New Student Art : Creative Challenge

Above painting by Tammy Mansfield

The above painting was painted by a student in my Creative Challenge class. This class covers general composition as well as a summary of how to approach composition in regards to portraits, landscapes and still life subjects.  We discuss shape, line, value, texture, color, space and how to find and develop a center of interest.  We devote one night to the topic of how to attract the viewer’s attention.

If you would like to view all the students’ work from this class, you can find it by visiting the Student Art 2 page or by clicking here.

Thank you to all my students for a great class and fo being willing to share your art here. 

Golden Cows

I promised Alonso, if I finished this, I would post it. The above painting was drawn a couple nights ago on Arches 140lb Hot Pressed paper.  Why hot pressed for such a textured scene? Oh, you know; just to see if I could do it. I found another splotch of time to paint the cow on the far right and some of the one next to him, but then off to other things that must be done.  I was able to get classes taught and student artwork posted and had a FREE NIGHT last night! I decided to paint this scene. I was about an hour in and the electric went out. 50 MPH winds we were having. Angered by this change of events, I lit two candles and held a flashlight and painted away in the dark.  I know. I know. I know. Artists are not to paint in the dark. I think if I waited for everything to be perfect in my life I’d never create anything. So, this is my candlelight painting. Cows, no less.

As I painted, my anger began to subside and my thoughts wandered to people who had suffered much more and I was humbled. Many lost their homes in these storms that tracked across the midwest the last two days. Some lost their loved ones. My condolences to all of you.

Watercolor and Rice Paper Collage

This week, for our Watercolor Plus class, we were supposed to create another painting using rice papers and watercolor. This time we were to search for more realism by using a photo reference or for allowing the pigment and the papers to lead us to a more realistic image. The above is what I came up with.

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The above shows the sequence of the painting as I created it with rice paper collage and watercolor pigment.   All without photo reference!  What fun!

 

 

 

 

The Thaw

I have become fascinated with the role that oriental papers can play in enhancing a watercolor.  Many of you who have followed me know I have been working with painting on masa paper as well as working with rice paper and watercolor.

I began by painting a cruciform design in watercolor, then by using acrylic matte medium with a little water (four parts medium to one part water), glue torn pieces of rice paper into that design.  I enjoy the abstract qualities this brings to a painting and the interesting things, shapes and colors, created by the textures of the paper. I NEVER know when to stop with these. After applying the papers, I paint, again and add more papers  until I have an image I like.

This one made me think of the world, at large, and what a thaw might look like. With that, it took me other places, thinking about what it might take to to mend or thaw some of our differences and connect us once again. I am glad the chakra colors come through loud and clear of orange, blue, green and violet.  I stopped, here, not wanting to disturb that thought.

October

9.5 inches x 13.5 inches

Those of you who follow this blog know that I am forever saying that it takes me forever to paint a watercolor. However, I have reached a period of time that does not allow for much painting time. Last week I was so “hungry” to paint, I gave it a go at completing a painting in an hour. It turned out to be one of the most fun hours of the week. I splattered a piece of Arches 140lb cold pressed paper with liquid frisket and set out my palette. I chose a photo reference from wet canvas that I had previously set aside and went to work painting with a large 12 round brush. I worked light to dark and wet in wet and let the paper tell me when it had become dry enough to render detail. This gave this little piece a bit of a glow. I practiced my “little people” skills on the guy sitting by the river and finished with a splattering of the dark colors I had used.

After finishing this piece, I had a feeling I had painted something similar before.  It was not the same but had many of the same colors and was an October piece with much the same composition.

Stephen Kellogg has honored the above painting with a poem here. Thank you Stephen! 

New Student Art!

painting by Henn Laidroo

The above painting was a result of one of my student’s experiments on masa paper. He felt the toning of it was too dark to develop a landscape on. He saw faces in the shapes he found in the patterns. I think it looks like our class! 

A heartfelt thank you to all my students who took the watercolor landscape class this fall. Thank you to Henn Laidroo for allowing me to share the above painting. It makes me smile. The new Student Art page can be viewed here.

Down by the River: August

What can I say?  Tonight will be the first night I teach how to prepare a sheet of masa paper for watercolor painting to my watercolor landscape students.  For any who would like to learn this technique, you can find how to prepare the surface here and here. Several followers of this blog have taken up the challenge and also paint on masa paper and they can be found here and here.

I used a photo from the wet canvas site’s library for the above piece. I concentrated, mostly, on value, shape and color to paint the scene. I was interested in how the values in the photograph worked well and brought the scene into view without a whole lot of detail or definition. I need practice in this area of getting away from detail.  To me, the scene looked straight from late august with flies and bees buzzing.

I am trying to keep up with everybody and thank you all for your patience as my time online continues to be at a minimum. I love you all and will be around soon.

Painting Dreams

The above painting was inspired by the second drawing in the previous post on automatic drawing.  I allowed the paint to guide me through this creation. The first drip of burnt sienna from the figure’s left hand reminded me of a quote I had clipped from a National Geographic, years ago, and placed on my refrigerator. It read:

“What I wanted was…

         a place where dreams

did not stop at dawn.”

In this painting, I clipped pieces of masa paper for the darks in the landscape and collaged them into the piece. The wings on the figure are also clipped pieces of masa.  I left portions unfinished to give this the feel of a work in progress. I also did not want to furthur define the figure. I did this, partially out of respect for other viewers to assume what they wanted  about that figure. Was this figure a part of the landscape? Was she or he the artist?  Did the artist intend for her/him to be anyone? Was it an angel or a fairy?  So many interpretations and I wanted them all to flow. I hope I have captured that, this painting.

 

Yellow House on the Hill (a study in values)

Remember when I said I don’t paint anything fast? …and that it takes me F-O-R-E-V-E-R to finish something. This is a painting painted in one evening.  I have a soft spot for yellow houses. This house sits on a hill on the edge of a small man-made lake called Trader’s Point Lake north of Indianapolis. I took the photo reference sitting in my sister’s paddle boat right before that awful dry heat spell began. There are a few things I need to watch for when I paint quickly. In this painting, the lean of the house?  :)  and that real hard edge to the right and on top of the foreground hedge (wish I had softened that).  I also think I could have had a little more fun with the house without harming the value pattern I had decided upon. My favorite thing about this painting is that Huge oak behind the Huge house and how they seem to be trying to outdo one another.  My goal with this painting, other than completing something in one evening, was to work on the value patterns to promote depth.  I used greens, violet, yellows, burnt sienna, halloween orange cerulean blue and a few dabs of prussian blue to paint this piece.

I live in a yellow house, just not this one. 

 

 

 

Moose!

YAY!    This is my last painting on masa paper adhered to coldpress illustration board.  I did have fun with this one. It was similar to painting the previous landscape with the Belgian horses. I concentrated on shapes and values rather than trees, meadow and moose. I found the reference for this photo on the Wet Canvas image library.

I had painted one moose, prior to this, several years ago here.