SCVWS Members Show

"Memories of Norway
13" x 18"
Watercolor

Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society has a Members Show each Fall. There is no juried process to get in, though there is a juror for cash and sponsor awards. I had to file my entry form before I left for the East Coast, so I finally decided to enter my fantasy Norway piece for Alternate Realities." I had created a quarter sheet painting shown and discussed in this post. I knew it was successful when my critique group found nothing to suggest for improvements and really liked the piece. They are a very honest and helpful group of artists that I meet with once a month. However, I wanted a slightly larger piece for the show. In the process I changed the design a bit, and I am happy with this second iteration. As always, I am not great at photographing my work, so this looks a bit askew and it is really straight and true.

The earlier post has the explanation about the inspiration and process, so you might like to read that. Basically I loved the photos I took in the Viking Museum on Bydoy Island in Oslo, Norway in June. I also did a happy painting of the Sognefjord where we stayed in the tiny town of Balestrand. I used the fjord as a backdrop to the ship sailing. The Oseberg ship was a burial ship built in 800 AD. The carvings that embellish this painting were on a wagon found inside the ship. I love the animal symbols and the use of incised line. The Norse people were, and remain, great ship buildings, carvers, and sailors.

This painting is done with a complementary scheme of three colors -- Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue and a Yellow Orange -- and a bit of Ultramarine Violet. I spent two days on design work and then began painting the frame first. It was night and my light source was poor, so in the morning I realized I had not replicated the deepest color. I then experimented and found that with my Quiller palette, I had taken advantage of the exact complements to grey out the Ultramarine Blue with a touch of the yellow orange. Yesterday I painted over the background again and I like the opaque quality I achieved. It sets off the Cerulean Blue and Yellow Orange pure hues.

In this painting I softened and diffused the background and really emphasized the Viking ship. I took the advice of a very successful local artist, Terri Hill, who wrote about using opposites for emphasis, such as hard against soft. Terri is a member of the society, as is Myrna Wacknov and Mike Bailey, and many other fine artists with great reputations, so I am a small fish in a big pond, and feel very lucky to learn from these artists and associate with them. It was Mike who helped me see that some of my strength comes from the family engineering gene and I like the shape and line elements.

I hope if you live in the area you will take advantage of the opportunity to see a collection of very nice work. The show is in the Rose Shenson Gallery on the grounds of the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. We will have a reception and all are invited.

Rose Shenson Gallery
Triton Museum
1505 Warburton, Avenue
Santa Clara, CA

Visit the show:
October 16 - November 13
Tuesday - Sunday, 11 - 5

Come to the reception:
Sunday, October 17
1 to 4 pm.

Tom Fong-Inspired Fall Scene

"September Morning, Vermont"
21" x 15"

September mornings in Vermont vary between clear sun and crisp air with frost on the ground, and cool mist that softens the landscape. On this misty morn, color tinges the foliage, a few bright red leaves adorn trees, rust and gold emerge on the lush late summer foliage. Shapes are muted and the edges of the path softly blend with the meadow grasses. Soon the fall leaves will bring fiery beauty to the mountains, but this September morning dampens the skin and quietly surrounds on a morning walk.

This piece had it's start in Tom Fong's class. He encouraged us to paint as many pieces as we could between demos. I finished the work at my Thursday evening South Side Art Club and added a few finishing touches early this morning to bring order to chaos, as Tom describes the process. I lifted out a few lights and added a few splatters to the red leaves. I painted wet-into-wet for all but a few of the grasses and branches.

The nice thing about Tom's method is you can look at reference materials, pick some shapes, and then tap into your memories. Jeanne Rousseau handed me a photo, perhaps from Oregon? I turned a stream into a path (a suggestion from Don and Alison, some of my Thursday artists, as I neared completion), used a couple trees and my personal color scheme to represent Vermont, where I grew up and visit often. I always take a long walk about 6 a.m.

I am synthesizing what I have learned over the years and in recent workshops. Some of my shape-making, boldness, and color choices were honed in the Stephen Quiller workshop in April. You can reference the description of that workshop here. Gerald Brommer's workshop on collage emerges in abstract shapes and the play of varying textures. (Myrna Wacknov recently featured Brommer's Santa Cruz workshop on her blog - awesome.) Willingness to experiment and be bold was influenced by Betsy Dillard Stroud's workshop. My work continues to evolve.

Sketching on the bus - Ancient Viking Burial Ship

Sketch of Viking Burial Ship from the 9th Century

We have traveled a lot in the last two days. Track repairs required a bus bridge to a train, so we were driven about 3 hours into Sweden this morning and put on a train to Stockholm. Bob and I got wedged into the next to last row, with a wet German Shepard under the seat behind us and next to the busy bathroom. I was delighted to relinquish the olfactory embellishments when we arrived at a train station and left the bus.

To occupy myself on the bus, I looked at some photos on my camera from the awesome Viking Ship Museum and did a graphite sketch. The bus was jostling me around, so the results are a bit crude. The museum is one of several on the island of Bygdoy. We took a boat using our Oslo City Pass and returned via bus.

Three ships were found in burial mounds and dated back to the 9th and 10th century. A wealthy Viking would be buried in a seaworthy ship with many possessions. This ship is the Oseberg in which a wealthy woman was buried, along with her slave girl and horses. I didn't ask the gory details that remained unexplained.

I love the shapes of the boat and the intricate carvings on the prow. There were many artifacts found in the three ships, including some sleighs that were finely decorated with carvings. I took some closeups and I want to do a little research at home -- I'm sure the shapes mean something and I am hoping someone has deciphered them. I am always drawn to shape and plan to paint some pieces from the carvings.

California Poppies

"California Poppies on the Fault Line"
14" x 21"
Watercolor on Paper

Today I completed a challenge from Betsy Dillard Stroud's "Painting from the Inside Out." Betsy's instructions were to draw a floral and then draw geometric shapes over it. I used my little Japanese brush pen that holds water in the handle and new gamboge to draw the image. Select a limited palette and start by painting some grays mixed on the paper around the shapes. I used Pthalo Blue, New Gamboge, and Alizarin Crimson.



Alternate warm and cool, light and dark colors.



Unfortunately, I can't quite replicate the colors here. The lower right rectangle looks green here and is more grey on the paper. I thought about how Peggy Stermer-Cox has such a fine sense of design and magnificent use of color in her pieces with strong geometric and organic shapes, the result of many hours of artistic work. Peggy is very inspirational to me. I'm glad I took the progress pictures, because I would like to create another painting and keep the greys light as shown above.

I just saw a powerful painting related to the Haitian earthquakes on Hallie Farber's blog. Check it out along with the comments. I spent time in Haiti in 1985 and was impressed by the strength of the people in an impoverished land. Living in earthquake country, my primal fears are stirred by such events, along with my compassion for the people. While Hallie expresses her emotions so strongly in her piece, I retreat to California Poppies. The fractured look of my painting reflects my thoughts.

Lastly, I want to thank Pam for her mention of my blog on her blog. Pam is very articulate and her art has simplicity, beauty, and depth, along with frequent humor. Come join the fun of following Pam's creative path.

Another Matisse - Or Perhaps a Gauguin

"Yellow Shoes"
22" x 30"
Acrylic on Paper

Last October I was one of the coordinators for a Betsy Dillard Stroud workshop. We had live models and this lovely young Asian woman came prepared with costumes. We loved her retro shoes. We had 20 minutes to capture her using a brush to draw her on the paper. The next day we were given the exercise to do a Matisse painting. At the time I did one of Jane Ferguson, a wonderful artist in our society. I really liked the results that you can see here.

We've been battered all week with wild wind and rain, so I hunkered down yesterday and pulled out the drawing, wanting to do another Matisse style painting. The greenery, the patterns, and the organic shapes mimic Matisse. I put a few finishing touches on the piece this morning. As I was nearing the finish, I began to think the piece looked more like Gauguin because the model has an exotic look. Somehow, life drawings are difficult to make into anything but what they are. The poses look very static. I'm lukewarm on this piece.

I am planning to do Silicon Valley Open Studios and registration closed mid-January. There will be three of us this year at my home. I was notified yesterday that my new pieces are now on my personal SVOS page. Each artist can display three. You can see them here. They've all been posted in 2009 on the blog.

One Year Birthday of My Blog

California Cuisine
Watercolor
22" x 30"

This is the first birthday for my blog, which I created on January 3, 2009. I am reposting a piece that I did during Mike Bailey's "Watercolor Beyond the Obvious" for a special reason. This piece is one of my featured pieces of art on the Silicon Valley Open Studios website. On New Year's Day the wife of a friend saw it while attending our New Year's Open House and purchased it on the spot! I was very pleasantly surprised as this is a purely social event. This piece has attracted attention from guests, and it's one of my favorites.

That was an especially nice end to a wonderful party where we hosted about a 100 people from all parts of our life -- dance, cycling, art, church, the gym, neighbors, and friends. Bob and I do major cooking. He's famous for his lasagna, carrot cake, and Chicago Beef, a dish from his native city. We made many other dishes as well. We had a great time kicking off the new year, but I am definitely behind in setting goals and doing art.

Stay tuned....

Paper Art

"Jamie, Stepping Out in Style"

"Bailey and Free" for granddaughter Kelly

"Jeff and Beth, Down on the Farm"

What fun I had making Thank You cards for my son Jeff's family. I managed to eek out some time for art, be it paper art. When I opened my gifts from the family, I fell in love with the black wrapping paper decorated in gold spirals (my favorite shape) and stars. I couldn't just toss it out. I recalled Myrna Wacknov doing some value studies with cut paper, and my instructor, Joyce Barron Leopardo, showed me the wonderfully creative greeting cards she makes when she has some time on an airplane or in front of the TV. Joyce also let me select papers from a wallpaper sample book. I was also inspired by the designs of complex shapes by Peggy Stermer-Cox. And let's not forget Matisse who took paper cutouts to the level of fine art, and happens to be one of my favorite artists.

This morning I drew up my main images without references and later transferred them to tracing paper, taped the traced image onto the wrapping paper, and made paper dolls. I adhered the shapes to card stock and embellished them with other papers and some line. Jamie is a charmer in high school, so I decked her out in high heels, a skirt (which she seldom wears), and a purse under a spiral sun. Joyce's red wallpaper set off the black and gold nicely. Kelly is a newly minted teen who recently lobbied for a replacement dog. Both girls have horses at their small country farm. Thus, young Bailey is enjoying the company of Kelly's black horse, Free, on a carpet of wallpaper grass. Jeff and Beth love their mini Millbrook Farm complete with chickens, horses, a huge garden, birds, cats, a dog, and a lovely red barn. Here they are surveying their kingdom. I added thank you notes inside each card and posted them in the mail.

Christmas with the Plein Air Artists

Sylvia's View - San Jose

The Hillside from Sylvia's Deck

Sylvia Waddell is one of our two Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society's Plein Air leaders. Throughout the year, Sylvia and Jenny Tero plan weekly outings to various places around the Bay area and on the coast for our members. All you have to do is show up with your art materials and join in the fun.

Today Sylvia hosted a little Christmas plein air painting session and potluck. The day began dreary with fog that acted like fine rain. Thus, we were a small, but wonderful group of 5 gathered up in the East Foothills at Sylvia's home. Her place has decks front and back with spectacular views. Three of us opted to paint on the front deck where we had a panoramic view of the Santa Clara Valley, or "Valley of the Heart's Delight" as it was known when you saw fruit trees rather than homes on the valley floor. I chose to paint the scene of downtown with it's modest high rises. We are a city with a population of over a million, but in many ways we are a small town. The sky was overcast. I grabbed my artistic license, removed some trees and made the buildings look closer than they were . What is that saying about objects in your car mirror may be closer than they appear -- well, this is the reverse. As I was finishing the painting, the Santa Cruz Mountains began to emerge faintly in the distance, so I swiped them into the background with some blue paint.

By now it was noon and the winter sun had appeared, though with a haziness common to one of the shortest days of the year. Next, I turned myself 90 degrees to face the hillside. Without putting a single pencil mark on the paper, I painted in the hill, the trees, the house in the distance fronted by a vineyard, and the gnarled oak next to the deck. Kaaren told me that Mike Bailey would have said there was good use of repetition between the angles of the house roofs and the angles of the oak tree. I didn'plan that design element; it was intuitive. So having someone tell me that will help me be more conscious of my design choices next time. By then we had been joined by our two fellow artists who had been painting from the back of the house, and we finished up our session about 1 p.m. with a little show of our work in the livingroom. Sylvia maintains a Plein Air Muse blog, so you will likely see her posting her lovely work sometime soon. She is a wonderful watercolorist, and she does fabulous drawings using pens or graphite. Sylvia specializes in pet portraits.

Then it was time for our group to savor our potluck: chili with lots of surprise vegetables, a beautiful green salad, a Waldorf salad, bread, cheese, crackers, fruit, butter cookies, and chocolate bar cookies. A perfect day. I then drove to the community center to grab a few dances with Bob at the Thursday afternoon ballroom dance session. Now I must begin to prep for my Thursday night art group's Christmas gathering this evening at my home. Will we have time to paint?

"Birthday Memories"

"Birthday Memories, 2009"
11" x 14"
Collage, Watercolor, and Acrylic

As I was opening my gifts, mostly delivered from Amazon as we are a bi-coastal family, I was taken with the wrapping paper in lovely contrasting colors of blue and orange. One piece was blue with writing on one side and beige on the reverse. I decided I would recycle some of the interesting paper items into a piece of art commemorating my birthday 2009. One of my gifts is Betsy Dillard Stroud's wonderful "Painting from the Inside Out" given to me by son, Jeff. Inspired by "Everything but the Kitchen Sink" and recalling our wonderful workshop, I devised a compositional sketch centered around an orchid from a corsage that Bob gave me.

Let's call this experimental, as I don't know, nor do I care, if there is a right way to approach a piece like this. I drew my design on 300 pound watercolor paper, cut the collage pieces, and adhered them to the paper with mat medium as I learned from Gerald Brommer. When the base layer was dry, I painted the orchid in watercolor. I then began applying acrylics with a brush and stamping with acrylics to pull the background together. I found that I deviated from my design somewhat, responding to the image as it developed.

When I took Mike Bailey's 10-week Watercolor Beyond the Obvious workshop, I found that the process featured recently in Watercolor Artist magazine pushed me toward creating geometric shapes. I attribute this penchant to my engineering gene that guided my work life. By golly, that is what is emerging here as well.

I included elements that recall special moments, relationships, adventure, and where I am at this time in my life. The orchid represents my loving relationship with Bob, the gift wrap recalls my two wonderful grown sons, and Bob's little note on the Amazon gift card validates my role as artist. A piece of the 17-Mile Drive brochure provided directions on our bike ride to Carmel, and brings back memories of our cross-USA tandem bicycle ride in 2008. The coffee sleeves from a local Pacific Grove coffee shop take me back to several wonderful restaurants and cafes where we dined. The spiral pattern for growth and squares for stability are part of a stamp that I carved relating to my life. The rectangular decorative stamp reminds me of other parts of the world that I've been privileged to visit. One can say a lot about their life on a quarter sheet of watercolor paper

Dancing in the Streets

"Dancing in the Streets"
Buenos Aires, Argentina
8" x 10"

Acrylic on canvas

We spent 8 days in Buenos Aires at the end of a trip around Cape Hope by cruise ship in February. While there, we visited San Telmo where we saw people doing wonderful Argentine Tango in the streets. We were inspired to take two private lessons from a professional couple who rented studio time to give them to us. When we returned home, we added Argentine Tango to our weekly ballroom dance lessons.

We learned that the tango got its start in the brothels where the men would dance with each other to pass the time while waiting. The upper class did not embrace the tango until it became popular in France and other European countries, which gave it respectability. The dance is now a very important part the Argentine social scene. A Milonga is the venue where people dance the tango, and we had hoped to go to a Milonga while in Buenos Aires. However, we are definitely Americanos who tend towards an early bedtime, so we never managed to stay up until 2:00 a.m. to attend a Milonga. How do folks get up the next morning and go to work?

I wanted to do a very simple rendering of dancers doing the corte step without a lot of detail. I covered the canvas with an orange mother color and then proceeded to paint the scene with little detail. I finished the buildings by adding some black line using liquid gesso. I have much to learn about working with acrylics. Near the end of the process, I used some gloss medium and I rather liked the smooth coverage I got from doing that. More experimenting is in order.

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.

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!

Another experiment with Arabesque gowns

"Arabesque Bridal Gowns"
11" x 14"
Mixed watermedia

Thanks to Peggy Stermer-Cox for her suggestion that the background should be more geometric on the piece that was not working. Great idea. This my experimental piece that needs repainting to be a finished piece.

I cut the paper down and changed the scene to a quarter sheet landscape orientation, rather than a half sheet portrait. I looked on the Web for blurbs about the show at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, last spring and found the Arabic symbol on the left (this is only part of it) that was their logo for the show. The other two symbols are stamps that I own and are decorative lines used in the Arab culture.

Having recently taken Gerald Brommer's class, I boldly went where I never dared before -- I gessoed out the background. I then used acrylics which are very new for me to paint in the new background, with the exception of the floor rug done in watercolor. I am much happier with the feel of this design.

Lovely Lilies

"Lovely Lilies"
11" x 14"

In April, Bob's daughter, Jamie, was married to David in a beautiful spring wedding. Jamie chose green with orange accents as her colors. This is the wedding bouquet that she carried, tightly wrapped orange Calla Lilies. They were stunning, and so different from the bridal bouquets of my era long ago. The bouquet was on display at our home for the large family brunch the next day, so I quickly took several photos. Last night while painting with my Thursday night bunch at my home, I pulled out all the stops and went for a very wet, loose rendition. I've always liked the shape element, and I like the results.

Brommer Workshop Recap

St. Michel, the Dordogne, France
Collage and watermedia

"Puente Nuevo"
Ronda, Spain
Collage and watercolor

"Two for the Road"
Beginning phase of a montage of my bicycle ride across the USA
Collage and watercolor

The week was so busy that I did not even have time to post the final three days of the workshop. We had a wonderful time. I felt like a kid again with my matte medium, gesso, pens, rice paper, and paints. I also was humbled by the beautiful work turned out by my colleagues in the workshop. Jerry said this one of the two most accomplished groups of artists that he had had in his workshops over the years. Privately he told me that several were way beyond needing a workshop, but of course creative people love to learn new ways of working and thinking. Take this link (Myrna's name) to see the work done by Myrna Wacknov during the workshop, so good that Jerry needed a piece for his collection. Myrna teaches many workshops nationwide, is an award-winning artist, and has been featured in popular art magazines.

Jerry at 82 is just as excited about art as he was as a child. He keeps learning new things (for example, that gesso can be applied successfully to a wet collage) and pushes his experimentation. He is humble and inspirational. He kept giving us pearls of wisdom, and I enjoyed his stories of many of the famous artists we admire who have been his friends. He also gave me his full-sheet demo painting that I will treasure, though Jerry did not have time to complete the detail and darks over his underpainting.

The pieces I show here were done on days 3, 4 and 5. To be successful, I would need to redo them. I've said before that my engineering mind is very literal and it takes me a while to apply what I learn in a creative way. I will explore this medium in the coming months as I really love the textured surfaces and the effects we achieved. Each piece was supposed to maintain separation between shape and line. The piece on Day 3 is from a snapshot I took in the Dordogne, while on a Mike Bailey art vacation in 2007. We built up the surface by applying rice papers with pieces of brown paper bag for the dark values. We drew into the wet collage and added paint. Applying white gouache does some really interesting things to the surface.

Day 4 I completed the bridge in Ronda, Spain, that I visited in 1989. Ronda is one of the "white towns" in Andalusia. This bridge is the newest of the three bridges that have spanned the gorge. The first was built by the Romans, the second by the Arabs, and third is the "new" bridge built by the occupants of the town in the 1700's. New is relative. As we stood on the bridge, we could see remnants of the two older bridges hundreds of feet below us. I struggled with this painting and in the final 15 minutes before critique, I got a suggestion from Jerry to apply gesso over parts I did not like and rework them. I worked furiously and Jerry was amazed that I pulled the iron out of the fire in those few minutes.

Day 5 is just the beginning stages of a complex exploration of a theme, in my case my bicycle ride across the USA in 2008. The top 1/3 of the page is picture that embodies the theme, and the bottom 2/3rds will be filled with small line drawings with color and images of items related to the theme. I selected an image from the middle of the country, where we were treated like royalty, tiny Woodbine, Iowa. The L stands for Lincoln Highway, the first highway to be completed across the USA. The old service station had been turned into an internet cafe by the junior high science teacher and his wife. They love to take pictures of people touring the country in front of the mileage to two major East and West Coast cities.

We were instructed to collage the entire surface, let it dry, add a thin layer of diluted gesso, let it dry, and then work on that surface. As we worked, we could add more collage, more gesso, paint, photographs, pieces of related paper, whatever. Eventually, I would add a border of darker color around the edge to organize the collection. At critique, I was especially fond of a piece done by Jean D. who collaged using various old documents (or copies of them) and then had a male figure walking into the documents. A serendipitous smearing of the ink on the figure created the most wonderful results. To me it certainly suggested the past.

Jerry's approach, with any piece, is to do some planning, but he never knows exactly how the piece will turn out, very reassuring to me. He lets what's happening on the surface inform subsequent steps in the process.

The workshop went well administratively, my first time to coordinate one for the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society. Bob and I especially enjoyed getting to know Jerry and his wife, Georgia, first at home, then at two subsequent dinners, and a final drive to the airport. They are such wonderful people. Jerry says that we are changed with each experience we have in workshops. I can't wait to take that change to a new level.

I have a few more obligations and then in the next few days I will be checking out what I've missed from my fellow bloggers.

Gerry Brommer Workshop Day 2

"Carmel Cypresses"
Ink with collage

"Cinque Terre Flowers"
Ink with collage

Today Gerry had us use collage shapes with ink lines, maintaining the separation of line and shape. I decided to basically use the same images as yesterday and see what collage does for them. I decided to get a critique on "Carmel Cypresses." He said he liked the piece better than yesterday's. He suggested bringing a stem in the foreground off the bottom of the page and to darken some of the major lines on the rocks. There needs to be variety, but we also need to call attention to major elements of the design.

The blue stained papers were rather dark so Gerry suggested I collage some plain white tissue over them. Voila, lighter stains and more interesting texture. I think I will try some of my acrylics tomorrow as the watercolor does not like to adhere to the matte medium we used for collage. Critique was very educational. I stained some more rice paper today and we will be using brown paper bags in the mix tomorrow.

Gerald Brommer Workshop - Day 1

"Carmel Cypress Trees"

"Cinque Terre Wildflowers"

Italy

The workshop I am coordinating is "From Line and Shape to Complex Surfaces." Today Gerald Brommer explained that we should treat the two elements of design, line and shape, as independent of each other. We should not be outlining the shape, nor should we be filling in the shape we've created. Both would look like a coloring book. Instead, we either put down shapes in light to mid-tone values and then draw our image over the shapes, or we draw our image and add shapes. We finish with some overpainting, but again avoid filling in the lines with color. We were told not to erase anything. We could draw in pencil and then in ink, not following the pencil line exactly. We drew on quarter sheets from our own reference materials.

We selected one piece for critique (I actually did 3 quarter sheets and started a fourth). I choose Cinque Terre wildflowers, done from a photo taken when pal, Joan, and I went to Italy for a watercolor workshop in Western Tuscany. First we spent a few days in a tiny town just south of the Cinque Terre, where we relaxed, hiked, and sketched. Gerri liked the piece and made two suggestions for improvement, which I haven't done yet -- balance the right corner with a small shape of strong color on the lower left, and add more line to the two plants that reach above the sea on the left. He was enthusiastic about my cypresses, though I didn't put it up for critique. Gerri is such a wonderful instructor, and loved by many. We have a fabulous group of people taking the class, including Myrna Wacknov, so it's really neat to see the art they produce. It's also like old home week for my France trip in 2007 with Mike Bailey -- Myrna, Carrie, and Lisa are all in the workshop! We ended the day tearing pieces of rice paper, staining them with various shades of a couple colors, and allowing them to dry overnight. Tomorrow we begin the collage process.

Yesterday's demo went well, the first I've coordinated. The room was full, probably 75 to 100 observers. Gerri said he couldn't demonstrate collage on the spot and what we would do in class were small pieces. So I brought him a full sheet of Arches 140 lb. paper and a support so he could demo his design and painting process. Like all masters, he made it look so easy, and the crowd loved it. Gerri gives you permission to do anything in art -- no, a watercolor must not all be transparent; yes, you can use opaque white and colors; you can move things around; you can eliminate what you don't want and add something you do. You can do many variations from one simple sketch or photo.

I am learning the mechanics of being a coordinator, quite a bit of work as we provide a nice series of snack morning and afternoon during the workshop and for the demo on Sunday afternoon. So far, I've been to Costco twice, and the farm stand once. Then there are the various vagaries of the locks for kitchen, water supply, classroom, restrooms, and atrium. All is going smoothly and I am having fun. I have a terrific assistant, Irene, who has jumped right in on setup, cleanup, and ordering and picking up the instructors lunch.

Pastels in Monday drawing class

"Mom's Shoes and Pearls"
Pastels
11" x 11"

Judith brought in some beautiful shoes and pearls that her mother had owned. The shoes were a soft green suede and satin. First I struggled with the drawing, but Bob rechecked my measurements and got me back on track. I am fairly satisfied with the shoes, but I am less than pleased with the golden drape. Also, I must order some decent pastel paper. I got to the point where the pastel no longer wanted to adhere, even after spraying with fixative. However, I had fun and learned more about perspective from this still life.

Japanese Friendship Gardens

"Japanese Friendship Gardens"

9" x 12"
San Jose, California

Today I painted plein air with the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society. Our location was the lovely Japanese Friendship Gardens with a couple large pools with ducks, geese, and koi, waterfalls, a bridge, and many Asian structures. I find that a simple sketch for a large scene like this is the best way to spend my time. I sat in the shade next to the pond on a perfect sunny day. It doesn't get any better than this! (my mantra for plein air in California).

I was joined by Don, a member of my South Side Art Club that meets on Thursday nights to paint, a good friend for many years. Don enjoyed meeting the other artists. A bonus is the Kelly Historic Park next door with many wonderful old homes and buildings. I took some photos for later reference.

Don suggested that our small club could occasionally do daytime plein air sessions in lieu of Thursday night sessions. We will be discussing that tonight, I'm sure.