Revisiting Georgia O'Keefe Country

Georgia O'Keefe Country
14 x 11 Watercolor

Georgia said of the Perdenal, God told her that if she painted it, she would own it. Her ashes were spread on the Perdenal. After our workshop in New Mexico, Joan and I spent a day at Ghost Ranch taking the history tour, visiting the archeological museum, walking the grounds and labyrinth, and having lunch in their dining room. I first visited this area with Bob in 2011 when we spent a week in Santa Fe. View my previous painting of the Perdenal.

Following advice from Gwen Fox and Stephen Quiller, I did an acrylic underpainting of Azo Yellow on the bottom and Pthalo blue on the top. I then developed this painting in watercolor. I love that you can lift color so easily, which is how I developed the cottonwoods and shrubbery on the butte. For example, I lifted back to the Azo Yellow on the cottonwoods and then added color to give them shape. The color looks a bit less harsh in person than in this photo.

I also received a lovely thank you card from Gwen Fox for attending the workshop and spending some extra personal time with her. She took photos of the painting she deemed our best and made a card with our painting, a photo of the workshop attendees, and a personal message. The workshop was about how to market you art. Gwen is very good at marketing!

Gwen's card to me

The class

Friend Joan is third from left in the back row

I am on the right in the front row.

Experimenting with Acrylic Underpaintings

"Rocky Mountains"
10" x 13" Watercolor

During art group Thursday evening, I decided to try using an acrylic underpainting as Gwen Fox suggested. I also saw Stephen Quiller demo this method on Sunday for SCVWS. He toned his paper with cadmium yellow light and medium, then drew his image on top and painted in watercolor. You can see his work midway through the demo. The nice thing is you can easily lift back to the yellow, which he did on the tree trunks and then used a brilliant orange on them.

 

 

Stephen Quiller mid-demo

I had a half-done painting that was not pleasing me, so I gessoed over it. I could still see shadows of shapes underneath. I decided to just go with those shapes and create my own scene using blues, yellows, orange, and green. Though I don't consider this painting highly successful, I can see that I might like to do more mixing of watermedia.
 

A flyer for an upcoming show

 

"City Girl" available at SVOS

A flyer for my upcoming show. I can never resist a new experience. Proved it recently -- I am in Indochina most of March, but took the opportunity. Sorry -- the flyer does not format properly on the blog. You get the idea.

Silicon Valley Open Studios Preview Exhibit at Ark Art Gallery

My work was selected for the SVOS preview exhibit during First Friday Art Walk. I will be showing both watermedia and torn magazine collage on canvas artworks.

 

       

“November Morning at Byington Winery”                       “City by the Bay”

Santa Crux Mountains                                             20” x 18” torn magazine collage on canvas

20” x 16” framed watercolor

 

April 4th - First Friday Art Reception from 6-9 pm

Join me at the art reception featuring food, live music, and a no-host bar.

April 5-6th - Gallery manned by artists open 11-4

If you can’t make the reception, drop by during the weekend.

Ark Art Gallery

1035 S. 6^th Street

San Jose, CA 95112

 

The main event, Silicon Valley Open Studio, takes place the following month. I will be participating in Open Studios on May 10 and 11 in Mountain View.

 

 

 

 

The Art Roll Continues

 

"In the City by the Bay"

18" x18" magazine collage on canvas

Expect a few more refinements 

 

Seems that I get a lot of art energy from being around other artists. Between my trip to Murphy's for the Artist Getaway and my all-day plein air session with the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society (SCVWS), I can't  stop creating art. Friend Joan had been fascinated by my magazine collage work, done after taking a wonderful workshop from Derek Gores. After Joan left for home, I cropped an image of my granddaughter hanging off a parked cable car in San Francisco on a family visit to California in 2010 when Kelly was 14. Her hair was flying in the strong summer wind and I liked the angle of her head and shoulders.

 

I have been wanting to create this piece for a while. I spent several hours playing with the image and free-hand drawing it on tissue paper. Then I transferred the image to a canvas, using a broad Sharpie to go over the lines that would guide the collage work. You can see it does not require much detail. 

 

The drawing on canvas

 

 

I set myself up in the garage. This work is too messy for my upstairs studio that is just a side extension of my bedroom. Basically I tear lots of magazine pages into bits and apply pieces of them to the canvas with glossy acrylic liquid gel medium. 

 

The first day's work

 

 

I settled on a color scheme of fuschia, white and black, with some related colors for the hair. After a few hours, I had a good beginning. I knew that I wanted the hair to be ambiguous on the right, and darker to indicate some shadow there. Where does the hair end? That's part of the mystery.

 

 

The second day's work

 

I spent the afternoon in the garage tackling the face, always the biggest challenge for me. I know at this point that I will likely eliminate the watch face on her cheek and the lines of her neck are too defined and straight. The beauty of collage is it's easy to change my mind. Gerald Brommer, a famous artist who first taught me to use collage said, "Just keep adding paper until it's so heavy the painting will fall off the wall." I like the ambiguity that's developing. Is that the back of a woman forming some of her hair. Oh, I see a high heel and some flowers in her clothing. There is the San Francisco skyline.... (rescued from the newspaper a month ago as I thought about this collage).

 

 

The third day's work

 

Now that the canvas is covered, I can begin to refine the image. I eliminate the watch face, modify the neck, and put some white flowers on either side of her. Nope -- don't like those gardenias - too regular and fussy for suggesting a sophisticated city.

 

The fourth day's work

 

Gotta get rid of the white flowers. How about a cable car image? Try some black under the city. I don't like the long diagonal that the black creates. 

 

Final day's work

 

Will it help to break up the black a bit? Better, but I still don't like it. Time to revert back to white.

 

 

 

A repeated photo of the finished (?) piece

 

I kept the text, added some white with text, broke the long line at the top of her head, created some ambiguity in her hair on the lighted side, both on the outer and inner edges. Derek Gores would probably tell me that I need to vary the edges more, so this piece will likely change a bit yet as I contemplate how to make this piece more interesting.

 

Meanwhile, I was able to show one collage piece, at an SCVWS exhibit in the spring. The committee was pretty open-minded to include an all-collage piece as the society focuses on watermedia. My watermedia is the acrylic for the glue.  That event got me an invitation to show that piece and one other at the Rengstorf House in Mountain View during the month of August.









Experimental Series

"Poppies on the Fault Line II"

8" x 10" Watermedia

For my third entry into the SCVWS juried show, I chose to paint a second "Poppies on the Fault Line". The first is here and sold at my Silicon Valley Open Studios in 2010. I found when I took the Mike Bailey "Watercolor Beyond the Obvious" ten-week class and did 20 full-sheet paintings that were based on the same subject matter that I definitely have a geometric gene. A Betsy Dillard Stroud workshop I coordinated firmed up some of the fun I can have exploiting that trait. She loves complex surfaces and stamping. The idea here is everywhere that I applied a geometric shape, I changed value or color on the painting, giving the old subject a new twist.

I made a poppy stamp with some extra patterns on it and this is the first time I've used it. See the poppy in the upper right and the patterns on the left. I realized I could paint watercolor on just the part of the stamp I wanted to use, wash it off,  and reuse. Theey were done with watercolor, but the ones of the left were slightly modified with liquid white gesso, hence the watermedia term.

The Third Iteration of "Tango in La Boca"

"Tango in La Boca"

Buenos Aires, Argentina

8" x 10" collage and mixed media

This should do it. I decided to add some of the red into the left wall panel and haze it out using Japanese collage paper -- I really like this particular lacy paper for these purposes. I bought the paper in a packet from Gerald Brommer at his collage workshop.  I have never spent so many hours on such a small painting. It's been a journey. Experimenting is fun, though.

I will submit this piece to our Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society juried show, "Think Large Paint Small." I don't know if it will get selected for the show, of course. We have many fabulous artists in the society. We can enter up to three paintings and I plan to create two more pieces. No side of the framed art can exceed 14 inches. Charlotte Huntley is the juror. Ribbons will be given for first, second, and third place. An artist must be a member to submit paintings, and our membership fee is a most modest $30. There is a fee for submission. Read more about the show here.

If you are seeing this post and have not seen previous iterations, take the links for the first iteration and second iteration.

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.