Permission to be free

 My workshop with Bob Burridge last week was a week of work and fun. Bob passed out our permission slips to be free in our paintings and to express what we wanted. Being the tight painter that I am, this permission was one of the best things of the week. Our warm up sessions every morning, got us swinging our brushes and our blood heated up for the rest of the day. The short sessions with the model kept us moving a just putting impressions down on our papers.

The second part of the week we worked on our paintings of the model and learned (tried to learn) how to be free with collage. Bob sees collage a just another aspect of his painting. A touch of texture or a note of color on his painting. I had gone to the workshop with a big box of interesting collage items and only used some paper that I brought along. Every one in the class did the same thing. He fooled us all. His collage elements were photo copies of a small kids flag that he cut up and used as stripes or stars on his paintings. Very reserved for Bob. 

This is the collage that was the most successful of the whole week. It is a quarter sheet of water color paper with collage and acrylic paint. It did not come together until I added the greyed back ground. After seeing it here on the blog I think that I will soften the little white circles on the right. Maybe more of the light grey instead of white. Here is another that I was happy with.

This one is small, just a sixth of a sheet about 8x10. I liked how the color scheme came together and the little bit of gold foil paper that I used for added bling.  I think it looks like a group of gospel singers on stage. In the spot light. 

As you can see these are not figures that were collaged. I did not get to collaging the figure paintings. I am just too unsure of what I am doing with them. With more work drawing figures, I may get to that point in the weeks ahead.

I received a grant to go to this workshop. As a result of my contract with the Prairie Lakes Region, I need to develop a body of work for a show that shows what I learned with Bob at the workshop. My goal  this fall is to work toward a show of my work some time this coming spring. I also need to have three paintings ready to hang in January for the grantees show in St. Peter. All the award winners will be hanging their work at this show. Should be fun.

Reclining Nude

I have had a really busy summer. Plein aire painting, vacations and last week a workshop with artist Robert Burridge at Dillman's creative arts foundation in northeast Wisconsin. Bob is a very dynamic artist who encouraged us to loosen up and become more colorful. The week was divided into three sections. First the figurative drawing and painting, second we used the figures we drew and painted and did more with collage and finally on Friday we had a mARTketing work shop for artists.
On Monday and Tuesday we had a really professional  model, Vanassa Little Crow pose for both quick and long studies. This is a drawing that I did while she was resting. Usually she was standing or holding an unusual pose. I have more of my drawings and paintings on my Picassa album.  This is on a full sheet of watercolor paper that was coated with acrylic gesso and I used a water soluble pencil and then washed the background. If I had had any courage, I would  have added color and maybe some collage pieces to the drawing. But I did some really bad collages on some of my smaller pieces and didn't want to ruin this drawing. I guess the loosen up and get colorful message didn't get through to me on this painting.
We learned so much during the week. I hardly have had time to digest it all. But plan on doing the exercises that Bob taught us and to use his very unusual goof proof color wheel. Check out his web site to find out more about it.
Will be posting some more paintings as the week goes on. I am photographing some of my work and then editing them for the web.
See you soon.