You may have noticed that I totally spaced notes for last week. I must have been distracted by the heat! So, this week I will share both last and this week.
Sep 30
- We started with a discussion of yellows and their differing properties. Shirley reviewed the qualities of tube vs. pan paints. Tube paints lose their rich qualities when left to dry and then rewetted because the moisture, gum Arabic and glycerin evaporate. Pan paints are made differently and are made to be rewetted. This was followed by a quick discussion of the vagaries of Prussian Blue.
- Folex and 409 are good for removing watercolor stains.
Then we got to #23, Concentrate on a Shape:
- Marjorie is really diving into the learning possibilities of this project and was thinking that trying to copy the examples might be a good way to learn. She did not, however, copy the example but created an outrageously colored succulent with bright outlines. The leaves were the repeated shapes. We talked about how you know when a piece is done and most agreed that you just KNOW.
- Mary tried a linoleum block. It took her several days to carve the block and then she discovered that it didn’t print very well with watercolor. She tried peach black, Prussian Blue and Chinese white. With the Chinese white she printed first and then did a yellow and Prussian Blue wash.
- Shirley brought her grill painting redo from the little Conservatory on Monterey Blvd. It is part of her CCSF project of the 23 Monterey Bus Line. She used inks and paint on a long piece of paper with blues, red browns and black and discovered that a baby toothbrush makes a nice fine spatter.
- Joanie used brightly colored stripes and rectangles and tried her new Sennelier inks which moved all over the place because the inks have lacquer in them.
- Avelina repeated dancer shapes which she moved around and reversed. She had to be careful putting in the background and it added another direction. She left a white “halo” around the dancers, which were different colors.
- Carmel did grilled corn, which looked like you could pick it up and eat it! She saved her whites and also did some scraping.
Oct 07
Discussion began with a debate about how we feel about paintings. Some said “love affair” and others “marriage”.
#19 Invent a Color Scheme:
- Mary started sharing with a painting she did at Grey Eagle with Kay Russell. She was using a photo of the scene outside their cabin and there was an interesting effect on the photo of radiating lines, which she included.
- Joanie did a purple pear with an orange background. Even though warm colors come forward and cool colors recede the pear managed to look like it was forward because of color intensity and some highlights.
- Shirley chose colors that she never uses for this experiment. The result was an orange dragonish creature in the center surrounded with green, and a pale blue background with some purple dot shapes. Some of the color combinations were unique and wonderful but she said she had no great affection for the piece. Her colors were Cadmium Orange, Thalo Green, Winsor Violet and French Ultramarine Blue.
- Marjorie did an animal skull in greens with a red shadow. She just closed her eyes and picked six colors and said she learned tons! Her colors were Alizarin Crimson, Thalo Green, Hooker’s Green, Payne’s Grey, French Ultramarine and Winsor Yellow.
- Carmel did two pieces, a beautiful sand dollar with deep blue sand and layers and layers of masked dots in lots of colors. Her second was a landscape with outrageous pink and red trees done in a Fauvism style.
- Avelina did three! A landscape in oranges and blues with atmospheric perspective, a portrait of a child divided into quarters with a different color palette in each quarter and her “Avatar” green woman in native dress from a photo in National Geographic. It was an interesting combination of realism and alarming color. All had her usual, beautiful attention to detail!
- Shirley brought another piece from her 23 Monterey project. It was the fountain in St. Francis Woods at Santa Ana Street. She was listening to the Soundtrack from Sleeping Beauty as she was working on the third one (the earlier ones were walked on by her cat and smeared near the end with a sleeve!) and it came out quite magical.
I won’t elaborate about the extensive discussion about mature women and hair that ended our morning. You just had to be there so come next time!!!
Until next week,
Joanie and Shirley