Mar 14

Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe is a San Francisco artist that is concentrating on fabric and yarn work now, and is also an accomplished watercolorist.
This is a video of his discussion on his color choices:
Kaffe Fassett on Color
And this is his personal website:
Kaffe Fassett
Thank you, Marlene

The History of the Color Blue

Some scientists believe that the earliest humans were actually colorblind and could only recognize black, white, red, and only later yellow and green. As a result, early humans with no concept of the color blue simply had no words to describe it. This is even reflected in ancient literature, such as Homer’s Odyssey, that describes the ocean as a “wine-red sea.”
The History of the Color Blue: From Ancient Egypt to the Latest Scientific Discoveries
Thank you, Pam

Mar 03

Watercolor Community Show at the Goat

Laurie Wigham - Nature Journal Club - April

Imagine that you’re sitting in those blue chairs, getting ready to paint all the different greens in the forest. Would you pick a blue and a yellow and see if that would mix them all? (Which blue and which yellow?)

Or would you start with a pre-mixed green and nudge it in different directions? (Which green? Have you ever stared at the Daniel Smith color chart, hoping that you could find just the right tube of green to make it all easy?) 

In this class we’ll look at those questions and more of the tricky issues around painting greens. How can you capture the glorious explosion of color in a spring meadow with ordinary paint? What about those lichens that look like they were painted on with day-glow colors? Do those deep forest shadows go to black, and is sage green more of a purple or a blue? And what’s the rookie mistake almost everybody makes when starting to mix greens?

We’ll talk about some color-mixing theory, look at why you might want to buy some of those special tubes of green paint, and get in some practice matching the colors of leaves. We’ll also cover some strategies for painting different landscapes, like how to get a mix of textures in a distant forest, or the barely-there shimmer of greens in the desert.

BRING: your regular watercolor palette, sketchbook and brush (waterbrush if you’ve got one), plus a scrap of good watercolor paper to try out some special effects. If you forget something, I will have some materials for borrowing.

All ages and experience levels are welcome. No registration necessary, $20 suggested donation.

TUESDAY April 14
• Tiburon: 10-11:30 AM, Richardson Bay Audubon, 376 Greenwood Beach Road.
• San Francisco: 12:30-2 PM, Building 989 in the Presidio (Near the Warming Hut, not the usual East Beach location.)

WEDNESDAY April 15
• Lafayette: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM,Library and Learning Center, 3491 Mt. Diablo Blvd.

FRIDAY April 17
• Saratoga: 9:30-11:00 AM, West Valley College, 14000 Fruitvale Ave
• Cupertino: 12:00-1:30 PM, McClellan Ranch, Santa Clara Valley Audubon, 22221 McLellan Road
• Palo Alto: 2:30-4:00 PM, Environmental Volunteers EcoCenter, 2560 Embarcadero Road.

More information: It's a good idea to check all times and locations on John Muir Laws' Events page before the day. 

Feb 29

Happy Valentine Month

The Tuesday group at Creighton's create Valentines for each other during the month of February. Here's a look at them all.

Jane Davies

The Spaniel Portrait 
The best painting can only come from something that inspires you. Often working on commissions, I’m used to working from photographs, these must be able to evoke emotion within me, be it the line of a neck or the look in an eye, there has to be a spark! 
Watercolor Step by Step


Kolormondo 3-D Color Wheel

Just for fun, thought I'd show you this
3-D Color Wheel

Feb 22

Rose Madder - Rubia Tinctorum

Winsor & Newton
This bright and subtle colour is associated with evoking feelings of passion, desire and love. A study conducted by two University of Rochester psychologists found that this rosy shade heightens attraction.
Rose Madder

Wikipedia on Rose Madder
Scroll to the bottom of page and find a list of substitutions and a song called "Rose Madder" or "Madder Red", depending on the mood, I guess. It's not a good song but thought I'd include it, just for the giggle.
Yeasayer - Madder Red


Lake Pigment
Because this term has been showing up lately in conversations, I thought this would be a good time to find out more about it..
Wikipedia on Lake Pigment

Feb 15

Warning: Severe geekiness follows!

The Ostwald Colour System

 According to Ostwald there were three groups or classes of colours. The first group consisted of neutral colours; those which do not contain colour and are made only from black and white. The second group are pure ‘full colours’, and which contain no black or white. The third group contain mixed colours, combinations of colours with black and/or white. Ostwald identified that all of these groups had at their core four basic hues: yellow, red, blue and sea green. Four further hues - when placed in between the core hues - created orange (between yellow and red), purple (between red and blue), turquoise (between blue and sea green), and leaf green (between sea green and yellow). Finally, two further hues between these colours, created a circle of 24 evenly spaced colours. 
The Ostwald Colour System, The Bauhaus and Winsor & Newton

More About Oswald (warned you)

Ostwald’s Basic Contributions to Colorimetry are:
the spectrum & the color circle (semichromes)
the mensuration of the color circle
the structure of the object color solid
the colorimetric color atlas
color & spectral signature
Colorimetry

Feb 08

Making Beautiful Colours without Toxic Chemicals

The original work trousers, invented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873, were dyed with indigo derived from plants. By 1882, however, indigo was being synthesised, and producing denim blue now involves large quantities of petroleum, as well as toxic substances such as formaldehyde and cyanide . . .
Making Beautiful Colours
Thank you, Marlene

Feb 01

Laurie Wigham Teaches in the Sierras

Enrollment is now open for Summer 2020 classes at San Francisco State University's Sierra Nevada Field Campus. Laurie will be teaching a 5-day residential workshop on watercolor painting where we'll work on the individual elements of a landscape, doing lots of small experiments to figure out new ways to paint rocks, trees, water and skies.
Rock, Wood, Water, Sky

Chalk it Up at Goat Hill Pizza
I know this is not watercolor related, but Goat Hill Pizza shows our work every year and they have supported artists since the 70's. Thank you, Mike.