groove back, I intend to post a mix on a more regular basis again.

Here's a little one I am doing as a part of a "mini-series" of female figures, some dressed, some not, some from life drawing, some figures that couldn't be identified if you tried, from old magazines.  All I am doing is trying to get the gesture and dress them [or not] the way I want.  The hair, face, features, clothes, etc. are all from my imagination. 

I am doing a few of these, all with orange hair, because I love them.  Will post a few others soon.

Under Every Painting There is an Abstract Painting

 

 

Acrylics Texturized Mixed Media ~ 12 x 12 ~ Still Life

 

 

Acrylics ~Texturized Mixed Media ~ Abstract ~ 12 x 12

 

Here's how that paradigm worked for me.  I did the abstract in a workshop and was not really thrilled by it, even though I folloowed the instructions pretty much as the instructor gave them.  For me, it lacks heart or "honesty."  I like absracts and I like trying to abstract [verb] my work sometimes, but this missed the mark a bunch. 

So, over the course of July and August, I have been doing classes I have called Art Camp for Seniors, in which we "played" with paint, gels, mediums collage papers, texturizing "tools," and, of course, buble wrap!  I told the students at each class, to think of these pieces as underpaintings until we arrived at a place where we were happy enough with the results, that they were no longer underpaintings, but "finished" pieces.  This gave everyone permission to let go of their expectations to leave each class with a finished piece, and to loosen up.  It worked very well for most everyone. 

As we neared the end of the series, I chose to do a set-up in my classes of fruit, wine bottles and glasses that they could do, only if they used some of their previously texturized surfaces.  I used the one above, and the results are at the top of this post.  I am pretty pleased with my fruit and bottle on a texturized surface, with the addition of a wine label, also texturized and "patina-ed" with Quin Gold and Quinacridone Burnt Orange.   Along with my students, I am beginning to really believe that a painting is indeed an underpainting until I say it's done!

Away too long ...

As much as I enjoy seeing other artists' blogs updated almost on a daily basis, I am afraid I have been so not able to devote time and attention to my blog.  It's not that I haven't been painting, I have been painting for classes and student demonstrations.  As many of you know, I have been creating calendars from watercolor paintings I have done during each of the past four years.  It might be that I will share those, but not today.

As much as I have loved painting with watercolors, I am so loving painting with acrylics.  I teach both watercolors and acrylics, but I am finding that when I paint just for the fun of it, I am painting more with acrylics than watercolors.  Acrylics continue to make me smile, and I get less stressed out when I am messing about in acrylics.  A couple of recent acrylics [since my last blog entry!] are below.

This photo of my birches painting was taken by my friend, Linda, at the art show where it was sold.  I was in such a rush to get the painting in to the show, that I forogt to take a photo in good light at home.  I used this painting as a demo for acrylics classes using palette knives.  The students loved the lesson and did great work to boot!

This was another acrylic I did to use as my Christmas card.   My son looked at it, and said that it didn't look anything LIKE my granddaughter.  Well, that is really fine, because it was not meant to.  Odd, that he made a negative statement that I interpret as a positive.  It IS sort of a stylized impression of a young girl that might look like my granddaughter with some tweaking.  Anyway, I was happy with the outcome.

Th tulip picker is from a photo I took several years ago during the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley about five minutes from where I live.  When I took the photo, the young man was as shocked as I was to see him.  He smiled, I smiled and I clicked the picture.  I tried to paint it several times as a watercolor, but it always lacked something and never seemed to come together.  During my "playing with knives" period this past fall and winter, I did this totally with palette knives.  I thoroughly enjoyed the process as I always do when playing with knives ...  I am now understanding that it is truly about hte process as much as it is about the outcome. 

Art League North, one of the painting groups I belonged to, liked the outcome as well.  They selected it to be used for the 2011 Tulip Festival Art Bash Show poster.  Am pleased with that, and humbled because there were so many other great paintings in the running.

Well, now that I have caught up somewhat, I am promising myself that I will be more attentive to updating my blog.  It's a discipline as much as anything else, and it makes me accounatable to you and to myself for painting more and sharing more.  

Would love for those of you who are dropping by the blog anonymously, to comment, good or not so good, comments and questions.  You can sign up to receive notificaton of the random and hopefully more often, posts I make.  Would love to hear from you!

Playing with knives

I haven't played with knives for years.  The only classroom experience with them was more than thirty-five years ago in an adult ed oil class.  I remember loving the resulting textures and effects, even though I wasn't sure if I were doing it "right."  I am still not sure if I am doing it right, but I have been fooling around, and, again/still I am intrigued by the texture.  Here are two quick practice attempts.  I like them well enough, but I still have a lot to learn, but isn't that always the case?

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? 

How time flies

It's been more than six weeks since I made an entry.  Although I'd rather be painting [!] I have been busy putting my house on the market, listing other properties, and teaching classes, all of which allow me to paint.

Aside from all of that, I "lost" my blog for a while as a result of email and connectivity issues, but am sort of back on track.  Hopefully, I can get back to making blog entries more regularly because, most of all, it will force me to paint more.

So, here is one of my most recent people paintings. Have been working different and unusual croppings and compositions in my classes, and liked the outcome of this one.

This is a little watercolor I did of Brian when Brian and Judy were sailing with me in the San Juans in 2008 ... on Brian's Birthday and Judy and his anniversary.  A toast to them both!

Below is another one I did of Brian in gouache for an earlier class. I obliterated a bad painting and painted over it with the gouache a la Alex Powers [inspired by lessons in his book, "Painting People in Watercolor"].

Last Class of "Outside the Box" Series

For the last four weeks, I taught a class called "Outside the Box," an extension of an eight-week Figures and Faces series I taught at the local Senior Center.  During the first eight weeks, we learned a few fundamentals of drawing and painting figures in pretty traditional ways.  The students wanted more at the end of the series, so I said we could do another four week course that would have a "what the hell" quality to the lessons, so the students could feel looser and freer with their work. 

The first three weeks, we did some charcoal and wash characters that were free and loose, then some guoache theatrical ladies, then the fantasy, or the person they wished they were, and finally, the fourth week, clowns and circus characters.  As I had few clown references, I chose some from an old Walter Foster/Leon Franks how-to clown painting book from about 1970. I also showed the class a couple of circus people from Shirley Trevena's wonderful "Taking Risks With Watercolours" book.

I must say that I have never enjoyed teaching a class so much!  The students laughed and had the "what the hell" attitude, so they didn't fret and get wrapped around the axle about making a perfect painting.  For each of the pieces, there is a freshness and spontaneity that had been eluded when they were trying so hard to make their figures and faces just right. 

Enjoy the show!  We did!

Testing Slide Show

Am learning how I can make my blog more interesting, so I have uploaded a few images at random as a test. Am hoping to add more slide shows that make more sense later on, but right now, this is a test.