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The Beauty of Color

The Beauty of Color

My online watercolor class is going well and everyone is having a wonderful time learning how to correctly use color in their paintings.  There is still time to join in on the fun.  Registration is open until August 1, 2013.   Here is a small sample of some of the paintings from the class and what students are saying:
 “Today I learned that I MUCH prefer tetras to triads! A good thing to know I suspect.”  Kaaren
Kaaren’s Pears
“I have enjoyed your class so much!  I hope you will do more soon.  I have your DVD and your book.  But I want more!  Putting miles on my brushes,
Karen”
“I love using the different color triads and compliments etc to make different works.”  Kristin
“I am so enjoying this workshop, and am really learning some things that I never learned in an art class before.  But I wanted to say that (in addition to finally understanding how a color wheel works) I love the idea of the chicken exercises and also the demo of transitioning the colors around the wheel, and “mixing, muddling and mingling…all great lessons, and I can’t wait to try them!”
Susan
Celeste’s Colorful Hearts
“I’m having a great time with these lessons. They are simple, but you learn so much about the paint itself and the colors.”   Celeste

Hearts on Fire

Hearts on Fire

I have new mixed media watercolor painting available for purchase.  The first in the series is “Hearts on Fire”

Hearts on Fire, Original Watercolor and Mixed Media Painting


Limited Color Palette

Limited Color Palette

I recently visited the Farnsworth Museum in the cute coastal town of Rockland, Maine.  It is so exciting to see what color palette great art masters like the Wyeth family uses.  N. C. Wyeth was an American artist and illustrator for such books as Treasure Island, Robin Hood and The Last of the Mohicans.  His son, Andrew Wyeth, was one of the best known artist of the 20th century and I have always admired his son’s work, James Wyeth.  The museum had pieces from all three generation of artists.  I was awestruck by the beauty that each of them could portray with a monochromatic or an analogous color scheme (if you are taking my online color class right now, you are familiar with these terms!).  Here below is an example from each of the Wyeths.  I chose these paintings to share because of their use of a limited palette.

“The Hunter” by N.C. Wyeth.  Powerful and bold – look at the beautiful use of a limited palette and a splash of red!

“Master Bedroom” by Andrew Wyeth.  This painting tells such a wonderful story, all again with a very limited palette.  I want to curl up with that dog!

James Wyeth, Beautiful use of limited palette of blues and yellows.

Class has Started – Artful Gathering Online Color Workshop

Class has Started – Artful Gathering Online Color Workshop

A really cool thing about the Artful Gathering Online Retreat is that you can take several workshops at the same time over a six week period.  Since I have always admired Pam Carriker’s art, I signed up for her online workshop, Still Pursuing Portraits and she is taking my workshop, The Good, the Bad and the Beauty of Color.  We are having a great time sharing what we know!  I love Pam’s style of teaching.  She has taken away the fear of drawing a face and broken it down into easy to follow steps.  I am so excite and looking forward to drawing some portraits today!
My class, The Good, the Bad and the Beauty of Color, has started!  So far, the chatter in the classroom has been very fun.  Here are a few things that the students are saying:
Melissa says “I am really excited, I have learned so much from your other tutorials, I’ve been impatient to start!!!”
Susan says “One advantage of being in Europe is that we’re already awake when the workshop is posted 😉  I’ve been waiting for this for ages and am really looking forward to getting started.”
Gina says “I’m very excited about this class as well! Any excuse diving into watercolor paints and learning more about color.”
Pam Carriker says, “I finished making my little color book using my Bind It All and some matt board for the covers. I filled my palette, had to clean out my gouache paints and fill them with watercolors since I already had this palette. Now on to color wheels and my first page:-)”

A Color Study Example

My workshop is about learning the properties of the paints you use, proper mixing techniques and how to use the color wheel to make different color schemes to use in your paintings. You will feel confident in your color choices and learn how not to get muddy color mixes.  

There is still time to sign up and join the fun!  I hope you find time to add art to your daily life in one way or another.
Welcome to my Studio!

Welcome to my Studio!

My art studio is featured in the new issue of the Cloth-Paper-Scissors Studios Summer edition magazine.  The editor, Linda Blinn is celebration the arrival of summer with this issue and asked me to write an article about my studio in Bend and how I travel with my journals and paints to  Mt. Desert Island, Maine with my traveling studio.  Here is a peek at the article:

Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat – available World Wide!

Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat – available World Wide!

My art is featured this week as the website banner for Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat
Registration is open for some pretty awesome art classes.
You can do at these classes at your own pace
and in the comfort of you own home.  The best part is that you can take this class 
from anywhere in the world if you have internet!
I will be teaching a watercolor class all about COLOR!

Catching up in my Journal with Stencils

Catching up in my Journal with Stencils

I have been finishing a few pages in my Provence journal that I started during my recent trip to France.  My friend, Pam Carriker’s has a brand new line of art stencils and I took one with me to France to see how I could use it to enhance some of my journal pages.  Her stencils are quite fabulous and some of them deal with drawing faces.  We met for dinner not too long ago and had a wonderful time talking about art and sharing ideas.  She generously gave me one of her stencils that she knew I would love – the  Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Stencil.  I wanted to share some of my journal pages where I used her stencil.

Here you can see I used it behind the pitcher.


I used several stencils as the background for this page about Vaison-la-Romaine.  You can see where I used Pam’s stencil on the lower left. 

I used Pam’s stencil to make this color wheel painting.

We are both teaching with Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat.  The second session starts on July 16, 2013.  If you have ever been interested in drawing faces, you will love Pam’s workshop, Still Pursuing Portraits.  My workshop, The Good, the Bad and the Beauty of Color is – well- you guessed it – all about color!  Be sure to check out all the creative and fun workshops available at Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat!

Finally here is the other side of the journal page – my painting from the day we spent at Vaison-la-Romaine….
Butterflies in my Garden

Butterflies in my Garden

Butterfly Weed Blossoms 

Butterfly Weed Flowers

One of my favorite things to do beside painting is to spend time in my garden.  Many years ago, I decided to devote my garden to helping the birds, butterflies, dragonflies, bees and other wee creatures procreate and survive.   One addition that I really wanted for my garden was Butterfly Weed.  I remembered it’s lovely orange blossoms from when I lived in Alabama.  I finally found a plant labeled Butterfly Weed at one of local nursery.  The tag showed the beautiful orange blossoms that I was excited to have in my garden.  I carefully tended it but it took many years before it started to bloom.  I was so disappointed to see these first blooms as they were not at all what I remembered from my childhood.   These were pale colored and the few butterflies that came to my garden totally ignored these plants. 

No butterflies on these flowers but the honey bees and ants like it.

 Over the years the butterfly weed did what weeds know how to do best and that is to spread to various parts of my garden.  This year is a banner year for the blossoms.   Upon closer inspection I find that they are quite lovely and have a delicate sweet smell.  While trying to get some artsy photos of the blossoms, I was looking underneath the leaves to see if I could find butterfly eggs.  I found some little black spots that could have been a fleck of dirt.  I took photos of them so that I could enlarge them and get a better look.  Sure enough – they are butterfly eggs!  These are beautiful chocolate brown to black ovals with perfectly spaced grooves.  They look like tiny rocket ships ready for launch.  I search my books and went online but could not find any mention of black butterfly eggs so I wasn’t sure what kind of butterflies they would turn into.  Everyday I check my eggs.  

Closeup of butterfly egg

Yesterday, I am so excited to share with you, I now have a tiny little caterpillar munching away on the butterfly weed. I can now identify the butterfly to be.  It is definitely a Swallowtail Butterfly!  It may even be the Oregon Swallowtail.  I hope it will survive and that I have more hatch.  I will keep you posted!


Painting in our Journals – Inspiration from Local Tradition

Painting in our Journals – Inspiration from Local Tradition

One of the most exciting things about traveling with a group of painters is that we can immerse ourselves in the local traditions.  During our recent painting trip to Provence, France, we were lucky enough to be in St. Remy for La Fête de la Transhumance.  This happens once a year, 50 days after Easter.  This moving festival is dear to the hearts of the Provençal people and is without a doubt the most famous festival in the south of France.   This is the day that celebrates the flocks of sheep being herded to their summer pastures. Historically, this journey could take up to 10 days by foot. 

Over 3,500 sheep, lambs, goats and donkeys filled the streets of St. Remy on Monday, May 20, 2013.  The whole event was made even more colorful by the local shepherds tending the sheep in their traditional costume with the help of their well trained dogs.  As they passed by the sheep were stepping on my toes, parting their path in confusion and running through the crowds of people.  The shepherds did not seem to mind as I reached out and petted their silky wool.

I made this short video to show you how marvelous this day was.  Then look below to see how some of my students used this inspiration to paint some fabulous pages in their watercolor journals.