More Collage on "Tango in La Boca"

"Tango In La Boca"

9" x 12" Collage and Mixed Media

One of my fellow South Side Art Club artists thought the grey wall on the left was too stark against the highly patterned piece. Penny suggested adding the suggestion of some bricks. Instead, I decided to go back and rework the painting. You can see the original here. I wanted to soften some of the edges of the red of the building as well. Gerald Brommer told us to just keep adding collage paper until the thing got too thick to frame!

I'm still not sure. Might have to darken the section on the left. Thoughts?

Live clothed model session

"Jane with Attitude"

Graphite and watercolor

15 minute pose

Three friends who are very successful artists now share a large studio in Sunnyvale. Today they hosted a two hour session with a live model. Jane Ferguson, one of the three artists, is one of my favorite models. I've posted other pieces with Jane on this blog. Jane changes several times and we have a new challenge with each outfit. Don't you love the bright pink hat -- it was covered with sequins.

We began with 2 minute poses and worked up to 5, 10, and finally 15. I always feel a bit intimidated surrounded by so many excellent artists, but I figure I have to learn. Doing these quick gesture drawings really helps warm us up for longer poses. I used vine charcoal so I smudge out lines as necessary. You can see my proportions are off.

Gestural drawing for 5 minute pose

Charcoal

We moved to two 10 minute poses and I challenged myself to use the broad Copic pen in sepia. It made me be more sure and deliberate with my marks. You can see that I tend to shorten the lower half of the body during these quick pieces. I corrected.

"Jane Relaxed"

Copic Pen and Watercolor

10 minute pose

The final two poses were 15 minutes each. On the last one, Jane posed as herself, an artist at her easel. What I show below is two pieces done in the last 15 minute pose. First I did the complete body, then I moved on to doing a portrait of the upper body. I received kudos from a couple fellow artists on this final piece; they commented that it really captured Jane.

"Jane Paints"

Graphite

Part of 15 minute pose

"Jane the Artist"

Cretacolor graphite

Part of 15 minute pose

Myrna Wacknov participated in the session using her I-Pad2 and an app that simulates watercolor painting. Myrna is always so experimental and she's won many awards internationally. She is also a terrific instructor who travels the world teaching art. Hopefully she will post some of her sketches from today, so check back on the link to her blog in the next few days. There is a sample of a sketch she did last night on the blog.

Another dancer

"Dancing on the Plaza"

Mixed Media

18" x 13.5"

Our neighbors went on a Mexican cruise a while back and shared this snapshot of a beautiful woman dancing at one of their ports of call. Jim gave me permission to use his photograph in my art. I tried a full sheet of this dancer once using acrylic paint and I wasn't happy with it. I began this and decided to rework the background. I am using Arches 300 lb hot press paper here, which can take a lot of abuse. I did some scrubbing out and used some gouche and gesso along with my watercolor .

I enjoy painting dancers, and you can take the dancer label on the lower right frame to find other paintings I've done related to tango and gaucho dancing inspired by our South American trip. Bob and I have taken ballroom dancing lessons for several years and we often dance as many as four times a week. It's great exercise, fun, and a nice shared activity, like our travel and bicycling.

Visiting the City by the Bay and Preping for a Workshop

"The City by the Bay"
Micron Pen on paper

"Beach Blanket Babylon Hat"
Micron Pen on Paper

"A Room with a View: From Parc 55 Hotel"
Watercolor and ink on sketch paper

For Christmas, Bob gave me a trip to the city to see Beach Blanket Babylon, a unique San Francisco experience. This hilarious musical revue is known for it's big hair and hats and political spoofs. The grand finale always includes the hat with San Francisco landmarks, including a cable car that runs up the hill and a TransAmerica Building that lifts to reveal "World Series Champions". We went to city Wednesday by Caltrain and used public transit as we always do. We had a lovely dinner in Italian North Beach. To return to our hotel we hoofed it up a major hill on Green Street to Powell and rode the cable car to the terminus near our hotel. It was about 10:00 in evening and here we were sitting on the open bench along the front right side with the warm evening air blowing in our hair. I had all I could do not to slide down the seat on the steep descents. The city is magical.

Now I am getting ready to assist in coordinating the Ted Nuttal figure workshop beginning tomorrow with a demo and 5 days of painting with a master. He told us to have all our pieces drawn ahead of time so we can spend our time painting. He prefers Arches 300 lb. hot press, and the closest I can come is some Fabriano 140 lb. hot press. None of the art stores in town have any. I will buy a piece from a friend and order online. I had a hard time finding subject matter as I don't create ideal photographs of people. I came up with an ancient wedding photo of Bob's grandmother from the early 1900s, a wonderful picture of granddaughter Jamie "social networking" on my patio, Bob and granddaughter Kelly playing the flute, and an old women in a market in France from my 2007 visit. Still trying to come up with few more. I managed to get 4 drawn on tracing paper and 2 transferred. I'm waiting to get my 300 lb. paper from Jeanne for a few of them.

"Les Trois Artistes" Reception on Saturday

"A Study in Black and White" (charcoal)
"Red Peppers and Pitcher" (pastel)
"Georgia O'Keefe's Mountain" (watercolor)
"Rain in the Fjords" (watercolor)

"The Coast" (watercolor)
"Memories of Ghost Ranch, NM" (watercolor)

"Matinee Memories" (watercolor)
"Villa Montalvo Gardens" (watercolor)

"Sunset over Tuscany" (acrylic)
"Dancing Poppies" (mixed media collage)

Some of the Matted Original Art for the Show

After coordinating the Frank Webb workshop, I immediately turned my attention to the ongoing "Les Trois Artistes" show on Santa Cruz Wharf. You can read about the show here. Because of a number of circumstances, we decided to have our reception on November 20. I've been organizing greeting cards, Bob cut mats, and I prepared the matted art in crystal bags for the canvas bin I will place there Saturday. I have a limited number of pieces hung, and I wanted additional recent art to display as many of my guests have attended previous shows. I selected a variety of pieces in different media. I even have one charcoal.

If you live in the area, please stop by our reception. You can make a day of it in Santa Cruz.

Vino Prima Wine Bar
Towards the far end of Santa Cruz Wharf
Saturday, November 20, 2 to 6

Playful Poppies and an Art Show Report

"Dancing Poppies"
11" x 14"
Watercolor and Collage
***See addendum***

This past week I decided to experiment with my favorite California wild flowers, Poppies. However, I was not happy with the intermediate stage and got bogged down. So I thought about Gerald Brommer and collage and decided to cut out some of the Poppies and tear up parts of the half-done background. I arranged the pieces on 300 lb. Arches watercolor paper until I found a harmonious arrangement. I used gel mat medium to glue the pieces to the backing. I need to let this one simmer a while to decide if I want to do any more to this piece.

The Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society Members Show hosted the reception at Rose Shenson Gallery at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara on Sunday. As we left church that day, the skies opened up with the first real rain of the season. I don't believe we've had rain since May. The reception is always outside the gallery, so I wondered how Janice Faulstich and her helpers would pull this one off. They did so beautifully and we had a huge crowd attending. They used portable covers over the deck of the gallery where the food was layed out and over the rows of seats set up for the awards ceremony. I really could not get a good look at the show with so many people and must return. Award winners included friends Myrna Wacknov (second place) and Jeanne de Campos-Rousseau (sponsors award). Jeanne is my fellow exhibitor in Santa Cruz. At the moment our SCVWS website has not yet posted the winners.

An invitation via Facebook resulted in a fortuitous intersection between my bicycle riding life and my art life. One of the women in my bike club replied that she would be leading a ride in the area and they would stop by. Sure enough, when I arrived a bit after the start of the reception, there were my cycling guests with mud trailing up the back of their day-glo green jackets. These hardy souls rode in the rain and made good on Joanne's promise. They enjoyed the art, used the facilities, skipped the buffet line, and went on their way. They made my day!

Addendum: Originally I titled this work "Playful Poppies," but Kathy Cartwright, a superb artist, said they were dancing. I loved the description so much, I've retitled the work. Check out Kathy's wonderful blog and her website.

Bits of Art and a Demo by Katherine Chang Liu

"Art Objects"
12" x 15" pastel

Today I went to my drawing class, the first time in a month. We had two new people join the group, so Bob was pretty busy getting them started. This pastel was done flying solo and mostly at home away from the still life. The only thing Bob did was sit in my seat and confirm that my drawing was good to go. I first used charcoal to shade values and then began with the dark cup holding the painting utensils. At that point I had to leave a bit early, so later at home I decided to finish this from memory. In case you are wondering, the three small canisters are containers of paint. The Grecian lady is one of Bob's small treasures and I have a drawing I did in one of the early classes about 3 years ago. This is the first time she's come to pose again. She is a patient model.

Yesterday I attended a wonderful presentation by Katherine Chang Liu who is doing a workshop this week for the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society. You can see Katherine's abstract art here: http://www.lewallencontemporary.com/searchresults.php?start=1&artistId=1070
From the Lew Allen gallery website:

“The content of my work,” Liu once said, “has to do with my feeling that in this information age, our senses are saturated daily with visual, literary, musical and verbal information. I am mapping this emotional state with autobiographical marks and a reference to the urban environment in which I live and work.”

Katherine gave us two slide shows. The first was developed for (I believe) the National Collage Society. She showed us images of abstract works by her favorite artists. She also showed some work by her mentees. Her explanation was very intellectual and thought provoking. I am still trying to absorb it, so I can't summarize it well enough to write about it here. Common to all the artists is a desire to do very unique, identifiable work. I jotted notes so I can do more research on the artists whose paintings "spoke" to me.

The second slide show was on figurative painting, which combined elements of realism and abstraction.
Katherine does not demonstrate painting. She has each artist bring 7 or 8 pieces of their work. She gives them a thorough critique and suggests how they can develop their artistic voice. I am not enrolled in this class as I have conflicting commitments.

Tomorrow our core Monday drawing class, along with some family (though none of mine) are going together to the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco to attend the show entitled:

Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay

I have twice had the pleasure of viewing the impressionist and post-impressionist collection at the Musee d'Orsay, so I am very much looking forward to attending with our instructor Bob Semans, a career portrait artist. Also, it will be interesting to see the art in a different setting.

I will again be away from the computer for a while. I will miss my blog friends.