Creative Catalyst Newsletter October 7, 2008
A Designed Approach to Abstraction
In anticipation for John’s new release, we wanted to give you a chance to take advantage of his first DVD workshop at a discount. Don’t let the title fool you … it’s not just abstract!
To John Salminen, design is the common language binding all styles of painting. In this workshop, John applies his core design principles to a complex, layered abstraction. You’ll learn to create interesting shapes, capitalize on the strengths of watercolor and keep your painting intriguing and unpredictable. You’ll also discover composition and problem-solving strategies that apply to all media.
John focuses the workshop on core principles of design: dominance, texture, linkage and repetition. As he sketches common objects to seed his composition, he begins to establish shape and line type dominance. He explains his criteria for creating interesting shapes and applies them as he plans his values and establishes an unpainted area of his painting for his powerful white shape.
Throughout the workshop, you’ll see John enhance his watercolors with salt, dry brush blending, sponges, spattering, and a mouth atomizer. John uses masking extensively and creatively to control his applications. Most importantly, he demonstrates the careful judgment and self control necessary to create effects that enhance the painting rather than tricks that steal attention from overall design.
“This video is worth a $400 workshop and you can watch it
again and again!” - Connie K., Simpsonville, KY
Sale ends Tuesday, 10/14/08.
Learn More and Watch the Preview
NEW to the Site: Watercolour Workshop - Old Man River
Enjoy landscape painting with Canadian watercolor artist Sharon Lynn Williams AFCA, ASA. Sharon’s clear teaching style and sequential method helps even the most tentative of painters enjoy landscape painting. She begins with a simple photo reference and proceeds to thumbnail sketches. She then produces a more advanced value sketch, and line drawing. Sharon develops her painting in sections and in the process, introduces a variety of concepts and techniques important to any subject.
This DVD workshop is especially well suited for students fairly new to watercolor. It covers a variety of techniques and provides a blueprint on how to approach a complicated subject.
Sharon’s Watercolour Workshop is produced by WhitePine Productions. It is 104 minutes long and is conveniently divided into chapters. Sharon has also made four study sheets available on our site. Price $45.95
More about Sharon’s DVD Workshop
Save $5 on Funky Fabric Books - Tracy Bautista
Join Traci Bautista for a high energy, spirit lifting workshop filmed on site during one of her Art & Soul workshops. Traci uses scrap materials to make colorful fabric books. You learn to use stamps and stencils, transfer images, assemble mini collage covers, stitch in designs, create your own doodles and assemble the pages in a secure, decorative latch-hook spine.
Traci shows you more ways to put stuff on paper and on fabric than you can imagine. She dots, brushes, inks, scrapes, rolls, crushes, dabs, stamps, stencils, squishes, pushes, presses, punches, transfers, writes, glues, sponges, pokes, collages, photocopies, sews, cuts……..(you get the point).
Valid on Online or Mail-In orders only … Retail price is $29.95 – Sale Price is $24.95 + S/H - Sale ends Tuesday, 10/14/08.
From Behind the Camera: Limiting Shapes
One of my favorite artist, Alex Powers (no relation, darn), says in his book “Painting People in Watercolor, A Design Approach” that more of his paintings have been ruined by their containing too many shapes than by too few. His words reminded me that many of the artists we have filmed here at CCP limit the number of shapes in their paintings. They adjust values to combine and unite otherwise separate shapes. Eliminating non-essential shapes makes a stronger visual image and, in the process, it focuses the message. The act of choosing some shapes over others forces us to prioritize, to decide what is important and what is not.
Painters may think they are painting some thing, a subject. The truth is, they are painting a painting, and that is a very different project indeed. A painting requires structure, a cohesiveness to bind the parts together and make a statement from and through the artist. A strong painting focuses on what assists the artist’s message and eliminates distractions. Adding too much “extra stuff” into the composition frequently weakens the end result.
Even if we are unable to give words to what it is we are trying to say, the process of eliminating extra shapes will help us glean what is important. The discipline forces us to focus our message and eliminate non-supportive information.
Cheers, Lynn Powers
In This Issue
SAVE $10 on Salminen’s Designed Approach to Abstraction
New to CCP: Watercolour Landscape
SAVE $5: Bautista’s Funky Fabric Books
From Behind the Camera - Limiting Shapes
Pre-Notification New Salminen DVD
John Salminen’s Urban Landscape in Watercolor DVD workshop will be available soon. To receive a pre-notification e-mail please. click here
The feline foundlings are being adopted by their new families but only after a rigorous review on my part. The top two male kittens, Flash and Sparkie, still need homes. The lower two, Smudge and Checkers, will live with friends and family. The heroic mother cat, Missy (not pictured) has yet to be spayed so she will be around for a while yet.
Even though they are going to really great homes, I find that parting with these little creatures of pure joy is tough. But it will be nice to let the Creative Catalyst mascot, Benjamin, back in to wander the house. He’s been relegated to the office for the last two months.
- Lynn -
For tips about extending the life of your DVDs visit this link.
