Showing posts with label color. Show all posts
Showing posts with label color. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

More Collage on "Tango in La Boca"


"Tango In La Boca"
9" x 12" Collage and Mixed Media


One of my fellow South Side Art Club artists thought the grey wall on the left was too stark against the highly patterned piece. Penny suggested adding the suggestion of some bricks. Instead, I decided to go back and rework the painting. You can see the original here. I wanted to soften some of the edges of the red of the building as well. Gerald Brommer told us to just keep adding collage paper until the thing got too thick to frame!

I'm still not sure. Might have to darken the section on the left. Thoughts?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Experimenting with Life Drawings


"A Model Woman"
" x 20" Watercolor

I love painting figures and I keep working at improving my drawing skills by attending sessions with live models. In August I led a drawing workshop where Jane Ferguson was the model. I've painted Jane several times before. Jane is a wonderful artist and a super model. Jane just won an award at our Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society Annual Show.

I decided to be playful with some of the sketches, using these three:

2 minute sketch
2 minute sketch
25 minute sketch

I used acrylics and collage. I have not done a lot of collage, but usually I would prefer to use rice papers I painted myself. However, I wanted some pattern so grabbed papers I had on hand. In fact, the right figure is some wrapping paper that I love and came from my son Jeff's family on my birthday presents one year. I used it once before to make thank you cards to the family. You can see them here. I was channeling Matisse on this piece - lots of color, organic shapes, and a pretty woman.

Friday, July 22, 2011

More on the workshop in Provence

"Ochre Quarry at Rest"
Near Roussignon, France

"Nature's Colors"
Ochre Quarry near Roussignon, France


On Wednesday, we left Les Bassacs at 8:30 to travel to the small village of Goult. We had a choice to paint in the cemetary or the village, and Maggie demoed using the interesting shapes of the topiary trees and the monuments to create a shape painting filled with light and shadow.

One topiary tree is visible beside the right-most monument
Cemetery at Goult, France

Most people went out and painted in the village, but Joan and I parked ourselves in the shade in the cemetery. This was my crash and burn morning, and Maggie had to talk me through it! Here is Joan's wonderful painting.

The cemetery in Goult
(c) by Joan Kendall

Joan would tell you this is a departure from her more realistic oils, and Maggie deemed it very successful. That afternoon we could shop in the city of Apt or stay at the village. We chose to stay at the village, rest, read, do laundry, and sketch. About 9 p.m. we adjourned to the studio after dinner where Maggie presented a slide show of works by some of the masters.


Entrance to the village house where David and Liz hosted our workshop

Thursday was a hoot. Kind of like being a hog in hog heaven. Picture 10 artists clambering around an ochre quarry where in past centuries miners dug pigments to make artists' oils and watercolors. The quarry is near Roussignon, a town that is very golden reddish from the rocks used to build the village. Ochre is a yellow/brown/red/purple pigment derived from clay containing mineral oxide. This quarry has been abandoned for some time because much of the paint today is produced chemically, rather than using the natural pigments. The old quarry was a maze of unusual shapes, canyons, and hills, and trees have taken root in places.

Ochre Quarry near Roussignon

We clambered over it. This is one of the reasons I joked about art as an extreme sport. We reveled in it.

Artists selecting a spot to paint.


Marie, Sally, and Michelle join me with expressions of joy

Love those purples

After climbing over the quarry, we set up our easels and began to paint. I had my six colors which did not include ochre or burnt sienna, colors that abounded. No problem; we mixed our own. I strongly considered grabbing some of the dirt and dropping it on my wet surface, but feared I might make a complete mess. The two paintings at the top of this post were done on location at the quarry. The top one was the first one I painted and took a couple hours. The second one I painted in under 30 minutes. The workshop reinforced for me that painting one subject multiple times helped me really know that subject. Subsequent paintings were much easier for me. As a group we took home some very exciting work when David arrived at 12:30 to take us back home for lunch.

Joan and Trish Adams, coordinator and artist extraordinaire, take time out from painting

Trisha Adams was the organizer for this workshop and she did a superb job. She is kind, upbeat, and accommodating. She is also a very successful artist and instructor. I was impressed with the caliber of people who took this workshop from Maggie Siner. Go here to see Trish's art and accomplishments. Trish painted this gem in the quarry.

Ochre Quarry
(c) by Trisha Adams

I leave you at midday as we enjoyed our fabulous meal of the freshest ingredients prepared and served by David, Liz and their capable helper.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

More on the landscape workshop

"Heavenly Light"
Bonnieux, France


Michelle in Bonnieux where Joan and I painted the light and shadows on the church

Each painting session began with a ride in the van to our location. Joan and I fondly dubbed it the Artmobile. Loaded with easels, each painters supplies, and the painters, the Artmobile headed out over the tiny roads of Provence to deliver us to the location where we would paint for several hours. Here are Joan and I ready to board.


On Monday we were challenged with rain, an unusual event in this Meditteranean climate in July. We went to the village of Murs in the morning to paint looking up at the village. The lesson was on how to paint on a gray day. The difference is stunning -- there are no shadows, but there are some indications of light and dark planes. After one false start and some advice from Maggie, I completed this light sketch. At one point we had to secure our easel and paintings and take cover in a stand of trees until the rain lightened up. Maggie is spare with detail and this painting has a bit more than she would have painted.

"Rainy Day Mondays"
Murs, France


Marie from Paris paints the walled city of Murs on a rainy day

With the challenge of rain for the afternoon, Maggie decided to paint either in the studio or on the grounds of our home. She offered to set up a still life, which Joan and I decided to paint. I learned a lot from this little exercise. I was busy carefully using my dowel stick to draw the still life when Maggie came by and told me to stop because the result would look like a coloring book. She said the reason we take drawing lessons is we have the knowledge to branch out. She demoed creating just the negative shapes with her brush and oil paint. I was reminded of Michelangelo saying the figure was in the marble and he just removed the parts that were not the figure. I first protested that I couldn't do this in watercolor, but Maggie insisted I could, and I did. Though this sketch is much too light for a finished piece, it is painterly and I like it. The evening ended late after Maggie gave a lecture on color, just in time for our next day's challenge.

A study of light and shadow on a still life

The following day dawned with bright sunshine so it was off to the walled village of Bonnieux to learn about the color of light and its complementary shadow color. As we watched Maggie do a quick demo of the village portal, it was obvious that the sun would be brutal, so Joan and I selected a shady spot in a park. Here we painted one small portion of the old church. The painting is displayed at the top of this post. Maggie told me this was quite a successful piece. Maggie had us start with an underpainting of light and shadow shapes and then add bits of color to define the textural qualities. I followed her directions using yellow/orange for the light and blue/red for the shadows. I had time to look over the village wall and enjoy the valley filled with lavender fields, so very Provence.

A view of the lavender fields and mountains from Bonnieux

After lunch and a brief rest, we piled into the Artmobile for our journey to Piberny, between the villages of Lacoste and Bonnieux. We would be left her from 3:30 to about 9, with a lovely picnic. David, our host and a superb artist, stayed to paint that afternoon. We stood looking up at Bonnieux on one side and the mountain range that includes Mont Ventoux of Tour de France fame on the other side. We were in vineyards and orchards. I made a failed attempt at painting a large landscape and quit before I finished. Maggie explained that I did not limit the scene enough. Lesson learned! My friend Joan was far more successful, doing a beautiful vista that included the vineyards.

Vineyards
(c) by Joan Kendall

After our lovely picnic in the cherry orchard, everyone spread out to do a painting under fading light. I did a 15-minute sketch of Bonnieux which Maggie really liked and would later include in our show, even though it was not complete. She said you can get away with that with watercolor. We drove back to Les Bassacs in soft evening light.

Bonnieux from Piberny where we painted and had a picnic


A 15 minute sketch of Bonniex from our picnic spot

Saturday, July 16, 2011

A Painter's Journey: "The last for which the first was made..."

"Sunlit Olive Grove"
Near Croagnes, Provence, France


Yesterday I returned home after being on the road for 108 days. Since flying to the East Coast on March 30th, I attended a family wedding on the beach at Hilton Head; completed a solo tandem bicycle tour with Bob from Key West, FL, to Portland, ME; and with artist friend, Joan, attended an art workshop in Provence, France, and visited Ireland. My art is my response to life. This morning I found myself asking, "Why do I travel?" Perhaps because I am the first-born of seven children to Vermont parents, and unlike most in the family, I lived in a half dozen places in several states before the family became firmly anchored in my parents' native Vermont when I was 8 years of age. After my marriage we moved several times, eventually settling in California. The answer to my question: I crave the challenge of getting outside my comfort zone, likely fostered by my earliest life experiences.

My bicycle tour is documented here. Bob and I wrote daily of our adventures and misadventures as we pedalled 52 of the 74 days we were on the road moving at bike speed through the history of this country, learning that which is similar and that which is unique in 2081 miles of riding a fully loaded tandem bicycle. Slowly accents morphed, scenery changed, and good people crossed our paths. I did a bit of sketching in ink and watercolor and surely more will emerge in time.

Day 49: 10 miles south of Woodbridge, VA,
making our way north to Portland, Me, from Key West, FL
Photo by Mike Miller

We arrived in Portland, ME, on June 19th, and it was time to think about that workshop in Provence that I agreed to attend with Joan, the latest in our annual art treks. Joan and I met at a watercolor workshop in Maine nine years ago, and she has long since moved on to painting in oils with great skill. The Maggie Siner workshop would be made up of oil painters and we had to go through a jury process to attend. Would a lone watercolorist be accepted? I realize now that not only did Maggie and Trish, her able administrator, consider our level of accomplishment in art, but also the energy and zest for life we would bring to the group. This would be a very active workshop with no tolerance for whiners.

You can read about Maggie, a tiny dynamo, superb artist, and successful teacher, and her landscape workshop here. Joan and I arrived at Marseille Airport after an overnight flight from JFK via Dublin, arriving in France at 9:30 am on July 2. We were picked up at the airport at noon by David, the owner of the workshop location, and were greeted with fruit, cheese, and wine in the tiny hamlet of Les Bassacs in the Luberon region of Provence at 2 pm. At 4:30 pm we were sitting in the studio for our briefing from Maggie. This would be an intensive art experience and save for one morning while painting in a cemetery in Goult wondering if I would ever successfully incorporate all this wonderful art instruction into my medium, I was on an art high. Over the next several posts, I will describe the workshop experience.

Our home in Les Bassacs, Provence
The website

The painting at the top of this post was done on the final morning in an olive orchard near Croagnes, and I consider it my most successful piece. Maggie's instruction on the planes of recession in the landscape and the color of light and shadow had finally come together for me. Joan and I left the following morning for a delightful five-day stay in Dublin with a terrific sense of accomplishment and memories that would last a lifetime.

Our early morning view of the Luberon Valley
from our patio breakfast table on the morning of departure

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Stephen Quiller Workshop - Day 3

"Jane's Flowers"
Partially completed floral - watercolor and gouache

Stephen Quiller's demo at the 80% stage

Stephen demoed using opaque and translucent passages with transparent watercolor using a triad. He paints in several mediums - watercolor, acrylic, casein, and gouache. He likes how the opaque really makes the transparent passages glow. Some of the blue-purple, the white, and the pale yellow are opaque in his piece done from life. Jane Kwant supplied a gorgeous bouquet from her garden that included my favorite California Poppies. Mine is half done. I will likely have to wait until next week to complete the work a we move on today to acrylics used in a similar fashion to watercolor. He allows the painters to keep working in watercolor if they prefer. I will use acrylics which I have been working with just a bit over the past year.

The color work we have done has been a fabulous experience. In the morning, we created a color wheel for a color family -- in my case based on Cad Yellow Light. We mixed all the intensity ranges of yellow with the other 11 colors on his 12-color palette. Then we did a couple studies using the palette. I have done paintings based on his color families, where all the colors contained the mother color, and they are very harmonious.


Monday, April 26, 2010

Stephen Quiller Workshop and Demo

"Utah Vista 1"
Study in Permanent Orange and Ultramarine Blue


"Utah Vista 2"
Study in Permanent Orange and Ultramarine Blue

San Juan Mountains, Colorado
Stephen Quiller demo on painting using 2 complements

Stephen Quiller explaining his 12 color system

The Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society engages many well-known painters. This week I am taking a workshop from Stephen Quiller on watermedia and color. Stephen has written a half dozen books on this topic. One woman came all the way from Germany to take the workshop!

Yesterday the demo was standing room only, and Stephen gave a wonderful demo and slide show. Today he started with the basics, teaching us to use his 12 color system from which you can mix any combination of paints that you want. This morning we did the equivalent of musical scales (a color wheel with all the intermediate neutralized colors going from pure color to grey for each set of complements, a value scale and abstract study, and an intensity scale from white to black using 2 complements and an abstract study.

This afternoon Stephen demoed creating 2 landscape paintings of the same scene, using the same two colors -- permanent orange and ultramarine blue -- to create entirely different moods. The first painting we were told to use a pure hue of the orange and the blue, with varying color intensities (neutrals and semi-neutrals), and a full value range. The second piece we were told to use the same colors, but use all neutrals and semi-neutrals, and a full range of values. He emphasized how in the first painting the neutralized color makes the pure color sing, and in the second painting, the value contrast around the warmer semi-neutral color created a very luminous quality. I used one of my reference photos taken in Utah on my cross-country cycling trip.

I had a pleasant conversation with the artist over the lunches we brought along for the day in the gardens of the Rosicrucian Museum, a magnificent set of buildings with beautiful grounds located across from the workshop venue. I managed to get most of my preparation done for Silicon Valley Open Studios, so I can really enjoy this workshop.




Friday, February 5, 2010

A Small Poppy Painting

"Poppies on a Cloudy Day"
Fluid Watercolor on Tyvek
5" x 7"

It's been a busy week and not too art productive, though I am currently working another larger piece. So I did a small California Poppy painting on Tyvek using the Dr. Martin Hydrus Liquid Watercolors. They are quite intensely colored and work well on the Tyvek. I used the line design element to enhance the shape.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

California Poppies

"California Poppies on the Fault Line"
14" x 21"
Watercolor on Paper

Today I completed a challenge from Betsy Dillard Stroud's "Painting from the Inside Out." Betsy's instructions were to draw a floral and then draw geometric shapes over it. I used my little Japanese brush pen that holds water in the handle and new gamboge to draw the image. Select a limited palette and start by painting some grays mixed on the paper around the shapes. I used Pthalo Blue, New Gamboge, and Alizarin Crimson.



Alternate warm and cool, light and dark colors.



Unfortunately, I can't quite replicate the colors here. The lower right rectangle looks green here and is more grey on the paper. I thought about how Peggy Stermer-Cox has such a fine sense of design and magnificent use of color in her pieces with strong geometric and organic shapes, the result of many hours of artistic work. Peggy is very inspirational to me. I'm glad I took the progress pictures, because I would like to create another painting and keep the greys light as shown above.

I just saw a powerful painting related to the Haitian earthquakes on Hallie Farber's blog. Check it out along with the comments. I spent time in Haiti in 1985 and was impressed by the strength of the people in an impoverished land. Living in earthquake country, my primal fears are stirred by such events, along with my compassion for the people. While Hallie expresses her emotions so strongly in her piece, I retreat to California Poppies. The fractured look of my painting reflects my thoughts.

Lastly, I want to thank Pam for her mention of my blog on her blog. Pam is very articulate and her art has simplicity, beauty, and depth, along with frequent humor. Come join the fun of following Pam's creative path.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Pastel of Susan in Monday Drawing Class

"My Friend Susan"
12" x 16"
Pastel

Susan is a dear friend that I met through my Monday morning drawing class about three years ago. Today Susan was a little tired and didn't feel like drawing our ice skate still life, so she offered to pose for us. I had fun drawing her, but then I was a bit timid with the color. Bob showed me to use more chroma, and he quickly pulled some color across the planes of the face in a raw sienna for the lights and burnt sienna for the mid-tone values on the face. Who would have thought. So after I got that help I was able to continue developing the piece. Pastel is all so new for me. Great fun with friends!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Yellow Line Exercise

"Big Night Out"
21" x 14"
Acrylic
(c) Mary Paquet

For my birthday, I requested and received from son Jeff's family a book by Betsy Dillard Stroud, "Painting from the Inside Out." In it there are "19 projects and exercises to free your creative spirit. When I asked Betsy in October which book she would recommend I buy first, this is the one she said would push me to experiment. This painting is the result of doing the Yellow Line exercise. I began the painting week before last and finished it up last night.

As instructed I set up a jumble of overlapped objects. The idea is to go for a lot of shapes. So I set up a couple vases, some flowers, a wine bottle, a scarf, a hat, some shoes, and a jewelry box. Betsy says you can incorporate architectural features and landscapes. I mixed up transparent puddles of acrylic paint and drew my still life using a round brush and yellow paint. I had to close off all the lines and show the lines of objects through other objects. The idea is to create a lot of shapes. Then I began filling in the shapes with a variety of transparent washes, changing colors and values. I evaluated and used glazes to unify the composition.

I'm pleased with the results, though I have some self-criticisms. I didn't stay transparent enough in the beginning, so I had to do more opaque painting than I would like to bring out the shapes I wanted to emphasize. I also struggled with achieving variety in a harmonious way. I'm still learning to work with acrylics.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Monday Pears

"Monday Pears"
13" x 10"
Pastel

This was our first drawing class since before Christmas. There were just four of us there, all the more experienced students. The last time we met, we decided with Bob that we would like to do a relatively simple subject under his guidance. Even pears and plates are not so simple, with ellipses, spheres and cylinders with core forms, highlights and mid-tone values. This proved to be a very valuable lesson. Bob got us started and then we continued under his guidance. Every now and then, we would prop up our work and examine them from a distance. Bob would point out areas where we needed to do more work and we would go back to applying pastels.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Paper Art

"Jamie, Stepping Out in Style"

"Bailey and Free" for granddaughter Kelly

"Jeff and Beth, Down on the Farm"

What fun I had making Thank You cards for my son Jeff's family. I managed to eek out some time for art, be it paper art. When I opened my gifts from the family, I fell in love with the black wrapping paper decorated in gold spirals (my favorite shape) and stars. I couldn't just toss it out. I recalled Myrna Wacknov doing some value studies with cut paper, and my instructor, Joyce Barron Leopardo, showed me the wonderfully creative greeting cards she makes when she has some time on an airplane or in front of the TV. Joyce also let me select papers from a wallpaper sample book. I was also inspired by the designs of complex shapes by Peggy Stermer-Cox. And let's not forget Matisse who took paper cutouts to the level of fine art, and happens to be one of my favorite artists.

This morning I drew up my main images without references and later transferred them to tracing paper, taped the traced image onto the wrapping paper, and made paper dolls. I adhered the shapes to card stock and embellished them with other papers and some line. Jamie is a charmer in high school, so I decked her out in high heels, a skirt (which she seldom wears), and a purse under a spiral sun. Joyce's red wallpaper set off the black and gold nicely. Kelly is a newly minted teen who recently lobbied for a replacement dog. Both girls have horses at their small country farm. Thus, young Bailey is enjoying the company of Kelly's black horse, Free, on a carpet of wallpaper grass. Jeff and Beth love their mini Millbrook Farm complete with chickens, horses, a huge garden, birds, cats, a dog, and a lovely red barn. Here they are surveying their kingdom. I added thank you notes inside each card and posted them in the mail.






Monday, December 7, 2009

Pastel Christmas and 20 minute sketches

"Christmas Time in the City"
16" x 13"
Pastel

"Birthday Celebration"
Rosedale Inn, Pacific Grove
6" x 9 " 20-minute sketch
Watercolor


"A Birthday with Wolf Kahn"
Rosedale Inn, Pacific Grove
6" x 9 " 20-minute sketch
Watercolor


We've been out of town and far away from my blog world. I start off today with work done in this morning's drawing class. To be truly done, this piece would need more work, but it's what I could accomplish during class and a half hour this afternoon. This proved to be a very challenging subject - I always struggle with value, and that tissue paper gave us all a run for our money. The center ball is most successful because Bob came over and added a few strokes of pastel to give me that "aha!" experience.

We went off mid-week to Pacific Grove to celebrate my birthday for a few days at the coast. We stayed at the Rosedale Inn, across the street from Asilomar. We walked the grounds at Asilomar and to the beach. If you know this stretch of Monterey Bay, you will recall the wonderful crashing surf on rocks. On my birthday we rode our folding Bike Fridays (travel bicycles) to Carmel by way of 17-mile Drive. I always wonder just where Clint Eastwood lives along there. No matter, the invigorating sunshine and cool ocean breezes made my day.

I received several wonderful art books as gifts from the family. Thus I did lots of reading in front of the fireplace. I also did two twenty-minute sketches inspired by Katharine Cartwright. Kathy is an amazing artist and provides some really wonderful discussions of art literature. Check out her website - her name is a live link. Kathy also started another blog challenging people to create a sketch in twenty minutes. Kathy did this for herself when traveling years ago to develop her technical skill and style. You just sit in your hotel room and sketch something in your medium of choice. You can see some results of her followers.

So at two different times during our mini-vacation, I sat and did a quick watercolor. The second one is especially meaningful to me because it includes the Wolf Kahn book that Bob gave me on the nightstand. I love Wolf Kahn's amazing work in oils and pastels, with his unusual color choices and minimal detail. In this book, the artist has brief vignettes about his travels and the resulting art. Because he now lives both in New York City in the winter and Vermont in the summer, I can really relate to many of the pieces that he painted, especially the Vermont paintings from my tiny home state.

I also received a Betsy Dillard Stroud book, a book on composition, and one on doing portraits. Likely you will see future references to them on this blog. My art library continues to grow.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Experimental Acrylics

" Plymouth Covered Bridge"
New Hampshire
7" x 5" acrylic

"A Rose Is a Rose"
7" x 5" acrylic

" Sunset over Long Lake"
Adirondacks, New York
7" x 5" acrylic

After my two private lessons on acrylic, I wanted to try some different genres with acrylic. Using the paints we had left over after the lessons (they kept well on styrofoam trays in a plastic ziplock bag), I did these three small studies.

The first and third are memories of our cross-USA tandem trip in 2008. We saw the covered bridge just three days before we completed the trip in Portland, Maine. As I am a native New Englander, these old relics are dear to my heart. The Long Lake picture was taken from a boat after we were treated to dinner with an extended family by people we met on the street. One of those great experiences that we will never forget. The roses are done from memory.

In each, I tried to get passages of transparent, translucent, and opaque paint. Some I succeeded in my goal better than others. The roses have a lot of opaque and translucent paint. The bridge piece has quite a bit of transparent and some translucent (far mountain) and opaque (green trees). The lake started with transparent rose washes that show through the translucent and opaque paint.