Floral Warm-Up Series ~ Petroleum Club ~ Kimbell

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9"x6" Floral Warm-ups Acrylic on Gesso Paper, created in the Robert Burridge Workshop in Corpus Christi

Bob is a favorite workshop instructor and he has the students do loose, painterly warm-ups each day before painting in a small format (5x7, 6x9). See the two previous blog posts about this floral workshop. You can read on his October 08 Newsletter, ArtsyFartsy News how he prepares his watercolor paper.
How to know when a painting is finished or when to stop? Bob says "Keep painting until it looks good." (But it usually takes several painting sessions - maybe 6 to reach that place.) He recommends you begin abstract and very loose with lots of water and work on all of them at the same time.
On Wednesday night, October 29th, Canvas by Canvas had a reception at the Petroleum Club in Fort Worth. It was a great time to dress up and socialize on the 40th floor and it was my 73rd birthday and fortunately no one had a cake with that many candles.
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth has presented The Impressionists, June 29 - Nov. 2 and yesterday it was the most crowded I've ever seen, from baby strollers to seniors on oxygen in wheelchairs. There was an excitement and electricity in the air on this beautiful fall day and it was great to see young mothers bending over to explain a painting to their young children. A great follow up would be to view the 2 disc dvd BBC miniseries, "The Impressionists", that dramatizes the lives of the French Impressionists who boldly created a new style of painting. I ordered it from Netflix and it told the stories of Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, and Manet. We owe these visionaries for reinventing painting from browns to color, from smooth looking canvases to canvases with visible brushstrokes, from historical and myth themes to painting en plein air showing life as it was being lived. They could not separate their life from their art.
When I viewed the 5 paintings about "Stacks of Wheat", by Monet (1890-1891) I was reminded about Bob's charge to us to paint in a series. Monet did many paintings of one subject. Bob says "The more I practice the luckier I get." Now paint your series of "stacks of wheat", or pears, or florals. Paint small warmups in a series. This is one of the many lessons I've learned from the Burridge workshops.