Carla O’Connor Workshop, Day 2, Tuesday, October 9, 2007 ~ Lubbock, TX ~ Art Blog

NANCY'S START TODAY ON 1/2 SHEET WATERCLOR PAPER

CARLA WORKING ON HER DEMO PAINTING

CARLA'S DEMO TONIGHT (will get a better photo Wed. as this was through the overhead mirror and colors are more muted and painting is reversed.)

The Carla O’Connor Workshop is being held at 511 Avenue K (Mac Davis Lane and Ave. K) at The Underwood Center for the Arts. There are multiple studios, visual art galleries, a theatre and a rehearsal hall. First Friday Art Trail includes a monthly evening of arts and entertainment in downtown Lubbock. This art campus was planned to reflect the traditions of Lubbock and to create future traditions. “Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it!” –Robert Motherwell

The West Texas Watercolor Society is sponsoring this workshop. This is my 3rd visit to Lubbock to take a workshop with them. They are a talented group and best of all they are super friendly and fun to paint with.

The class today was packed with Carla's activities and instructions for us. And TEXTURE was one of the design principles discussed today. We had an excellent new model from the WTWS group and began on time 9:00 with about 40 poses in quick succession again on the same piece of paper to get us loosened up. She gave us hints on drawing the figure, for example, tie an imaginary plumb line to the ear through the center of the body to get the weight distributed correctly. We did a practice sheet, then on a 1/2 sheet of watercolor a figure with every black type of marking device (pens, crayons, charcoal, inks) we had plus black, white and grey gouache. We could only use one tool until Carla called out "change" then we'd pick up another tool of our choice and begin drawing where we left off all the while creating texture on the page. After lunch, each participant presented a painting or two for a critique. Carla wanted to see what type of work each one of us was currently doing and we all benefitted from hearing her comments. During the composition discussion I got so sleepy I nearly feel out of my chair and the note taking trails off looking like a someone had flat lined on a tv medical show. (I will add that it was not Carla but my nearly 72 year old body about to revolt from the schedule I've made for it for the past 2 months). I keep telling it to hang with me till Thanksgiving and we'll be home free. We painted for about hour to hour and a half and I got started on a piece I'd drawn in the a.m. and that is the piece in the photo. I want to do more drawing on the layers and it was Carla's suggestion to keep the figure white in the center. I liked the piece until after the demo and saw Carla's Time Travelers and I took another look at mine and thought how sad it looked but then you give yourself a little pep talk..this is your first time trying her technique, you had fun, and you learned some new stuff..go for it.

The demo at 7:00 p.m. was as exciting as we'd hoped it would be. She came with her design drawn on a gold gessoed toned hot press watercolor paper and proceeded to show us how she applies the paint. Her painting looked great to us but she said it takes her weeks to complete. It was a copy of one she did for the dvd for Creative Catalyst. She said the biggest hurdle we face is getting enough paint on the paper. We all laughed when she said "I could lick all the paint off some of these paintings (from people not using enough paint) and not get sick". We get the idea. Be generous with the paint.
The meeting room for the WTWS class is surrounded by designer dresses covered with plastic. Upon closer inspection these clothes are from other decades and were purchased from a local high end store in Lubbock. Read about Margaret’s HERE.

From the time Margaret’s opened in 1946 at Boston and 26th until it closed in 1994 at Broadway and Avenue T, this unique landmark was Lubbock’s window into the world of couture fashion and much more.
In the decades before West Texans visited New York, Paris, or Rome , Margaret’s was their portal to clothing available only in major cities. Once the store moved to Broadway and Avenue T, Lubbock had an establishment that could have been plucked from the finest shopping areas in Dallas, Chicago, or Los Angeles.
On the walls are enlarged views of the hand-drawn images of the figures that appeared in the newspaper ads and clothes under plastic ready for a show. Some of the images can be seen in the photos taken this week.
Other interesting places to visit in Lubbock:

Buddy Holly Center
Celebrate the life and achievements of Lubbock’s son, Buddy Hollyand see his guitar, the Stratocaster, and famous glasses. The Center also has the Texas Musician Hall of Fame and the Lubbock Fine Arts Gallery.

Texas Tech
Lubbock is home to Texas Tech University, home to about 28,000 students and a public art program ranked among the nation’s 10 best.

American Wind Power Center

Museum houses more than 120 rare and fully restored windmills located on more than 28 acres in Yellow House Canyon.

I’ve just come from visiting wineries around Mendocino, California and found Texas has wineries located around Lubbock.
Llano Estacado Winery

Texas’ most award-wining winery. Most of the world-class grapes used by the winery are grown within a 100mile radius of Lubbock.

Cap Rock Winery

Pheasant Ridge Winery

La Diosa Cellars located in the Depot Entertainment District

Other blogs where I post:

· http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/
· http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com/
· http://myspace.com/nancystandlee
· TO VIEW MORE PAINTINGS OR PURCHASE: Go to Paypal on http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com/
· Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often

Carla O'Connor Workshop, Day 1, October 8, 2007 ~ Lubbock, TX ~ Art Blog

Carla O'Connor

Nancy's first day effort 11 x 15 Seated Lady Watercolor and Gouache on Hot Press Paper

I am loving this first day of the Carla O’Connor Workshop. I put down my $50 deposit last year while in Lubbock for the George James workshop. I’d seen Carla’s work online and in art magazines, admired it, and decided if there was a way possible I wanted to take from her. It happened that it was back to back with the Robert Burridge in Mendocino, Ca. and I arrived home from that one Saturday afternoon, stayed up until 1:00 a.m. getting ready, and left Sunday for this one, but I’ve made it and didn’t fall asleep in class today.
I left Arlington about 8:30 a.m. Sunday and put on the cruise and drove like a mad woman to get unloaded and to the 3:00 demo which was about a five hour drive. I couldn’t help but compare the California twisty, turn signs I’d seen the previous week to the strait as an arrow ones I saw on Sunday. The most curved one was a slight curved arrow when the interstate narrowed down to one lane for road construction. The landscape didn’t change much from open land and ranches, with lots of oaks and mesquites, until after Abilene. On into west Texas, cotton was growing and oil wells began to pop into view. One farm had harvested the cotton and it was stacked and looked like giant loaves of bread with a silver covering over the tops. I made it with one gas stop, cheese crackers for lunch and not near enough coffee. I kept listening to country music and writing down possible painting titles from the lyrics.
Because of some miscommunication Carla didn’t make it on Sunday for the demo but we enjoyed one of the WTWS society member’s demo. Carla will demo Tuesday night instead. She is a delight. She said this was a first for her to miss a demo but as of late she’s been having some “firsts”…well, join the club.
Our class runs from 9-4 and is sponsored by the WTWS. They have a converted fire house for a meeting room and it is wonderful. We had a clothed model this morning in the center of the room and all of our tables were around the model stand in a circle and there was room enough for Carla to walk by for mini critiques. I would say this is one of Carla’s strengths. She gives a thorough explanation of the exercise and then is on the move constantly seeing each student’s work and speaking with them. She’d given us a handout about principles and elements of design and we tackled the first on the list today. It was all about SHAPES. She said, “I’ll give you about 10X more information than you can handle until another workshop with me next year”. I hope. I wish. She promises to tell a good “joke” after lunch to encourage people to get back on time. Carla says she is not a big colorist and likes grays and what do you expect as “I live in Seattle”.
She stressed to forget about the figure and look for shapes. I don’t think I did that very well during the painting session the last 1 ½ hours of the class, I see her my lady's arm needs more work. She told us not to pull it back to realism and I did and I'll try to follow directions better on Tuesday.
The first drawing exercise was something I’ve never done – short gesture drawing BUT we couldn’t change our sheet of paper. We kept working on that one sheet and overlapping the shapes. Finally, we changed sheets and drew some figures and divided it into 4 sections to look for possible figures for paintings. She cautions us to put your mark down with authority. We are creating the skeleton of the painting and you want your bones to be strong. I highlighted this statement after I didn’t do it “Resist the urge to make it REAL. Make a DESIGN.” We did exercises like the “raisin head”, no curved lines, “brain strain” and “dead body” and later we painted on quarter sheets in the afternoon.
After lunch, we had a group meeting to discuss some painting techniques with her admonition “All paint is the same, just different binders and use the fuzzy end of the stick”. All I can say is that Carla has certainly learned how to use the fuzzy end of the stick. Her palette is another story. Her arrangement was given by “I put reds on one end and blues on the other.” Yes, she’s a joy. She saved her old paint in the lid to use as a wonderful gray “Mother color” and she is not continually wiping it clean. Many of her paintings are done with a gold gesso ground on hot press paper. They have a beautiful glow. She prefers round brushes and less water for the gouache paints.
Creative Catalyst has made a dvd of her watercolor instruction but it is not available yet. You can always email them to be notified when it is available.

Other blogs where I post:

· http://artistfoodnetwork.blogspot.com
· http://canvasbycanvas.blogspot.com
· http://myspace.com/nancystandlee
· TO VIEW MORE PAINTINGS OR PURCHASE: Go to Paypal on http://nancystandlee.blogspot.com
· Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often