What People Say
Hi Barbara (Nechis),
The DVDs arrived this morning and I wanted to thank you for the quick service. Watched “Watercolor From Within” this afternoon and to say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. It is really a brilliant DVD and I’m looking forward to viewing it many times.
I’m also reading “Watercolor From The Heart” and am equally impressed with it. My undergraduate degree was in Philosophy so I especially enjoy your outlook as well as all the valuable art information.
Thanks so much for sharing your expertise.
Bill L.
PS: Kudos also to the people who produced the video.
Spotlight on James’ Yupo Workshop
Yupo can be frustrating and challenging. It also provides watercolorists an incredible design flexibility. In Mastering Yupo, George James has developed a process that promotes predictable results and a creative flexibility unheard of on regular watercolor paper. In this workshop George demonstrates his techniques for achieving variegated washes and smooth washes, lifting, ghosting, splattering, stamping, creating darks and lifting whites. He creates rich surface textures and luminous dark passages. George is generous with his knowledge and clearly explains the theory behind his every move. He opens a whole new world of creativity.
The Next Step
Like many of you, I’m trying to figure out what the heck I’m doing in my own art. For me, it’s frequently a love/hate relationship. It’s full of choices: Realism vs. abstract; muted vs. powerful; watercolor vs. oil or some other medium. I read about people that are happy all the time with their work and I wonder what they’re smoking, and were can I get it?
I doubt it would bug me so much if I felt I had all the time in the world to explore possibilities, wander until I bumped into the perfect combination of media/style/content by accident. I envy those lucky folks that go to art school and follow a sequence of classes with expert guides.
Life is what it is, and we are lucky to have the luxury to paint at all. And I suppose the next step is all anyone needs to know. It’s all anyone can know because the next painting could take us in a totally different direction. The challenge is to not worry about the long term direction and permit ourselves to be directed by ourselves. That’s one of the reasons why it’s such an adventure.
Above is a close up of my latest effort, “Homeless in Maui”.
Cheers,
Lynn Powers
Yosemite workshop
It started with a ride from Fresno airport thru Oakhurst and then thru the winding road to the valley. From my past experience I had some ginger tablet which I kept on chewing.(Motion sickness fear) We were five instructors –Steve Quiller, John Salminen, Don Getz, Barbara Nechis and myself. What a great group of artists and friends!! With the exception of John whose group of abstract painting were confined in class room, we all had a new group of students every day. Weather was fantastic and the valley still had some colors left. Highlight was the full moon. Think of Ansel Adams! Yes, the moon was rising and I could see it thru my window. We had a day for scouting painting spots and getting acquainted with the place. Being there for the second time really helped. Steve and I decided to go for plein air painting . The evening was get together and Patty Allen gave us some down to earth advice and our daily agenda. Lars Karlsson, the awesome photographer volunteered to take photographs while we give demos. He shot some pretty candid pictures too!
Rosy glow as the sun was setting and the moon was rising behind the half dome. This was one of our favorite spot for painting. I called it “Quiller Point”. Then there was “Das Hill” and “ Getz Meadow” , and we personalized some of these painting spots.
1. Action
2. Breaking the Rules was not my idea!!
(See the featured article in “Watercolor Magazine”, winter issue.
3. I wonder what was going on in their minds.
4. ….while watching the demo.
Then came the show time
5. Started out this way at the Cathedral Beach
6. Ended up this way.
7. There were moments of consultation , contemplation and trepidation.
But then there were rewards of cocktail hour at the end of the day before we start the critique in the evening which usually stretched to a second visit to the bar to adjust our attitudes for the next day.
Last day was questions and answers and five of us were on hot seats.
Some more paintings of Yosemite
Salminen Studio
Urban landscape painter, John Salminen, lives in the wooded area of northern Minnesota. John and his wife Kathy homesteaded the property in the early 70’s and have called it home every since. When I asked John why he doesn’t paint scenes of the beautiful landscape that surrounds him, he replied that it was so beautiful that it would be impossible to improve on the subject.
Kathy Salminen’s photo is from early December 2009. She reports that there have been many major snow falls since.
John’s studio is in the basement.
Art For All Canada (AFAC) Conference for artists
Art For All Canada is a not-for-profit organization run by artists to help artists develop, show and sell their work comission-free. They have a call to all Canadian Artists for their March Show and conference. More information can be found at their web site: www.artforallcanada.org
The conference is March 6 and 7th. The Art Show is March 6-13th at the Metro Hall, in Toronto, Canada.
Spotlight on Zagotta Workshop
Donna Zogatta listed the qualities she wanted to see in her paintings, then developed her recognizable style as a result. Surface texture, strong color and an emphasis on shape are just a few of the qualities. In The You Factor: Powerful Personal Design in Opaque Watercolor you discover the most interesting elements from your source material as you mold shapes and relationships to fit your unique vision. Donna’s inquisitive approach to design helps you create powerful compositions that say as much about you as they do about your subjects.
Donna breaks her process into manageable steps and approaches design challenges one at a time. With her design firmly established, she is free to focus on her extended painting process. She concentrates on setting up color relationships and establishing a light pattern.
Zagotta mixes an extensive watercolor palette with white gouache. The opaque paints free her to make corrections and solve design problems at any moment and achieve a complex layered effect.
Visual Memory
Twice in the last week I’ve heard of a practice that at one time would have seemed wildly strange, but now makes perfect sense. Here it is: Draw something accurately that you are not looking at. (It is not blind contour drawing.)
An example of this would be students in a life drawing class that have their model up a flight of stairs in another studio away from where they are working. They were encouraged to put to memory as much information as possible and then return to the easel downstairs and draw.
Crazy? Not really. As artists, we train ourselves to look for visual information. It is as concrete as math. It’s just not left brain.
My folks had an artistic friend in high school that later became a teacher at Art Center in Los Angeles. His name was Reynold Brown. (Reynold was mentor of CCP artist Craig Nelson, and many others.) As a kid in high school, Reynold would go on sketching trips with my folks and never take a sketch book. He would just sit and look around. To the amazement of his friends, when he returned to class he’d paint a complete painting with details others had missed. Later in life he could construct complicated scenes combining the information he’d gleaned over the years, without the need to step outdoors. He had a library of visual information stored in his brain.
Reynold may have been extraordinary with his early ability to do this but it is a skill that can be learned.
I am continually amazed by artists. We can only imagine what is possible given time and focus.
Cheers,
Lynn Powers
Spotlight on Bagby Workshop
Put patterns to work with mixed media artist Anne Bagby
. You’ll create your own stamps, masks, stencils, and paper as you build a truly customized collage. Work fast and free, layering homemade paper and lush acrylic glazes to design an intricate and eclectic figure.
Anne makes all her own collage materials. She combines stamped and painted patterns to create the wafer-thin paper she uses throughout the workshop. You’ll transfer antique designs to hand-carved stamps and cut contact paper masks to guide custom stencils.
Using an experimental process, working simultaneously on five figures, Anne takes risks with the weakest, using the freedom of collage to find creative solutions. You’ll quickly build shapes with paper and slowly unify them with controlled glazes. The borders may resemble tapestry, quilts or printed fabrics.
Select what’s important
I think poetry is a good comparison to painting. The limits of both art forms do not permit either the artist or poet to describe in detail the minutia of their subject. In fact, the more selective the artist, the more powerful the work. The challenge is to determine what conveys the message most clearly.
I enjoy thinking about which features or gestures best express how I feel about my model. Is the model bold, shy, wise, funny? I try to consider if I need to blur an eye, accent a cheek bone, use strong pure color or pastel tones, etc. This can’t help but bring my own preconceived ideas into play. Consequently, I learn as much about myself as I do about whomever I’m painting. On a good day, the visual image becomes secondary to the emotional expression.
This is the part of art I especially love. It’s also the part of art I think is the most often overlooked. Capturing the visual likeness is seductive. Manipulating technical skills is also seductive. But like the sirens of old, we may find it wise to look beyond their beautiful song to find a more personal direction.
Cheers
Lynn Powers
To George James
More from George James!
I’ve watched his “one”, I’ve watched his “two”
I’ve watched his number “three”
And through it all George James became
A special friend to me!
A man of knowledge, humour too,
With teaching expertise!
Yes, colour, shape,design and more
Are taught with such an ease!
He has inspired, he’s freed me up!
A whole new world appears!
And here I come full steam ahead
Just bursting through my fears!
So thank you George, you’re number one
And I can’t wait to see
Another workshop brimming full
For me to “eat” with glee!
Sincerely, Gillian D.
We Sincerely Apologize
First, we want to wish you a very Happy New Year.
Secondly, we apologize. We are very sorry for the chaos we caused on ArtWorkshops.tv. We are especially sorry that your first day of 2010 began with frustration and disappointment. As you can imagine, the demand overwhelmed our wildest expectation. You have our word that we will fix the problem. If you experienced problems on ArtWorkshops.tv on January 1st, please link to Support and leave your contact information. If you know friends/family that had problems, please forward them this link. We will contact each one of you with your access to the workshops and make it as problem-free as we know how.
Again, we are very sorry!
A change of plans
Things don’t always go the way one plans. I had planned to spend the time between Christmas and New Year to reflect on the past year. I had hoped to start 2010 with some reasonable goals and a clean studio. It was not to be!
On Dec. 26th we were called to get to the Bay Area (California) quickly due to an illness in the family. On the drive home we listened to Malcolm Galdwell’s book, Outliers. The book was timely. It is about what it takes to be really good at what we do. Basically Gladwell says it takes hard work, exceptional timing and some very lucky breaks, even for Mozart and Bill Gates. He proposes that it requires around 10,000 hours of practice, with the focused intent of improving, before one can expect to become exceptional. He then provides examples of very successful people in a variety of areas.
We have our work cut out for us. Apparently unless we’ve done the time, we have no right to whine. Perhaps my lucky break is that circumstances provided me the opportunity to listen to the book in it’s entirety.
I know what I should be doing and it’s not cleaning the studio.
Lynn
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