January 31, 2010 January 31, 2010

Dancer #1

Spent a couple of hours today sketching for my Dance painting. I worked on heads and on the pose for the main dancer. I will probably give all three dancers long hair because it is easier to show motion with long hair.

Twirling and Swirling

I also decided to put the main dancer in a sundress – once again so the swinging skirt will help show the swirl and twirl of her dance. I’m going to have her hold a scarf or shawl flying like a flag.

I did a second head. It is for the leaping dancer. Her nose is much too cute and pert and her ponytail will be flipping behind her.

Leaping - Dancer #2

I am beginning to feel good because I am making some progress – slowly. I will continue to plug away.

I am doing the sketches with markers because it is challenging to capture emotion and movement with this tool. If I can make you feel their joy I will have succeeded.

Besides the blue is COLTS BLUE! Go Colts!

January 30, 2010

Today was laundry day so I didn’t start painting until late in the afternoon. It was cold and I was glad to stay inside.

The first format I created when drawing for my Watercolor 101 class did not work. The drawing was too large and I didn’t have room to tape off the sides of the drawing. I’ve learned how satisfying it can be when you remove the tape around a painting and those crisp, clean, mat-like edges emerge so I not only tape down the paper, I also tape the edges of the painting space. One less thing for them to stress about!

I decided to work with earthtones. It is cold. I wanted to see if I could create a warm feel to the painting. I also wanted to work on composition and movement through the painting. I think some things worked and some did not but I was not unhappy with the painting. One of the things that I find the most fun and challenging with abstracts is deciding which “side is up”. I’m still not sure I’m finished rotating it. Maybe I will convert the photo to black and white so I can just look at value and forget about color!

Warm Abstract for a Cold Day

January 29, 2010 January 29, 2010

Wow! Has it been a rough few days… My memory card was totally shot so I have tried to recreate some of the things I wanted to show you. But first, being from Indy I wanted to share the following:

Follow this link to read about Max Anderson’s Super Bowl bet with the director of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Just “the boys” talking trash! http://www.artsjournal.com/man/2010/01/art_museum_director_super_bowl.html

No rulers and the bottle really is asymmetrical!

Cylinders #2

I wanted to go ahead and post the drawings I did earlier this week. I don’t know if I will get a painting done this week or not but I may try to get the cylinders completed.

On Wednesday I spent several hours getting materials ready for a Watercolor 101 class that I was going to teach on Thursday morning. This is a concept that I am piloting for the Watercolor Society of Indiana. Many people have an interest in Watercolor painting but have never had the opportunity to give it a test drive without a big investment of time and $$.

Starting with the cool colors at the beginning of the demo

Our idea is to offer a 2-3 hour class at no charge so that interested adults can give painting a try. And we hope we give birth to a few new artists. I prepared predrawn works for each participant. Two drawings per page, all geometric shapes so they are easy to work with, one to be primarily cool colors and one warm colors.

Warm color demo about 50% cvomplete

They also get a palette with the three primary colors and a round and a flat brush. I talked with my 10 students for about 45 minutes and gave them a quick demo.  Then, drum roll please, they put paint to paper. In two hours most finished, most were happy with their work. Generally they all did very well and some created really lovely paintings. A friend who is also a painter helped me  so we could go from person to person and we could focus attention on folks that were getting really frustrated. Everyone went away happy that they took the class. We did the class for the Association of International Women (we are also both members of AIW). Ladies from the US, Germany, Belgium, Japan, Iraq and Australia attended. It was amazing to see the cultural component of their paintings. The woman from Iraq does needlepoint and as she painted she could see her paintings transformed to wonderful needlepoint patterns. Her paintings were beautiful – full of turquoise and blue like the tiles used in mosques in the Middle East. The Japanese woman painted using misty pastels with small points of intense color. The woman from Australia filled her paintings with light and sun – yellows, oranges, golds and brilliant yellow-green.  The painting I’ve included here is one I finished after a class taught by Judi Betts. I am trying to retrieve some photos we took of the ladies and their finished works. It was a day well spent!!!!

January 28, 2010 January 28, 2010

My digital camera seems to have had died an untimely death. I had some interesting photos to post and discuss but I will have to find out if they can be recovered. I am so disappointed! Stayed tuned…

January 26, 2010 January 27, 2010

I have been playing with ideas to do a painting in blue and white that celebrates the Colts but have not found anything that really fires me up. My “sketches” are really just doodles! I went to drawing class yesterday and hope to have a painting to show later in the week.

Hope this captures the exuberance I want!

The only thing I’ve moved forward is the idea for my painting dedicated to Dance. I worked on it last night and have some additional very rough sketches to share. I wanted something with three figures and I am not satisfied yet with this composition but I did “feel the fun”.

War Dance!

I also worked on more detailed sketches of each dancer. This is where the rubber meets the road. I know that I don’t have the motion and movement captured but I was happy with these as a beginning. I am trying to decide what their dress should be. I wanted everday women but their clothing cannot interfere with the feeling of movement.

Leap

I am not used to thinking about composition in this much detail because I usually work from nature or on abstracts. I am not used to preparing and planning like this. This is what I need to do to improve and so far I am working strictly from my imagination for this effort.

Dancing up a storm

I hope it comes to a successful completion.  No. Wrong thought! I know it will! And I AM having so much fun!

January 24, 2010 January 24, 2010

No painting, drawing or sketch today but I am thinking in blue and white. Again – how ’bout those Colts!!!!

January 23, 2010

The images are everywhere and you can’t escape knowledge of the devastation in Haiti but in tragedy is change and rebirth.  I was still inspired to try to communicate my hopes for mankind through the watercolor I painted yesterday. Through the circles, spheres, bubbles I hope to symbolize the circle of life, a feeling of universalness and a sense of hope and even fun. Through the colors I want to include the traditional description of the various skin tones of mankind in a diverse and beautiful way. through the composition I want to say that, while we are different, we are the same and that we stand together.

inspired by my belief that we are all one

January 22, 2010 January 23, 2010

From red, yellow and blue all colors are created,

From brown, black, red, yellow and white the human race is made,

From Yahweh, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed and Jesus our spirits are refreshed,

We, man, woman, child stand together,

We are one…

Inspired by the plight of our brothers and sisters in Haiti

January 21, 2010 January 22, 2010

Thursday was rainy, dreary and busy. I had a meeting, a luncheon and volunteered at the IMA (Indianapolis Museum of Art) in the afternoon. I took my colored pencils and small sketch book to the IMA since my husband and I were working at the Information Desk and I expected just a small number of visitors.

CP Sketch January 21, 2010

I decided to see if I could bring life and vibrancy to the non-colors black and white. I decided to do a portrait and I wanted the girl to look young, fresh and innocent. I built up layer after layer of color to get the blacks. I know I made many mistakes and I had no reference material to tell me what a nun’s habit actually looks like but I was able to very freely use my imagination. I was happy and wish I had time to do more.

Just a note. I scanned the sketches from the recent posts but the actual sketches are not as grainy and are more “crisp” than they look.

January 20, 2010 January 21, 2010

Visited the dentist this morning and started the work for a new crown. In the chair (visions of THE chair but they didn’t strap me down) for two hours. Left exhausted and with a funky, foul taste in my mouth. Down in the mouth for the rest of the day – so to speak – so I sat down in the afternoon with a cup of tea, my colored pencils and a small sketchbook. I started thinking about what I could do with dental imagery and came up with a skull and crossbones with a toothbrush and cleaning tool as the crossed bones. Then I went on to “Crown” and remembered a Snow Princess that I saw on someone’s blog the other day.

A Redhaired Briar Rose?

I have always wanted to draw a princess with long flowing hair so I did a small drawing which came out A-OK. Than I thought “What can I do to make this different? I know! I’ll make her a redhead!” My husband has always loved redheads because they are so rare. So I accepted the challenge and worked very hard to make certain her hair was not ORANGE.

I pull me enemy's ivories to wear around me neck, Ye Swabby!

Next I decided that Pirates (I just finished reading Treasure Isand – filling gaps from my youth) might toture their victims by pulling teeth from their heads. My husband walked by and said “What are you drawing? He is really ugly!”

All I can say is I had fun and it distracted me from my achy mouth. Maybe I’ll do a watercolor of my not very attractive but very fearsome pirate.