Mel Stabin Watercolor Workshop ~ Dallas ~ Art Journal Pages

Watercolor 15"x22" Sold
The client had a photo taken on a Cabo beach and asked for a painting. It was fun to paint but I had to ask for help several times. Mel is very helpful and I appreciate his calling out the colors used when he begins a demo.
I painted this in the Mel Stabin workshop during the first week of February at Artist's Showplace. This was painted on Thursday when Mel said it was "our choice" day. On Monday was landscape, Tuesday - landscape with figure, Wednesday - Something ordinary and sketched with a brush, Friday - the figure. This was my 3rd workshop with Mel and his workshops are filled with energy, his poems and quotes plus his fabulous watercolors to encourage us to a new level.
The morning was devoted to a Mel demo on a half sheet of Arches of our day's objective and then around lunch it was time for each of the 25 in the class to get down to business while Mel visited around the room. Most days ended with a great critique for each work.
We could paint from our own references or he provided some great photographs that he'd blown up to a 11x15 size. I remember at the Nicholas Simmons workshop he questioned working from 4 x 6 photos and how I could see the detail and now I understand what he meant. I'm getting some larger photos.
Cheap Joe's has a supply list for Mel if you'd like to see what colors and brushes we used, click HERE. There are no gimmicks, mask or salt for Mel. He says "I trust the brush. It can do amazing things."
In the slide show below I have shown some of his paintings and I will show more of the student work in another post.

Art Journal Page 66

Some art supplies needed for babysitting my grandchildren, some of my back fence fell over, then it's pack and pack for Mel, Dana Gioia kicks off the PCPC 3rd art festival,
and no I did not watch the Super Bowl - still trying to get every thing loaded for the workshop. Dana was chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts under President Bush since Jan 29, 2004.

Art Journal Page 67


Some sketches about the workshop, the value study where Mel corrected my car to make it larger, the bottom two sketches are my paintings.

A slide show feast of some of Mel's paintings from the Mel Stabin Workshop. Mouse over for captions.

Self-Portrait ~ Watercolor ~ Spring Show ~ Find the Best Price ~ Tell Me

NFS
22" x 15" watercolor on 140 lb. paper
The photo was taken at a pool party prior to taking a dip with the CBC friends. I painted it in watercolor and it was purchased by a relative and now hangs in Denver. My friend wanted it also and a repainting was promised for a Christmas '06 gift. Yes, '06 I hate to admit but I just completed it today while painting with the CBC group at the Upstairs Gallery so I guess my friend will get the frame this Christmas and the painting. Yes, I did remove age spots, wrinkles, and glasses.

These are 4 6" square acrylic paintings by members of CBC completed today at the Gallery, Top Left, Barbara, Top Right Karen, Bottom Left, Cindy C, Bottom Right, Maryann. These ladies are getting a head start on our February show, The Neil Sperry All Texas Garden Show, February 29, March 1 and 2 at the Arlington Convention Center. We plan to do a series of mini acrylic paintings depicting items you might find around a garden plus some of our larger canvases found on our web site.
If you like to comparative shop and to find the best price when you shop online, you will love this site. One click can offer help for price comparison and coupon codes. Type in the item desired and Cheap Uncle will help you find the best price and maybe a coupon for free shipping.
I've heard about this fabulous telephone number that can give you driving directions any time, any place and they are free. I have programed it into my cell as I tend be a little directionally deficient. For voice prompted driving directions call (800) 555-8355 Tell Me. The main menu has categories like, Business Search, Ring Tones, Stock Quotes, News Center, Sports, Entertainment, Travel, and Popular Shortcuts. If you're confused about directions, you want Travel and then you have more choices but eventually you will hear Travel Directions and you will be able to give your present location and where you want to go.
Good luck in finding your way and making sure your Christmas gifts stay on schedule.

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Eat Well ~ Paint Your Food ~ Laugh Often

Arne Westerman Workshop ~ Day 5 ~ SWS

$125 Workshop Painting
Karen and CY 15 x 22 at Point Bolivar


Graduation Day

7 x 11 Color Sketch

7 x 11 Color Sketch Port Bolivar Girls

The notes were very brief on day 5 of the Arne Westerman Workshop by the Southwestern Watercolor Society and the day ended much too soon. Our graduation ended with Arne giving us our Artistic License and our group was definitely better Friday and on Monday.

In the morning, some developed more thumbnails and color sketches for a larger painting and some worked on paintings already started. I chose to develop 2 new ideas that are shown here. Arne suggested I use the same color of bathing suit on the Port Bolivar Girls and I may change or not. On my large painting of Karen and CY, I showed him the photo and said "I don't do teeth" and presented him a tracing of Karen with shortened face and no teeth. That was not going to be o.k. with him. Arne said "We do teeth"! So this is Nancy's painting with Arne teeth plus other touches and accents along the way.

The group ate lunch together at the Panda Express and continued with photos (some discretely of the customers) and art talk. We returned to class to paint and see a few more slides and get our license, make our goodbyes. This was a very good congenial class.

Some last Arne pointers:

1. Everything can't be interesting. Kill Something to save your painting.

2. Don't leave holes in your painting. (I tend to leave little spaces of white sparkles in the painting and I like them.)

3. Don't make a painting all headlines.

4. Remember to do thumbnails and color sketches before a painting.

Arne is very talented, witty and loves people and if you can take his watercolor workshop, run and sign up now. He's in his early 80's and has gained lots of "people wisdom" and painting knowledge along the way. He possesses great teaching and communication skills. He could "kill" the whistle he has hanging around his neck - his call for attention from too talkative students but then it was also a call, come look at this student's work and watch this.

If you're interested in people painting, watch people, listen to their conversations, take photos, and sketch them when you can.

He will have a gallery show in Rockport Texas soon and I will try and get more information and post the details.

Thanks, Arne, for a delightful, well-spent week. On the way home, I stopped at La Madelines for spinach salad and tomato basil soup to complete a perfect week. Today, Saturday, my art "stuff" is still not put away and I've really taken it easy with a good afternoon nap in my easy chair. Then it's back to reality with a week's mail and plans for a Thanksgiving dinner. But to all of my friends in the class, I loved painting with you and look forward to our next workshop together. Arne, you're welcome in Texas anytime and we'll be your Texas "groupies" working on our next degree.

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Arne Westerman Workshop ~ Day 3 and 4 ~ SWS

Thursday’s report of the Arne Westerman SWS workshop – some thoughts and slide show. See the slide show below and mouse over for the names.
From Arne on Wednesday:
1. A “clean palette” is a sign of an empty mind. (You can view his palette in yesterday’s slide show.)
2. A few color mixtures we tried: English Red or Indian Red makes a good fleshy tone. Add a touch of Cerulean for variation and to mute the red. Cerulean Blue and Cad. Red light makes a great gray. Permanent Rose and Cad. Yellow light or New Gamboge makes a good flesh tone. He loves lilac. Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue makes a cool gray. Cad. Red light and Thalo Blue makes a good black. He does not use a tube black but mixes other colors for black. Manganese Blue and Permanent Rose makes a nice mixture or near each other to mix some. Indian Red and Thalo Blue makes a dark. Cad. Red light and any blue will give a brown.
His color choices are made during the color sketch. Leave enough room on the border edges to make some color trials.
3. Always use the largest brush.
4. He showed us how to increase the size of the color sketch by drawing diagonal lines on the sketch and one-half sheet of watercolor paper. One of the slides showed the process. This resulted in pencil drawings on the color sketch and these were small paintings in themselves and I would use tracing paper instead or use a copy machine to blow up the image or digitize the photo.
5. In the afternoon, the class drew and painted from a live model with beautiful red hair. Some of the slides show some paintings and studies done from this model.
6. Wednesday evening, Arne gave the SWS program by showing and discussing his work with a slide presentation with a few jokes thrown in.
Some thoughts from Thursday:
1. We should be better on Friday than we were on Monday. (Let’s hope so.)
2. A painting is a work in progress. We saw more slides on what makes a good painting and we did quick thumbnail sketches of the painting structure such as was the painting made of rectangles, pyramid, etc. He stressed again about not having two things equal but let one dominate and be the center of interest.
3. He talked and showed us how to take the model from the room where we are and put her at home by adding interesting vertical and horizontal elements and accents.
4. When adding some touches to final facial features on an under painting, he might moisten the paper before adding the eyes or other features.
5. In the afternoon, the participants painted on their big project and Arne walked around to each one to assist with any problems. This is a rare teacher that gives the students as much private consultation as he does and with a very good attitude. At the end of the day, there was a group critique using the overhead mirror so we learned from each other’s mistakes and successes. He thinks we’re doing great and I hope you like our slide show. Not all the class members have work included.
6. The assignment for Friday: Bring in another photo and be prepared to start on a new thumbnail and color sketch in preparation for a new painting.
7. I’m already thinking about what all I have to do this weekend and asking myself if I can squeeze in any time to paint more figurative watercolors so I won’t forget some of the wonderful points made this week. Let’s see mail, bills, Thanksgiving cooking – I’ll have to make some time.

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Arne Westerman Workshop ~ Slide Show Wed-Thurs ~ SWS

Arne Westerman Workshop ~ Day 2 ~ SWS

Tuesday at the Arne Westerman Figurative Workshop Slide Show Below

1. Tuesday morning we were treated to slides of various paintings with detailed discussions on what makes a painting work, with emphasis on balance, center of interest, separation of elements, color , shapes, texture, light and movement. It is all about placement and it’s up to the artist to make the best use of the placement of the figure or center of interest, and to look at paintings with a discerning eye about structure and if the painting works or not. One point he made that needs to be repeated “Just because the artist doesn’t like the painting, the collector may want that particular work because of style or subject matter.” After this day, we should all know HOW to make a good painting.

2.We can’t be Norman Rockwell because he died. You paint with your own feelings and emotion and that makes it you. No one can paint like you.

3. Plain is good for backgrounds.

4. He uses masking tape to secure the edges on 140 Hot Press Fabriano paper to give us a demo color sketch study and a painting. He likes Fabriano because it was easy to lift and change a section. For his painting demo, he used a figure ironing a piece of clothing drawn from a model. He liked the model because of she was “zoftig” and no one knew what he was talking about. He asks “Are there no Jews in her?” It seems it’s a good Jewish term for a healthy, plump woman. Some of the participants were more concerned about what the ironing board and iron were?

5. When asked about using fresh paint, his response “You don’t have to worry about anything” and in other words, just paint, get something down. And he kept reminding us, we can do anything we want. The artist is in control and can move and change anything they want.

6. Watch out for mid tones against mid tones as it doesn’t say much.

7. There was much discussion on “killing this figure” and that referred to making one figure less dominant and let one be the center of interest. “Kill one to make one live” was frequently heard during our critique.

It has been good day learning about what makes a good painting. He was very gracious to visit each table while we were working on our color sketch, often sitting down with a brush and showing us what he’d do. He’d asked previously if anyone minded if he paints on any of our work. There was a lot of good natured repartee during this time of color sketches and the following critique. Arne is a treasure, full of information and knows how to fix our mess ups. His book was one of the first painting books I purchased and I can recommend it for its useful information. You can read about it from the Amazon widget on the side of my blog or Arne has the books for sale on his web site. The slide show will be short as we were rushed after the critique to clear the room for a meeting. More slides on Thursday. Wednesday morning we’ll learn how to transfer our thumbnails or color sketch and in the afternoon we’ll have a model to draw and paint from. Wednesday evening Arne will give the program for SWS showing the slides of his work.

Mouse over to see slide captions.

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(All of the captions where I used Name..Thumbnail...most should have been Name..Color Sketch will change later)

Carla O'Connor Workshop Slides ~ Lubbock, TX ~ Art Blog

These were taken at the Carla O'Connor Workshop, Lubbock, TX October 8-12, 2007

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