Gwen Fox Workshop in Taos, NM

"Fall at Smith College"
8" x 10" acrylic and watercolor

I just returned from both a college reunion at the University of Vermont and a wonderful art workshop by Gwen Fox in Taos, NM, with art friend Joan. We do an art related vacation every year, so that two East and West Coasters can get together. This was a Master Class with an emphasis on Marketing and refining our art.

I want to work more with acrylic, which I first learned in a couple private lessons from friend/professional artist/teacher, Joyce Barron Leopard. The first day I made several small paintings of the colorful leaves at Smith College in Massachusetts where we met up with granddaughter Jamie. This piece was my favorite of the bunch, combining an underpainting in acrylic leaving some whites, and doing the image in watercolor over the wash.

One of my favorite design elements is shape, and a slide show of our art that Gwen arranged showed two of my collages, one at the beginning and one at the end of my presentation. That was intentional -- Gwen loves my collages which express a strong sense of design. I will apply my expanding knowledge of acrylic in my collage work. Meanwhile, I developed the common theme of shape in the workshop paintings.

Tomorrow I will show you my painting on the following day in which I expressed the characteristics of the Southwest in a semi-abstract acrylic painting.

Edgy

"Redhead"

8" x 10" Mixed Media

Every now and then, I need to take a dive into something different and push myself beyond my comfort zone. The Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society is sponsoring a collage workshop in August by Derek Gores. I plan to sign up for it and as leader of the society, I can go for half price, the idea being that I get a chance to know more artists in our society. I spent some time looking at this young man's work and I just love his collages and his mixed media work. The collages are done entirely of paper, no painting. The mixed media looks like there is gesso involved and line work, and very little color.

So yesterday I bought myself some very heavy gesso and covered over a failed painting on 300 lb. Arches paper. I went back through my life drawings and found some I had done of a favorite model, Christine. She was actually nude in my life drawing, but I preferred a simple dress. After the gesso dried, I painted the background with acrylic paint and liquid gesso. I then did a free-hand drawing on this surface using vine charcoal. It was nice knowing I could paint over the lines if necessary. I stuck with the white, grey, and black palette, with red being the featured color of her hair and lips. I used a dab of blue on Christine's eyes.

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.

SCVWS "Fresh Start" Show At Sunnyvale Art Gallery

Franken Vine

Wurzburg, Germany

"Me and Matisse" hanging in the "Fresh Start" show

Part of one gallery
Works on Paper

Entering one gallery
Works on canvas

I spent about 6 hours at the Sunnyvale Art Gallery, 251 West El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, processing my entries and hanging the show with a small team of dedicated members from the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society. What a spacious and interesting gallery. The Kimm family has a flower shop, coffee house with two spacious sit-down areas, an art store, and 3 large gallery spaces. SCVWS has two of the spaces for the Fresh Start show for the month of March. Serendipity has 3 members of the society doing a private showing next to us in the third Gallery: Karen Wong, Stephanie Lam, and Connie Guidotti. Karen is incoming President and Connie is a member of my critique group. I also know Stephanie slightly from the Betsy Dillard Stroud workshop.

Most fun was Jane Ferguson's delighted reaction to my painting of her, "Me and Matisse." We hung it next to her piece that was featured on the show publicity flyer. Jane is one of the finest artists in our society, so I was pleased that she loved the painting. When she saw the card I made of it in the sale rack, she wanted to buy it. I told her that I would bring her one as small gift. Terri Hill and many others gave me positive feedback on the piece.

Our hanging crew worked from 2 to 7 hanging art for 62 artists, most of whom entered two framed pieces each. We allow watermedia, so acrylic on canvas and collage are accepted into our shows. One of the walls has the watermedia works and it's quite stunning. We were pretty tired when we finished, but very pleased with the results. I am looking forward to our festive reception on March 6 at 6 to 8 p.m.. Ya'all come down, now.

I promised to show you my fourth piece that I placed in the matted, unframed art bins. Franken Vine was painted from a photo I took when Bob and I visited Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium a few years ago. As we traveled, we sample specialty wines that are generally limited to local distribution. Franken wine is made in the Franken region south of Frankfurt along the Main River. We chose to make our first stop Wurzburg, which is not a common tourist stop. While there we visited the old Marionberg fortress. We walked down the hill via paths through the ancient vineyard. The September foliage was colorful and I lay on the ground to take a snapshot. "Franken Vine" is a play on words for Franken wine.

Poppy Experiment Derailed

"California Poppies Sing the Blues"
11" x 14"
Watercolor, gouche, and acrylic

This began as an attempt at a Betsy Dillard Stroud exercise. Not enough planning and here is where I ended up. I tried to tell myself this is a learning experience, but I'm not so sure I learned much, except reinforcing that I need to plan ahead. Back to the drawing board on this rainy and chilly Sunday afternoon.