Watercolor Workshop at Flax


Sennelier Watercolor and Raphael Aquasoft Brushes
April 11, 2015, 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Drop by FLAX to try the legendary Sennelier Watercolors along with the brush that never stops, the Raphael Aquasoft watercolor brush. Combined, these artist grade materials, along with Fabriano's watercolor paper make a trio that is sure to impress. When we put these materials in your hands you will be hooked. The historic brands Sennelier and Fabriano when teamed up with the new state of the art synthetic Aquasoft brush will change the way you think about watercolor painting.
Distributor Savoir Faire will be at here at FLAX to show YOU these amazing art materials, come check it out!
Click here to sign up.

Tuesday at Creightons - Mar 24

Hi, TACers,
Today we were a smaller group as some of us are travelling with more to take off soon.  Australia, Italy and more!  We should be having some good stories and travel inspired art upon their return.  We decided to just keep going even if the group is smaller!
41 - Light Foreground, Dark Background
SUE started with a piece she did on the plane coming home from her trip.  It was a landscape that had some interestingly stylized flowers and trees.  She also shared a piece from last week’s assignment where she used an interesting stencil of groups of men.  Very intriguing. And she worked a little more on her boat, city skyline and fog piece.
JO is trying to paint glass and was quite successful with her crystal glasses with a rich wine colored background.  She worked from a photo.  We were glad to see her.
There was discussion of how useful a black and white photo can be to help with value and to see what a subject would look like when it is flattened out.
HEATHER washed some lemons off her paper and painted over it.  The lemons became elusive yellow orbs in a non-representational piece.
JOANIE had three pieces, an abstracted eucalyptus pod that looked a bit like an aroused emu, a view of twin peaks and an enlarged pussy willow blossom on dark toned paper. 
AVELINA was exploring using mask and managed to spill it on herself but she kept working.  She had two, both with rich dark backgrounds, nearly black, that she mixed using several colors.  One was of leaves and the other was a carousel horse.
Sometimes mask can roughen the paper when you remove it and Shirley had seen a video where the woman smoothed the area with the back of a spoon.
SHIRLEY shared three of her vintage Japanese fabric pieces and she continues to move away from exact representations and adding her own take.
CAROLE D. wanted feedback on a landscape and you know how we can give great advice!  She is soon off to Italy for 2 weeks!
MARJORIE nipped in at the last minute tp share another wrinkled piece that she had started but it will not be completed until she returns from Australia.  She will be there by the time you get this.
44 - Abstract from a Commonplace Object
That’s it for now.
See you next week!
Joanie

Plein Air Festival

Artists of any level are welcome to come paint, sketch, draw and photograph in the garden, and art or rose lovers are invited to come watch them.

Sunday, April 26 at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden

Click on this link for more information: Rose Garden Plein Air Festival

Thank you, Joanie

Tuesday at Creightons - Mar 17

 
 Hi, TACers!
Pam was back and it sounded like her trip was amazing-swimming with sharks and sea turtles!
Kay's next studio session starts April 24th and goes to June and she will do her last 3 week session at Fort Mason April 13,20,27.  If you are interested you will need to sign up ASAP!!!
 
36 - Select Unique Subject Matter 
This week we started with…
JANIE and her “Clockwork Orange”.  She was combining clocks and parts of citrus fruits but was just part way.  It was looking good.  She also shared several pieces where she did more exploring with salt and her crumpled paper piece which was non-representational with lovely colors.
PAM painted what was right in front of her, her paint brushes and brush cleaning cloth.  There was lots of white, great colors and she made really good straight lines for her brush handles.  When we asked how she did it she said it had been a good day.  Her metal was good, too.  She used neutral tine which brought up a discussion about what neutral tine is and the best brand.  Neutral tint is supposed to change a hue to a shade (darken a color).  Shirley said Winsor Newton is the most neutral.
AVELINA solved her bubble dilemma!  They were amazing.  She used watered frisket and a pen nib to get thin lines.  There were lots more steps but I didn’t get good notes so you can ask her next time you see her.  She also did a pile of sock monkeys reflected in a mirror and it even showed the bevel in the edge of the mirror. Her THIRD was a grouping of bags/purses that she saw in Miami.  They were crazy, fun and bright!  She used colored pencil to add some interesting texture.
MARJORIE reworked last week’s piece.  He greatly enhanced the color to very good effect-on both sides.  She added side#2 to her “fortune cookie” series. It was a great example of following and accident. “Oh, gosh yes!” she said and she would work with crimpled paper again.
PAM shared a scene from the Napo River in Ecuador.  It was the view from her room.
SHIRLEY is working on her Japanese fabric series and is moving from replicating to adding her own expression.
MARY is going for the Sanchez Art Center’s 50/50 again so she won’t be coming for a while.  She decided to confront her disappointment of  not being accepted last year with her amazing bug and button series.  Go Mary!!!
Marjorie will be “down under” until mid April and Pam will be travelling , too.  We’ll miss them!
Next week is 41 - Light Foreground, Dark Background.
Looking forward to seeing y’all next week.  If you haven’t been in awhile, COME!!!
Joanie, rhymes with macaroni.

Drawing at St. Martins

Sue invites us all to a drawing venue, with models. It is held 2 times a month and here are the stats:

SOUP KITCHEN ARTISTS meet 2 times a month.

They meet at St. Martin's House of Hospitality (a soup kitchen) at  225 Potrero Ave, between 15th - 16th St. It is a brick building with a narrow door, ring bell to enter. 

They draw from 7:00 - 9:30 pm.  Tables, chairs, and light refreshments are provided.

They do short and long poses. Most people draw, some paint. Bring your materials. It is not a large group and there is no instruction.

The fee is $10/session.

The next times will be Friday, March 20, April 3 + 17.

If you drive, try to park on the east side of Potrero in front of the building. Watch out for the trees with pigeons.

PS:  At the moment, they are going  through financial restructuring, and if they continue in June, the rate will be $12/session.

I hope that some of the watercolor group will be able to come. Sue

New Group Show Possibility

We have been offered a space and time to hang a show this spring.
This email is to see what the interest level is in having a second show this year. It will not replace the Cafe Seventy8 show in November, it will be an additional commitment.

- The show will hang for 2 months, from Saturdays May 23 to July 25.
- The space is in the community room at the Center for Spiritual Living in West Portal.
- Publicity is going to be important, so there will be a request for 10 email address and that you hand out or mail out postcards.

Here are some pros and cons:
- We would hang on the walls surrounding the worship space, which is not an "always open to the public" venue.
- We can have a party/reception/viewing time open to the public.
- The organization is very supportive of the arts and are making this space available for free.
- Purchases are made by the Center for Spiritual Life. It is a fund raising event for them and they ask a 30% commission on all sales.
- Your paintings will be for sale. This is not the venue for pieces with impossible prices. There is a bookstore where postcards, stationary and prints can also be sold.
- There will be a yet-to-be-determined fee for supplies and publicity, somewhere between $5 and $10 dollars.

Please let me know by Friday, Mar 20, if you are interested.
Email to Shirley

Thank you to Juliet

Tuesday at Creightons - Mar 03 & 10


Hi, TACers!
Mar 03 / 49 - Introduce Sparkle with Salt
I am afraid I have misplaced my little red notebook so don’t have my notes from Tuesday so just quickly...it was “Introduce Sparkle with Salt”.  As usual each piece was unique and there was a lot of interesting discussion on techniques.  Part of my piece was really wet and the salt kept dissolving but I ended up with a cool stormy sky look.
Shirley finished her Doggie Diner dog at last.
If you haven’t been in a while, please drop in!  We miss you!!!
Until Tuesday, Joanie

Mar 11 / 52 - Crumple Your Paper First
Another week, another wonderful sharing of work!
SUE started off with a scene of Central Park in New Your.  It was fresh and spontaneous.  We gave her some ideas for enhancing the water and reflections.
MARJORIE started on one side of the paper with a naturescape using her two new colors but she didn’t like is so she put it back in her tub to wash it off and turned it over to do something else.  By the time she was done colors had bled through both sides and changed to look of each side.  Really cool!
JOANIE used an unknown paper and painted a fairly realistic bit of interesting bark.
AVELINA found this experiment frustrating.  She tried 300#, 140# cold press and 140# hot press.  She thought she might get carpel tunnel from wrinkling the 300# and the 140# wasn’t much better.  She used her favorite bright colors and was most satisfied with the hot press.  She also tried a print from one piece that was interesting.  She said she would never do it again.
LEE tried working with the different planes created by the crumples and did a non-representational piece trying to use a different color for each different direction of plane and then played with more color interaction at the end and added some darks.
MARY used crinkled rice paper added to watercolor paper and created an ice scene.  She started with dark blue and then covered it with YES! Paste and added the rice paper and more dark blue when almost dry.  She was happy with the result but not so much with the rest of the piece.
SHIRLEY shared her latest Japanese kimono fabric piece and she is starting to move away from exact reproduction.  In this one she added white line with gel pen that created an interesting vibration.
MARJORIE shared her make up piece from last week.  She worked on yupo and created a Chagall influenced image.  She added salt which didn’t remove easily so there was real sparkle.  She also figured out how to scrape out whites when it was more dry.
We had one of those “had to be there” moments about the goat in her piece and we had a great laugh!
Next week: 36 - Select Unique Subject Matter
Until then happy painting! - Joanie
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