Birthday Post--More paintings from workshop

My most favorite vacation and gift is a great workshop week with a favorite artist. So even though my bday is today, I received my gift two weeks ago at Spring Maid Beach and the workshop with Skip Lawrence. So today, you get the present of another posting of the continuing  results of my workshop.

Early in the workshop I decided to paint in an abstract manner. Not in imitation of Skip's style, which is totally his own developed over many years of experience but in my own style of painting developed over only a very short career of painting. I love texture and added tissue to the paper with gel medium before I started the painting. Another layer of texture was added with watercolor crayons after the painting was dried . Some of the darker passages were too dark. Skip suggested adding scribbles of color over the top of the too dark color to bring  light into the dark hole behind the tree shape. I found that I really like using the crayons and have them on my wish list at Cheap Joe's. Waiting for a good sale. They are not cheap. ;-)

This is a close up showing the texture in the tree and leaves in front of the tree.

--NEXT--

This final painting of the week turned out to be totally different from everything I had done during the previous days. I wanted to try Skip's technique of painting with watercolor paints without adding much water at all. Not much texture. I used a photo from my Ireland trip for inspiration. It turned out to be  one of those tricky paintings that you can look at in two ways like the face and vase drawings. Some people see this as an interior of a room. It never occurred to me to look at it that way. I  painted it seeing  a group of out buildings on a farm in Ireland. I have to blink and change my perception to see it as an interior.

It is watercolor on paper, 14x14. I will mount it on a deep sided canvas to make it appear more substantial. Unfortunately the photo does not do the painting justice. There is a subtly that shows in person and makes the painting more interesting.

Thanks for reading again. Now it is time to get to work down in the studio.

Hugs, for today.

Skip Lawrence Workshop: Evaluation? Great!

The Happy Crowd -- Skip Lawrence's Painting Class, Spring Maid Beach March 2011

Dan and I returned from our trip to Spring Maid Beach and my workshop with Skip Lawrence last Wednesday. What a great week. It was full of painting and learning and lots of laughter. The workshop was not a "how to" but more of  a "why paint" and "then get to painting" workshop. The workshop did not have a regular description printed or posted anywhere and this disturbed some of the participants. We all like predictability and this workshop turned out to be unpredictable.

When asked what we would be doing in the workshop, Skip said "This is a PAINTING WORKSHOP." We will work on finding our own voice. Yikes! I said, I have nothing interesting to say. I am such a mellow person, no drama in me! How can I find something interesting to say? While I am still working on the interesting bit but I did have fun painting the way I wanted to and did not have to learn another artist's technique or tricks of the trade. Read Skip's last blog entry  and you will get a good idea of what he told us through the week. There was lots of good advice from Skip for each of the participants every day and lots of laughter too.

Skip and Margie at the final show on Friday night.

As Skip writes, "Proceed from a place of no fear.  Take every chance, listen to your intuitive voice, prepare for marvelous disasters, and do not evaluate success with the same old rules"

My first painting of the week. Inspired by the sunrise we saw from our balcony. Painted from my place of no fear. What a great way to start a wonderful week.

So I did as Skip suggested and worked through the week in totally new ways. My week was not without trials and errors but I think I had some success by the end of the week. As I walked around the room of 20 some artists working away at their art. I heard much the same thing, "This is hard! Working toward our own vision in our paintings. Skip kept at us -- prodded, and coached and encouraged us in our work. He could see just what our paintings needed. I recommend one of Skip's workshop to anyone.

One of our assignments for the week was to add a piece of nature to our paintings. Some of us really went out and made beautiful collages with natural elements. I added on single seed pod to this painting of a waterfall. It was a bit of nature that might have floated down the water way. Unfortunately it was very fragile. It did not survive the trip home.

 I have more paintings to show you tomorrow. 

Purple enough? The vote is out!

Heres the final (until I see something that needs a touch) of my Iris. Again I am looking for a good title. Colors have been deepened. A bit more red mixed in. I had to take the photo on an angle to get the colors right and to avoid glare off the wet paint. 16x20 oil on deep sided canvas.

Purple Iris--following the color wheel around

I am one of those people who need a project or deadline to work to. Other wise I just think about what I want to do and never really get to it.  That is why I have created a  project for myself to paint flowers around the color wheel.

This week I have been working on purple--a really purple iris. I have always wanted to paint one of these  beautiful flowers but have been intimidated by their complex structure. I think I have this one under control. Painted from a summer photo that I enlarged and cropped really tight. I  have tried to have lots of lost and soft edges in the back ground and kept the harder edges in the focal point.

 I used ultramarine purple and blue and quin red for the petals. I found that using cad red I could grey the purple down for the softer passages. Cad red has the orange that is the complement of purple that quin red does not it also makes an interesting black. I am learning or should I say finally absorbing  and applying what I have read about color in my art books though the years.  A great side effect of this little project of mine.

This photo is an earlier work in progress (WIP) photo of the iris. Yesterday I got the colors much deeper and completed the bottom petals with the little fuzzy bits that iris has on the big lower petals.

I will get another photo today so you can see the difference. 

Thought you would like to see what I do to check my paintings while I am working on them. I have mirror on one wall that I use to look at my paintings in reverse. The mirror image really shows  where the painting needs improvement, changes, completion, color changes--anything at all. 

The Iris on my easel and a pretty good selection of my paintings on the walls. The old enamel topped table is my pallet. I taped old posters down to the table top that have been laminated. I can really spread out on the table and make a mess.If it gets too bad, I can strip the laminated paper off the top and tape a clean one down. The plastic can be cleaned up just like a regular palette as long as I keep ahead of the drying paint. I use copal drying medium with my paints, when they dry on the plastic they are there forever.

y way.....................

My mirror with the Iris painting reflected in it.  I do have to say that I love my studio space. I really thank my husband for suggesting that I get this space when I retired.  He was inspired. Thanks Sweetie!

And a photo of my other sweetie--Big Bear soaking up the winter sunshine.

I wish I could say that Bear is my cat but he has really adopted Dan as his Man. He will not sit on my lap like our other cats have. But he will perch on Dan's long thigh and will let Dan hold him in a nice tight hug. He is a man's cat, Big Black Bear

I really ran on today.....Sorry about that.

Red Red Rose--Blue Blue Dogwood? Kind of Green Succulent

• I thought that I had posted photos of the rose and dogwood blossom paintings earlier last year but find that I have not. The rose was done last summer and is my inspiration of a new series of flowers.
•  I did lots of glazing on the reds and the surface is very smooth and deep. I started with a yellow under coat and worked to the deeper reds from there. It just glows.This one is a bit larger than the paintings I am working on now. About 18x26 oil on deep sided canvas.

Touch of God

Next up is a giant dogwood blossom for blue on my color wheel of flowers. There is much more texture on this one than the rose has just like the flower has in real life. This one is also 18x24 Oil on deep sided  canvas.

Here is the next step of my succulent. (see my previous post) I added the purple shadows. I really have to let this one dry for a while before I add the touch of pink to the tips of the fat little leaves. I do not want them to smear. This is a fun project. Working on the iris this week and will post a photo of the progress.

Working the winter away

We have had a really nice thaw this week and have lost lots of snow pack. I decided to do a series of flower paintings that follow the color wheel. I already had the red rose and blue/white dogwood flower. This past week I started on a green succulent and yellow tulips. I think I might make sunflowers for yellow. I am emulating Georgia O'Keefe with these macro flowers. Her work is my inspiration.

16x20 oil on wrapped canvas

This size is small enough to fit anywhere but big enough to have a presence on the wall. The succulent is less blue than it shows here but is a very soft green. There will be purple and red highlights when I am done. Those colors should make it pop.

Same size and still oil on canvas. Parrot tulips that I thought would be for the yellow place on the spectrum of my series but it just doesn't have enough yellow so I will keep this one and use sunflowers for my yellow painting. I started on a purple iris yesterday. This project is really fun.

I have also been working on a large painting of my chambered nautilus shell. I took the photo and cropped it to a long narrow size. I could not get a good photo of the whole painting which is 46x20. Long and narrow. I was surprised at how much longer it takes to work on such a large piece.

This photo is cropped to about 2/3 rds of the painting. The other third is at the top of the painting and is more of the shell fossil. Again oil on stretched canvas. I really enjoy working with the oil. I have to slow down and wait for it to dry a bit before I can work on it again. Lots to learn about using oil paints. Acrylic is fast but the oil is also fun. What a great way to learn and become more creative. 

Each media, watercolor, oil and acrylic---all call me to use them. 

Winter scenes

I think I am in the winter doldrums. I have been painting but not a lot. There has not been much to write about here on my blog. The other day I committed my self to a pay it forward game on facebook. I was really disappointed when I only got two responses to my call to pay it forward. Of course I went ahead anyway and here are my results.
Snow! What else this winter. Hardly anyone in the whole US of A is missing out on snow this year. I was inspired by our first really heavy snow in November. The tree limbs were breaking every where. We had a really pretty maple tree in our back yard split right down to the ground. Evergreens know how to bow to the heavy snow and take on really soft shapes. I decided to use very different color schemes for each of my attempts to show how that snow changed the looks of the trees. These are watercolor about 11x14.  First a warm sunrise. and then a night scene.

This one is a bit lighter in color than shown here. And will be given backwards on my pay it forward to the gal that got me into this project. Thanks Jill, got me painting.

A nocturne. I always wanted to try a night scene. This one is made up and I really had fun making the stars shine in the night sky. This one is for my DIL Joey. Now all I have to do is get these delivered. The final one is already delivered and was a really pretty pink and purple color scheme. Many happy snow days to you all. Since it is already February we can imagine this snow melting away and

 spring just around the corner!