Happy Thanksgiving!

"Mother's Table"
14" x 11"
Watercolor

Having grown up in New England and tracing ancestors to the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, I am steeped in Thanksgiving traditions. The day was filled with family and a lovely turkey dinner. When I moved with my young family to California, this was the day that I missed our extended family the very most. Eventually, after fits and starts, we developed our own Thanksgiving traditions in sunny California.

The boys grew up and moved back to my home state of Vermont. My husband passed away 11 years ago and a few years later Bob and his girls came into my life. Time for new traditions. A few years passed and with daughters and sons spread out across the USA, it was time to build new celebrations. For the past half dozen years, Bob and I have gone to the coast to have dinner at a Capitola institution, the Shadowbrook Restaurant. We don't even order turkey dinners, but rather enjoy other specialties offered -- baked brie with jalapeno sauce, creamy artichoke soup, roast beef, and mud pie were my choices this year. Needless to say, we had to walk for a bit before settling back into the car for the drive home over the mountains on a spectacular sunny day.

Tonight I grabbed my watercolors and painted the centerpiece on our dining table. The candle holder that friend Pam gave me one year, a real favorite, and gourds from Spina's Farm Stand two miles down the road are festive at this time of year. After struggling to master other mediums -- pastels and acrylics -- watercolors are home to me. A nice simple still life from a high eye level and my delicious watercolors and brushes made for a lovely few hours as Bob practiced his flute music for the advent season.

Here's to your special Thanksgiving traditions.

Very French

Fruit and Wine

17" x 14"

Pastel

My apologies to anyone receiving posts that were empty or looked strange. I was having some problems that I believe I have now corrected.

Today I finished this still life in drawing class. Bob had to coach me along, and he even worked on the right persimmon and some of the wine bottle to show me how to achieve the appropriate values, chroma, solidity, and transparency. Difficult but an excellent learning experience. This one reminds me of several wonderful trips to France, where we enjoyed the fresh fuits and French wines.

Experimental Acrylics

" Plymouth Covered Bridge"

New Hampshire

7" x 5" acrylic

"A Rose Is a Rose"

7" x 5" acrylic

" Sunset over Long Lake"

Adirondacks, New York

7" x 5" acrylic

After my two private lessons on acrylic, I wanted to try some different genres with acrylic. Using the paints we had left over after the lessons (they kept well on styrofoam trays in a plastic ziplock bag), I did these three small studies.

The first and third are memories of our cross-USA tandem trip in 2008. We saw the covered bridge just three days before we completed the trip in Portland, Maine. As I am a native New Englander, these old relics are dear to my heart. The Long Lake picture was taken from a boat after we were treated to dinner with an extended family by people we met on the street. One of those great experiences that we will never forget. The roses are done from memory.

In each, I tried to get passages of transparent, translucent, and opaque paint. Some I succeeded in my goal better than others. The roses have a lot of opaque and translucent paint. The bridge piece has quite a bit of transparent and some translucent (far mountain) and opaque (green trees). The lake started with transparent rose washes that show through the translucent and opaque paint.

Sunflower Fields at Petit Rousset

"Sunflower Fields at Petit Rousset"

Dordogne region of France

Acrylic

11" x 14"

Welcome to several people who recently became followers of this blog: Benjamin Rowan from Australia, Marie Theron of South Africa, Mary Lou Arnold, and Chris Casey from Tasmania. What an international group of artists!

Today was my second and final private lesson on acrylics with Joyce Barron Leopardo. I learned about using acrylics as watermedia. I had watched Stephen Quiller's DVD on the same subject, loaned to me by Joyce last week, so I had an idea of what can be done with acrylics. Joyce selected a subject dear to our hearts, our 2007 trip to France with master artist Mike Bailey. We stayed at a beautiful old farm house used for educational vacations. We lucked out with weather -- we got the only two good weeks that summer in France, and the sunflowers were in full bloom behind the house. We could see a farm across the sunflowers and the rolling hills of the Dordogne region.

Joyce had already done our sketches to save us time, as I was there to learn acrylics, not sketching. We painted together. She limited our palette to a triad, a frequently used Quiller method, and I selected Azo yellow, cobalt blue, and cadmium red medium. However, I ended up also using just a bit of a deeper yellow that Joyce was using. We wanted to suggest the warm haze over the countryside. We developed the painting by first laying in color on the barn and then glazing the paper with an underpainting of yellow. Everytime we added a layer of paint and allowed the mingling that we wanted, we would use a hairdryer to completely dry the surface. The major difference between acrylics and watercolor at this point was the fact that acylics, once dry, don't lift, so it's easy to glaze over the underlayers. One has to remember that they dry very quickly so you must work fast.

We wanted the sunflowers on the left to predominate, so those I painted more distinctly. The remainder are very subtley suggested. At one point, we glazed some yellow on a diagonal from the upper right corner to the lower left corner. After darkening the barn, and major trees left and right, I added the hint of trees in the receding background by wetting the paper and letting the colors mingle and drip. Finally, we glazed the sky with the red and yellow and spritzed it with water to allow the color to flow over the countryside, unifying the painting. Joyce finished the piece by matting it and putting it in a glacine bag. Joyce is such a wonderful teacher and she kept talking design and value throughout the lesson.

When I finished this painting and showed it to Bob, he asked if it was acrylics as it looks like watercolor. Joyce loaned me a Quiller book (I have one, but not this one), and I want to try his techniques where he creates transparent, translucent, and opaque areas for maximum glow. The painting we did today is mostly transparent with small passage of opaque color. I did not use any translucent paints, which you make by mixing color with white before applying it to the paper. I found the acrylic colors to be more saturated than watercolor.

I received word that the owner of the commissioned painting, "Autumn at the Paquet Family Farm," received the painting in Connecticut, and she and her family are very pleased with the piece.

The Gaucho Dancer

"Gaucho Dancer"

Ushuia, Argentina

This is what happens when Mary meets Betsy Dillard Stroud - new experiments! I will experiment more with complex surfaces. Taking a page out of "Everything but the Kitchen Sink" day, I used stamping, gouche with watercolor, and layering to achieve an exciting surface. I did not throw acrylic or collage into the mix, which Betsy did. The young man is from a photo I took while watching young people do a gaucho show in Ushuai, Argentina, in February. I love to paint dancers. I would like to abstract the background more than I did here -- a step at a time towards the ideal.

Today I am off to an Acrylic Party sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society this afternoon. The company supplies the materials and we bring our paper and brushes.

Private Acrylic Lesson

"Pears"
Acrylic on paper

In April I will take a workshop with Stephen Quiller, a master watercolorist and acrylic artist. I wanted to jump start myself with acrylics, so I arranged for two private lessons with a friend, Joyce Barron Leopardo, SWA, an award-winning artist. Joyce is a wonderful teacher who does workshops for children at the Ronald McDonald House, nuns at a cloistered convent, and Bay area artists. She began my session by showing me many examples of her work in acrylic and mixed media - very inspiring.

We sat out on her beautiful deck in the hills overlooking the Bay and painted for thee hours. We had a great time. Joyce planned an exercise using a pear because of the simple shapes. I was to learn how to apply opaque acrylic paint similar to doing an oil painting. Joyce would emphasize placing lights next to darks and texturing the surface. We started with 2 full sheets of Arches watercolor paper, one coated with a layer of orange acrylic, and the other coated with a layer of Aso yellow acrylic. We cut the sheets into pieces measuring 5" x 7 ." We then taped three of the pieces together with a quarter-inch separation. The acrylic mother color sealed the watercolor paper so the paint moves lusciously upon the surface and is easy to manipulate.

Joyce matted two of the finished pieces and placed them in plastic protectors. The top piece above was my first effort, and really my favorite of the six I completed. As I painted with Joyce, I learned to achieve different effects. I used a palette knife to manipulate paint in the upper left corner, a piece of ridged cardboard for the table top texture, and scraped down to the orange in the highlight area of the pear with a piece of Starbucks gift card.

The second piece also employs my new favorite mother color, orange. I used crumbled plastic wrap to achieve the textured background, and stamped into the wet paint on the bottom with waffled rubber. I also scraped out some of the highlights on the pear with a palette knife. This manipulation exposed some of the mother color.

The third piece was also done on orange. Here I used lots of texture, layering paint and scraping with a palette knife. Joyce suggested adding a highlight with some contrasting paint. I selected hot pink and placed some on the left of the pear and on the stem and leaf. I tried playing around with some white paint and some purple to add lights and darks.

The fourth pear was created on the yellow mother color and I found it more difficult to select my colors for pleasing results; however, I am satisfied with all three pieces. Joyce had to do a touch of scraping in the pear highlight and add bit of paint for asymmetrical leaves to add some excitement. Then she suggested I drizzle some "tar gel" on the surface for some very interesting results. The gel makes loopy, organic lines that dry clear to reflect light at interesting angles and please the eye.

After matting and bagging the two pieces, Joyce loaned me a Stephen Quiller CD for the week, gave me leftover paints, showed me how she and Myrna Wacknov make a little travel kit of watercolors using an Altoids box and bottle caps and the resulting original gift cards she created while sitting for two hours in a plane on the tarmac. Joyce and I finished the day at a sweet Mexican cafe with delicious prawn tacos. I had a lovely time and look forward to our final session next Wednesday.

Pastels in Drawing class

"Fall Arrangement"

15" x 10"

I worked on this piece for two classes. I like the pitcher. I'm still missing it on the gourds. Bob gave a great demo after he saw that we were struggling with them. He says to start by establishing the dark shadow so you can key values from the shadow. Do not create a hard edge; bring the shadow pastel up into the gourd. Establish the surrounding value. Work from the middle of the gourd outward, being especially gentle as you approach the shadow area. Carefully place the highlights.

Strangely, the pastel paper has vertical lines in it. I bought the paper at University Arts where we have class and didn't notice the lines until I started doing the pastel. I believe they had some oddball sheets mixed in with the Canson Mi Tientes paper. I will check carefully in the future.

Me and Matisse

"Me and Matisse"
22" x 30"
Acrylic
(c) Mary Paquet

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

This piece was an exercise on Day 4 in Betsy Dillard Stroud's workshop and we all had great fun doing it. Betsy said to create a painting in the style of Matisse. One of our excellent artists in the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society offered to come and pose. She was wearing a terrific outfit. Jane says she is the original "Second Hand Rose." It's difficult with many artists at tables around one model to get a great pose for everyone, and I didn't luck out. So I took a few photos. I drew Jane from one of the photos and embellished the background with Matisse-like shapes, drawing upon these two Matisse images.

We were to paint a full sheet in acrylic. As many of you know, I have almost never done acrylic, but I would like to develop my skills in the medium. I would like to try another "Matisse" sometime. I would go for more lively clear color, saving the greys to show off the bright colors. I would also stylize the figure ala Matisse. This was a fun exercise and I had a blast doing it. Nicely, with acrylics, you can change your mind, and Betsy said to play with design as we went along.

The title of the artwork was Betsy's suggestion. I commented that this was me and Matisse and she told me that it was the perfect title!

A commissioned painting

"Autumn at the Paquet Family Farm"

14" x 21"

Watercolor

Recently I was commissioned by a Paquet family member to create a painting of the farm buildings for her home. A cousin of my late husband, Gary, was very taken with a painting I had done early in the 90's of the farm in winter. She had seen the painting at the farm museum during the centennial celebration in July. I was asked to include the main farm buildings and given discretion to select a season. It's fall and I recall the lovely colors in Vermont, so I designed an autumn scene.

If you look real close, you will see a few pumpkins by the silos and under the tree in the center of the farmyard. Pumpkins are a popular item at the farm stand that opens in August with corn sales and runs into October. The farm stand is made up of a canopy and tables of farm-grown crops set under the tree. My sons, now living in Vermont and New York with day jobs, pitch in with extended family in their off hours to grow and sell the crops on the farm and to help maintain the farm.

Using bits and pieces of photos of the farm, I designed a scene that would include the buildings and terrain surrounding the farm that sits on West Hill in Barre, Vermont. Though my studio art has largely moved away from landscape in the past couple of years, I enjoyed doing this scene. I recalled getting to know Gary's grandparents, founders of the farm in 1909, hardy farm folks from the province of Quebec in Canada. I thought of all the good times we had with our young children on the farm, memories similar to those of the cousin requesting the painting. Most recently, I remet the descendants of Joe and Emeda Paquet's 13 children at the farm celebration, and we enjoyed many hours of reminiscing.

I am happy to report that the requester is delighted with the image that I sent her and the painting will soon be on it's way to her home in Connecticut. You can see more farm paintings and read more about the Paquet family farm on this blog.

From the Betsy Dillard Stroud Workshop.

"The Three Muses"
22 "x 30"

What a wild and exciting week I had. I got to know Betsy very well as her primary host and she is a generous and interesting woman and so creative and inspirational. I was busy day and night all last week, Saturday I did the 100K ride with our bicycling Academy students, and Sunday I attended the reception for the Santa Clara Valley Watercolors Society members show. Of course, Monday is dedicated to my drawing class.

I just grabbed a few minutes today to put the finishing touches on this first painting in the workshop where we drew Christina from three different poses. The emphasis was on watercolor and creating interesting surfaces using tape to mask off areas, divisions of space, and connections. We were to use a limited palette and the same set of colors for our light, medium, and dark, figures. I ended up with two fairly light and one dark, with the emphasis on the dark, colorful figure. My previous post showed the piece "in progress." Betsy was complementary of my surface treatment and division of space. The class was made up of 13 to 15 very accomplished artists, depending upon the day. Betsy said it was one of the most experienced groups she has taught. Check out Myrna Wacknov's posts to see what a very fine artist does with Betsy's challenges.

I especially enjoyed learning to make and use stamps to beautify the surface. Betsy told us there are 5 universal shapes: the circle, the cross (not religious), the triangle, the spiral, and the square. She asked us to number them in the order of our preference, stressing this is the way we order them today, and they could be different another time. She said our first choice is where we think we are, but we are not there yet. Our second choice is what we have mastered, our third choice is where we are now. Our fifth choice is been there, done that. I don't recall what the fourth choice is.

My choices were 1) the spiral, representing growth (not there yet); 2) the circle, integration of the masculine and feminine side, unity and wholeness (mastered, Betsy says probably on my cross-country bicycle ride); 3) the triangle, walking up the sacred mountain (where I am now); 4) the square, stability, earth, air, water, fire (?); and 5) the cross, relationships with a person, art, or some other part of our life (been there, done that). She showed us how to carve stamps out of soft linoleum, or rubber erasers using a linoleum cutter that looks like a curette to me. She told us to include symbols that we selected as 1, 3, and 5. What looks like squares on my stamp are repetitious crosses.

This exercise proved to be very tactile and rewarding. I'm hooked! Betsy has made stamps for a number of years, making use of symbology from ancient civilizations and modern times. I want to do some research. Before I left the workshop on day 2, I carved my stamp with repetitions of the three symbols. This is done simply, carefully, and free-hand. Because I was a coordinator at the workshop, I was unable to complete all exercises. So with Betsy's agreement, I focused on my Day 1 painting, above, and added stamping to the mix for beautifying the surface. You can see my three symbols. I want to find out more about symbols and make more stamps.

I love the way Betsy combines realism and abstraction. I have read Betsy's articles on creativity in popular artist magazines for years, and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to learn from her. I have been forever influenced by this week.

Betsy Dillard Stroud Workshop

"The Three Muses"

22" x 30"

In progress

It's been a super busy week with coordinating Betsy's workshop. Betsy is so creative and such a free spirit. I've taken her to dinner a couple times and we've had some fascinating conversations.

Next week I will catch up with my blog friends and write more about the workshop. For Betsy, painting is all about making your personal marks on the paper. In the 90s she modernized her approach by making very complex backgrounds and mixing realism and abstraction. Her demo Sunday was fascinating. She started with a "brush painting" - no image drawn on the paper and no plan. Consulting with the group on what they wanted to see, she did a large floral with a small figure. She first sculpted a beautiful floral arrangement, then she started adding tape to the paper, creating divisions and random shapes to paint around. She added the top of a Freido Kahlo type woman in an abstract manner in one section and began applying beautiful combinations of about 5 transparent colors to the background. When she removes the tape, she paints into those areas.

For the first three days of the workshop, we are having a model. Christina returned. If you click the link on her name, you will see a previous painting I did and entered into a show. Christina is a wonderful model who can twist herself into the most interesting poses and hold them without a flicker. We had a bonus with one of our SCVWS members, Jane Ferguson, offered to pose without charge one afternoon.

Betsy begins with warmups, 2 minutes and five minutes, and no erasing is allowed. That's true even on our finished paintings. She said the artists marks and corrections add interest, so the piece I've shown has no erasures. This is the piece I started on Day 1. Betsy had Christina take three different poses and we drew all three on our full sheet watercolor paper. Then we followed the process of applying tape. We were to do a dark, mid-tone, and light value on the three poses. When this piece is done, there will be no white showing. Betsy told me she likes this piece very much and I made good divisions of space. Be sure to carry the Scarlet Lake and the purple into all parts of the painting. I am really liking this painting.

The second day, Christina was back and Jane joined us. We did lots of warmups and then drew Christina in a prone position on paper coated with mat medium. I haven't had time to work on that one yet. I also have a great drawing on watercolor paper of Jane in very colorful clothes. Jane is a very accomplished artist and wears such unique and beautiful clothing. She says she is the original "Second-Hand Rose."

I hope to describe soon the process I learned for making stamps.

Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society member show, "Linear Visions"

Personal Flyer

"Linear Visions"

SCVWS Members Show

A week ago I helped with intake for the members show held on the grounds of the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. There are 99 pieces in the show and the quality is superb. Christopher Schenk, a well-known watermedia artist, juried the show on Thursday. On Friday I attended a Gallery Sitters briefing and those present went around to view all the art and each person described the inspiration for their painting. SCVWS created a lovely show flyer and a blank where we could insert our art to advertise the show. I will be sending flyers by e-mail to my collectors and friends.

My entry is "Pepere's Blacksmith Shop, 1909 - 2009," that I've posted on the blog previously. The shop is part of the Paquet Family Farm built by my sons' great grandfather, currently owned by their grandmother, and they help maintain the business. The piece represents my linear vision of a Vermont farm family rooted in Quebec. You can read the description by taking the link on the painting title. The blog post became the basis for my show statement in the show binder. I received some very positive comments from those present.

The show runs the rest of the month, so if you are in the area, do stop in and view the beautiful art between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. at no fee. There is a reception on October 25 at 1 to 4 and the public is invited to attend. Enjoy a beautiful spread of food and wine while chatting with fellow art enthusiasts and viewing the art. The award winners, already determined and notified, will receive their awards at the reception.

Starting today through the end of Friday, I am very busy helping to coordinate the SCVWS workshop by Betsy Dillard Stroud. Betsy is extremely creative using mixed media. Some of the people who have registered are highly accomplished artists so I will get to see some wonderful creativity in action. We picked Betsy up at the airport last night, and she was easy to recognize after seeing her photo in many issues of Watercolor Artist and Artist Magazine. The supply list is very lengthy, including both watercolors and acrylics in tubes and fluid forms, gessos, collage papers, and many more items. I have to finish assembling my supplies and put the final touches on our home for a cycling club event that Bob will host in my absence today.

I plan to post pieces I do in the workshop. Myrna Wacknov will also likely post her workshop experiments on her blog. Myrna is an award winner in the Linear Visions show and is waiting to learn which award she has won at the reception! Myrna will be giving a workshop for SCVWS in January. If you live in the area or want to visit, consider taking the workshop. More information on Artist Network, where the listing is a link to the description, and registration information at SCVWS.

Monday Drawing Class - the Full Figure

"Thinking"
Charcoal
14" x 17"

This charcoal sketch doesn't look like much, but I struggled mightily with it. Bob has had us concentrate on doing the full figure in the last two sessions with Gina. Usually I concentrate on the upper part of the body.We were shocked when after some very quick warmups, we had about 10 minutes to do some measurements. The lower body is much longer than we thought. Bob says that making the lower body smaller than it should be is a common error.

When I started this 20 minute pose, I got the length correct, but did not have the legs as far to the left as they should have been. I found this out myself by carefully remeasuring with my dowel stick. Bob says you have to suffer a little to become better at art.

Quick experiment with watercolor and pastel

"Sunset in Monterey"
Watercolor and pastel
12" x 9"

I've been out of town without much time for art. Tonight I grabbed a small painting I did at the Carmel Paintout and added some pastel. My drawing instructor, Bob Semans, tells us you can do an underpainting in watercolor and then apply pastel. This piece was more than an underpainting and it was not on a smooth surface, but rather on cold pressed watercolor paper, so the pastel appears as dots. I left it that way in some places, such as the trees, but I swiped some of it with a wet paper towel and rather liked the results.

Carmel Paintout - Second Edition

"Glorious Morning"
Pacific Grove, CA
14" x 21"

"Afternoon Fog"
Point Lobos
7" x 10"

Here is a continuation of the Carmel Paintout. On Thursday morning I drove to Pacific Grove, that lovely piece of coastline between Monterey Bay and 17-mile Drive. I found our leader, Karen, hard at work at the edge of the golf course by the bay. This a great place to paint with restrooms and water available. Later we were joined by others from Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society. Karen is a gutsy painter -- she had a card table, folding chair, and was doing a full sheet in bold colors. I never realized how great tree trunks would look painted bright torquoise.

I set up next to Karen and painted the tree line and point of land, backed by the hills and mountains along the bay. The rosy color you see is provided by prolific ice plant. The trees are Monterey Pines constantly swept in one direction by the winds blowing in off the ocean. Again, the day was perfect and sunny. A local was telling us there had been many days of fog, so we were most fortunate with weather. The golfers were very friendly, offering to pose for us, asking if we included them, or admiring our work The piece suggests the sunny, delightful day, filled with fresh air.

The second piece I painted on Saturday afternoon at Point Lobos. I had already completed the half-sheet painting in yesterday's post upon my field easel. I located a couple of fellow artists about a mile down the road and grabbed my simple plein air setup -- 3 legged stool, small watercolor block, paints, brushes, and water bucket and set up looking down the coast. The afternoon fog was sneaking in against the mountains, but I was seated in sunshine. When I put these paintings beside each other, I can see the difference in tonal colors that I selected based upon current atmospheric conditions.

Again I enjoyed social hour with newfound friends, dinner at Asilomar dining hall, and joint critique. When I worked in software, I was often surrounded by much younger people who were my good friends. There is a lot of youth working in the tech industry in Silicon Valley, bright and ambitious and very likeable. Now that I am retired and have the luxury of attending mid-week events without counting vacation days, I am meeting many people my age or older. I have to say that I have grown to love older women friends. They have experienced both the highs and lows of a life well lived and they are very wise. They are comfortable within themselves and very strong. This group of older women was so supportive and very fun.

On Saturday morning I had to return home for another commitment, so I rose early and met Nardia, a new friend, for an hour-long walk along the coastal road. We had been cautioned that cougars (mountain lions) do prowl the grounds that are shared with numerous deer, so don't go out alone. It was dark when we met at 6:30 from our respective buildings with relief that we had survived our short solo walks. Dawn emerged and with it, the wonderful rocks similar to those in "Afternoon Fog" and wild crashing waves. Nardia was studying the waves as a basis for her planned painting. We noted how they build and crest, and where the lights and darks appeared. After a delightful breakfast with my fellow artists, I packed up and returned to daily demands.