Jun 9 - The Acrylic Still Life Continues

Now I'm so much more pleased with this one. It is coming along well, with glazing done with traditional gloss medium and colors from the Open Acrylics, blending and unifying the upper left corner, and defining the green plate. The red grapes went in very fast, and yet are not painted as individual grapes. I'll still add much more, and have put off adding the lavender leftmost plate. I need to pull the entire composition together before making this bold statement.

I've thought about time of day for this painting, and it is definitely morning. I added bits of warm yellow to the whites, and of course there are all sorts of grayed purples in the shadows. Yes, even interiors can reflect the time of day--it just makes a better painting overall, in my opinion.

Every once in a while I like to share with you other artists' work, someone who has been in a Color Boot Camp. Since my epiphany of being a teacher vs. being an artist first, I want to share this site with you--this is my friend Louise Mellon, of Aiken, South Carolina. She paints what she loves and what is around her--mostly horses and their companions. I'm always pleasured by her courage in her work and her stunning designs. Check her work in progress through her blog: http://louisemellon.blogspot.com/

OK, OK.... if you want to be on the list for the October workshop, I'm going to take names. (Now stop pestering me! Just kidding!) I don't want to have to go to a lottery system, yet I understand everyone's frustration about not getting into a Color Boot Camp.

You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2009 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.

June 8 - Back to the Normal after the Workshop

As I continue to cover the canvas, I'm working on the lower 2/3, bringing the colors back with the new, hopefully more effective design. The flowers "grew", and the plates moved down and off a bit. Again, I've moved to the Open Acrylics by Golden, to give me some more working time to make decisions. Although I love my traditional acrylics, working on a larger canvas tends to make me hurry when I'm using them.

I got a call from the Escondido gallery--suggesting that most of his clientele have homes that react better to "warmer" palettes. But he said that of all the artists' work he took over to show one of his high-end clients, it was my work that worked best. The Color System... what can I say???

Well, it is back to the "New" normal... It is mighty quiet around here now, after all the new Boot Camp graduates left yesterday, Sunday. The July workshop is full, and I'm looking at the second weekend in October for the next three-day Riverside Boot Camp. Those of you on the East Coast still have an opportunity to relax and paint your socks off in Maine in September. There's another three-day workshop scheduled for August in Sebastopol, but at this time is only open to their membership. I'll keep you posted if that changes.

Here's a photo from the workshop that was kindly sent to me from the Canadian contingent after she arrived back home. I send it to show the rack behind me with the work of the students from the first day--they did either moonlight or misty light paintings and the new "silly painting" using just the CS values. I'm wearing one of the "I survived Color Boot Camp" aprons, and of course, Sparky is doing his "bird on a wire" act.

Happy painting!

You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2009 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.