A Musician Series: "Hot August Nights"

"Hot August Nights"
20" x 25"
$700

 I am participating in a online critique group with Gwen Fox, an artist from Taos, NM. She challenged us to paint a series, so I continued with the musician theme. Ala Jeannie McGuire, who recently taught a Figurative Workshop in Vermont, I focused on making this painting unique and created an abstract background. Though the sax player is more forward than the singer, I wanted the singer to be the center of interest. I gave her more detail and light, and the sax player blended into the shadows. Gwen gave me a thumbs up on this one and commented that I accomplished my goals.

Figurative Workshop in Southern Vermont

Even for me, a traveler at heart, this workshop was a bit of a stretch after being gone 5 weeks and home just 9 days. Friend Joan from CT and I always do an art related vacation together. Though she is an oil painter, but she located a watercolor workshop sponsored by the Vermont Watercolor Society, and figured she could learn a lot from Jeannie McGuire who does wonderful non-traditional watercolors. Jeannie likes to let the painting develop as she goes, she will scrub out, paint over, work in lots of pigment, and use opaque paint against more transparent passages. She won the Gold Medal from AWS and has been featured in magazines. Check outt Jeannie McGuire's Art on Facebook.

Thus we traveled to beautiful Landgrove Inn, a traditional old farmhouse expanded to Inn with it's own delicious restaurant. They built a workshop facility and their hallway is lined with works by admired watercolorists like John Salminen and Ted Nuttal who have given workshops here. We were fed three meals a day, and the 10 artists and instructor developed a sense of community for the week.

We started with portrait, moved on to single figures, and finished with multiple figures. "The Singer" is at top was the single figure. I struggled with my first pieces, but pulled this one together. "Really?!"   is from of photo of Bob.
                                           

The multi figure piece features women's soccer.