Two tree paintings

I love trees; they are so varied and beautiful.  Late last year Carla Sonheim offered Diane Culhane's online class, "For the Love of a Tree".  I signed up immediately :-)

One of Diane's assignments was to create two small 5" x 5" paintings focusing on value. 

The first painting began with a warm base color to which was added its complementary color:

Blue-violet overlaying Yellow-orange

After much layering of opaque and transparent colors, the finished painting:

The second painting began with a cool color which was overlaid by its complementary color:

Vat orange overlaid with cobalt blue.

Final painting:

I enjoy the spontaneity of this approach.  I have to suspend judgment and to go along with what happens, respond to the previous mark or color, allow for accidents - very liberating :-)

Smudgies

As I've mentioned, I am taking a year-long class, "Y is for Yellow" from Carla Sonheim. 

In one of the class exercises we had to make a smudge mark with an animal in mind.  Next step, using as few lines as possible, define the animal.  I enjoyed this lesson; it is a challenge to use as few elements as possible to capture a figure or object.

These are my smudgies:

Aardvark

Caracal

Hippo

Wildebeest

Wild Pig

All of them were drawn using pastels and ink.  They are a lot of fun to do :-)

From my art journal, I dreamt of flowers...and "Y is for Yellow"

A freshly brewed cup of coffee, my large art journal and some selected pens - what a great way to start the day :-)

Creating a journal page every day is a wonderful and productive ritual, too.   From the Draw section today:

Ink, gel pens, Copic markers

I'm also at the start of another year-long class ("Y is for Yellow", creatively taught by Carla Sonheim) ready to complete the assignment for lesson 1.  I was thinking and doodling and this name stack appeared:

Ink and gel pens

I had to choose five animals for the lesson and these are mine.

Contour drawings

I am in week three of Cat Bennett's online class, "Making Art a Practice".  This week "daily life" is the subject matter.
 
Without a doubt, Remy is an integral part of my life; he is with me constantly.  He was a natural pick for at least one drawing:

Graphite

I always have a cup of coffee so I found a nice soft-leaded pencil and grabbed a sketchbook:

Quick capture :-)

My fruit choices are currently pears and apples (yum) so mid-afternoon I lined up a selection:

Contour drawings are a favorite of mine.

Cat also wanted the class to use color.  Here are the same three pieces of fruit in color (well, the one in the center, sadly, has since been consumed):

Inktense pencils, charcoal, and graphite.

With no artwork in mind

I am taking Cat Bennett's online class, "Making Art a Practice".  This is some of my "output" from the first week's mark-making exercises:

Colored pencil, ink, graphite.

Water color crayons

The exercise is about making marks with no specific finished piece in mind, and if specific imagery begins to appear, then move away from it, i.e. if the shape is beginning to resemble a flower, then avoid making actual flower shapes, resist the urge to turn it into a landscape or more likely in my case, a dog :-)

Copic markers, ink, pastels

Gelatos, ink, paint pen

I am surprised by how "guilty" I felt - using TIME every day (!) where my goal is not a finished piece, but instead those of experimentation and exploration.  It's liberating :-)

Little Doodle Book

Diane Culhane's online class, "Doings of A Doodle" has emphasized that one's own doodles are a source of inspiration - they are tiny treasures.

Lesson 2 prep - making an eminently portable doodle book so that one has a nice surface to use whenever the opportunity arises:

Watercolor on gessoed 140# watercolor papers

Slip a folded sheet inside another folded sheet to make an unintimidating book of just eight pages.

My first doodle book:

Sides 1 and 2

Sides 3 and 4

Sides 5 and 6

Sides 7 and 8

Doodles In Isolation

Another exercise from Diane Culhane's online class, "Doings of A Doodle". 

From my sketch books, choose some favorite doodles.  Isolate them and place each one on watercolor paper.

Instead of being lost in a mass of doodling, each selected doodle is spotlighted:

I doodle birds often.

A rare cat doodle

I love dogs.

A sheep in a mushroom forest.

Bunnies

Another critter I love - the bunny.  Even more fun... more bunnies!  Here they are:

"Secret Society", mixed media painting

 
To create the background layers of this painting I used some techniques (glazing, sgraffito and masking) that Diane Culhane demonstrated in her class, "Paint Your Garden" - the class that keeps on giving.

I have several canvases with backgrounds done in much the same way.  I set them aside; later on I will return and continue painting :-)

Serendipity!  Carla Sonheim is offering Diane's class again later this month.  I highly recommend "Paint Your Garden".

Links:
Paint Your Garden class - http://www.carlasonheim.com/paint-your-garden-with-diane-culhane/
Diane Culhane's website - http://www.dianeculhaneart.com/

A Perk of Flower Crazy and a Thank You

I love doing class assignments as they provide specific focus and prescribed boundaries.  Each assignment is an opportunity to use new materials and techniques or to further explore seemingly familiar ones.  I have taken away something positive every time.

"Flower Crazy" (online class from Carla) was fun and full of play and color.  I loved making several mixed media canvases and boards.  One of the assignments yielded this:

"Flower Swirls in Pink and Yellow"

And the perk?  Recently someone liked it and purchased it :-)  I appreciate everyone who supports art and artists by attending events, spreading the word and buying art.

I am fortunate to have some paintings and prints at Studio Three in Fort Collins, CO.  Meeting and chatting with people at the Holiday Open House a few weeks ago was a pleasure.  Thank you so much Evelina - Studio Three owner and incredibly supportive friend.

It's Still Life :-)

A bit tardy, the final painting for Table Top: Drawing and Painting is finished.  Class was so enjoyable and I explored still life painting, a subject that never caught my fancy before.

Here's the still life:

"The Oval Table"

This is how it began:

Whoa, something is different...

The table changed, the flowers changed and some of the veggies became fruit.  How did that happen?  As I think back, I was focused on the paint and I let go of the power of the "line"; the application of paint and the colors indicated the direction of the painting.

As odd as it sounds, relinquishing control is empowering :-)

Table Top Paintings

More still life work from Diane Culhane's online class, Table Top: Drawing and Painting.  I am finishing up the painting assignment.

The emphasis again is on laying down transparent layers and then building more layers, both transparent and opaque, on top.  I became so involved with the technique, I let my improvising slide (see this post).  I figure I will get better with practice :-)

Beginning with a graphite drawing (on a birch panel), transparent layers of primary colors are quickly applied, a nice way to get the paint brush moving and paint on the panel:

Initially two green peppers and a pear...

However, after laying down more and more paint, I decided that apples were calling me more than peppers, hence:

"Pear of Apples"

Mixed media, glazing

The world outside has gone cold and snowy white, but in my studio it's color-wow time :-)

Glazing (the current Table Top: Drawing and Painting lesson), layering transparent color upon color is a lot of fun and perks up this gray day.  Choose some acrylic color, gel medium.  Ink a simple still life sketch and then go...

 

The colors glow.

Improvise

No color this time, simply graphite line work and smudging - and still life, an assignment from Diane Culhane's online class, "Table Top: Drawing and Painting":

I love to sketch.  Vellum is a fabulous surface.

This drawing was fun.  First placing some objects, playing with a variety of line weights and levels of intensity - basically improvising the foreground and background :-)

Vellum-luscious

Ink and colored pencil on vellum - so enjoyable.  There is something about the application of either medium that is rewarding; very smooth, not slick, which results in a nice amount of control.

More class work from Diane Culhane's online class, Table Top: Drawing and Painting:

I have a greater appreciation of bottles :-)

Still life as subject matter... its appeal is growing.

Hatching(s)

Usually I don't gravitate toward still life drawing; and that is why I wanted to explore it.  When Carla Sonheim offered Diane Culhane's online class, "Table Top: Drawing and Painting" for a second time, it was an opportunity I had to seize :-)

I have taken two other class by Diane, Between Speech and Silence and Paint Your Garden and I thoroughly enjoyed them.  I like Diane's whimsical, exploratory approach to drawing and painting and her teaching style is fun.

So on to some drawing.  This is a warm up sketch, wonky lines and all:

graphite and charcoal

Next, all kinds of hatching...here, begin with a quick sketch for placement and then just let the colored pencils go:

colored pencil on black card stock

"Tangled" Magic Horse

Over the past few weeks I have used different techniques for few versions of the Magic Horse:
 

Quick sketch

Last December I took Beckha Krahula's online class, "One Zentangle® A Day".  I found it relaxing and also an easy commitment; one tile is very small, 3.5-inches (89mm) square,

 so I could make one or several depending upon time and inclination :-)

However, I thought it would be fun to use the Zentangle® method  for this final horse:

Larger than a tile, this horse is 8-in (203mm) by 6.25-in (159mm)

 In addition to Beckha's class, I found more information here at the Zentangle website and also here at the tanglepatterns website.

Designing ball gowns

Eight months in,  2014: Year of the Fairy Tale online class is going strong.  Carla's class assignments explore many techniques and themes that I can "take for a spin"; if I am really taken by any I can explore further on my own.  The class keeps moving on and every fairy tale teaches something new.  This experience in itself is valuable for me.

We are in the discovery period of Fairy Tale #6 - and it's all about ball gowns.

Designing/daydreaming the gowns, the details and of course the fabrics...sigh.  I enjoyed it so much I was surprised.  Since these are just black and white sketches, much is left to one's imagination.  So let it take flight :-) 

For waltzing... gowns with room to move.

Under the ballroom lights - sparkle, sheen, translucence.