Another fabulous May in Tuscany!

Linda Nye and I had so much fun last year that we vowed to return — after all, there is NO POSSIBILITY you can see and do everything the first time you come to Italy! Returning is the only way. This year we brought two new groups of seven to paint, visit interesting places, take hundreds of pictures, walk in the hills and sample tuscan wines, olives, meats, cheeses and breads. Janet Parker, of Oregon Botanical Artists fame, joined us for the month to help with logistics.

So much to tell

Mary Lee took seven of us into Florence
for a tour on Saturday before the workshop started.
We spent a good bit of the time looking up,
and with our mouths open!

Part of the joy for me is seeing it reflected on the
faces of the people we bring.
Clearly, Janet is having an “Oh My” moment!

We couldn’t loose our leader in the crowd, wearing these bright yellow pants!

 at the Museo di San Marco

Above, Carol (right) takes the lead.

 It wouldn’t be Florence without the Duomo.

Trattoria Bordino

We stopped for lunch at a steak house across the Ponte Vecchio. The food was terrific and we taste tested their deserts. I think Linda expresses how satisfied we all felt when we left!

 

at the Bargello Museum

Florence is full of characters

These young men knew what we did not — that we were traveling with an Australian movie star, alias My Allred! They were convinced she was the real thing (and they are right, she IS sexy!)

14 of us spent 12 days at a retreat center in Kauai last February.
It was a remarkable time! This will give you a flavor of the trip…

We toured botanical gardens, visited art galleries, walked on the beach, cooked amazing meals and took scads of pictures.

See, it didn’t rain the whole time… that’s Harriet with a sea treasure and Melody and Verna getting their feet wet at Hanalei, where Puff The Magic Dragon lives!

FARMERS MARKETS
For both food and entertainment. We ate, we gawked, we took things home as reference material for painting! That’s Sharon, holding a large citrusy thing and breadfruit — perhaps more lovely to look at than to eat?

LIMAHULI BOTANICAL GARDEN
Specializes in native plants — and also labels the non-native invaders. The views from above were lovely! Here’s Peggy, referring to the handy plant guide.

SHRINE WALK
Fascinating cultural landmark cut into a hillside —plus home to hundreds of orchids! I took hundreds of photos.

BIRTHING CAVE
OK, that’s a myth, the Makauwahi Cave Reserve is just a sink hole, but it’s fascinating. We were lucky enough to be led on a tour by David Burney, who wrote a book about it, and could give us the real significance.

BOTANICAL CLASS
Janet connected us with an invitation to visit Wendy Hollender’s class at the National Tropical Botanical Garden’s Research Facility. She works in colored pencil to render fabulous botanicals. One of her students, hard at work on the left, and me at the garden’s visitor center.

ROOSTER DEMO
Pouring a colorful wash for an under layer on my rooster painting. I’m using 300 pound arches paper treated with acrylic medium. And the finished painting…

NEGATIVE PAINTING DEMO
Linda shows how she does it on this hibiscus blossom, started as a poured wash. It was so much fun tag teaming with Linda, as we could move back and forth, teaching different concepts. She also led us in stamping, which was so successful it merits it’s own blog post!

SOME OF US SWAM WITH SEA TURTLES!
This painting is still unfinished, but I like what’s happening so far. While I rarely do, I used resist to make the light lines, using a plastic bottle with a wire stem as an applicator.

ZENTANGLE
Sharon introduced us to the ways of the formal doodle. Notice the breadfruit pattern on the right? It was fun to see the variety of drawings that resulted.

ILLUMINATED LETTERS
Laura prepared a step-by-step to show how she makes them.

GALLERY HOPPING AT HANAPEPE
A photo op — 5 of us with the cigar lady at the spice shop!

GOOD EARTH original tea — the one with cinnamon — is my very favorite. When it’s fresh there’s nothing better in the morning for someone who cannot drink caffeine! A few years ago, this bit of tea bag wisdom struck my fancy…

“WHY SHOULD I BUY EXPENSIVE ART WHEN I CAN MAKE MY OWN”
         — Piero Milani, (an artist born in Italy who is perhaps most famous for this quote)

As an artist wanting to sell my work, I’m not overjoyed by the concept…
But I understand Piero’s thinking. My collection is only budding. Hopefully, over time, it will contain more art that others have made. Why? Because it brings me joy! 

Here’s a painting I bought from my son, Dane. It’s bound to be a great investment! Check out Dane’s web site for more examples of his art.

The graphite pieces above my kitchen window, made by Vic Thomas, a favorite art instructor READ ABOUT THEM. Artwork by my sons. And this piece by my friend Susan Gorrie, “René’s Tuscan Cherry Jam” which was inspired by our Italy trip last May. Yes, I did climb the tree to pick the cherries! It means so much to me.

Fortunately, there are people who value art and are willing to invest in it!
You might enjoy this piece from local art writer Duane Snider about collecting art in Portland…

“I thought I couldn’t afford fine art. I needed justification for spending that much money on an object of such subjective value. I feared I didn’t have the knowledge or experience to make good judgments about what I wanted. I felt intimidated by the abstract nature of what constituted quality art.”

And this, from his second essay:

“In Portland, unlike in larger cities, one doesn’t need lots of money to afford a very nice personal collection. Local galleries do a good job making art accessible to anyone who has even modest amounts of disposable income. Many local galleries have liberal layaway policies that help new customers start collecting.

In recent years galleries have been opening outside the traditional art districts with a focus on quality work by emerging artists generally priced under $1,000 – with many works from $100 to $500. This profusion of affordable art is the element that makes the Portland market irresistible to the experienced collector and surprisingly accommodating to the novice.”

The days are getting longer! In honor of the solstice, I’ve made this painting.
Here’s how…

You will need:
Basic watercolor paints…
      yellow ochre, terra rosa, pyrrol red, ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson
Black sharpie marker (fine point)
Tracing paper
CretaColor water soluble pencil — black
Light table (or bright window)
Sheet of marbled watercolor paper

What, you don’t have marbled watercolor paper? I can help with that!

I’ll be teaching marbling in 2014
… in a weeklong workshop at MENUCHA
    August 3-9 (workshop has filled)
… or a MARBLING workshop at OSA
    August 21 – 23 (Thurs – Sat)

First, on a sheet of tracing paper placed over the marbled paper, sketch a tree silhouette, outline only. Then draw over the outline with sharpie marker to darken.

Tape the outline on the back side of your marbled paper and put it on a light table (below).

Use the water soluble pencil to draw your tree outline on the marbled paper.

TREE
Make a wash of yellow ochre mixed with terra rosa or ultramarine to get the color variation you want and paint the tree. No problem if you go over the line a bit. Note the intensity or opacity of your paint, and add more water to make it more transparent or more pigment to make it more opaque. Let it dry.

SUN
Make a circle on a tissue the size you want the sun to be. Put it on the light table and move it through the branches until you find the right place for it. Draw an outline on the marbled paper but only between the branches, not over them.

Paint the sun with pyrrol red, adding yellow ochre if you want to tone it down. Layer more paint along the tree edges to create more dimensionality.

BACKGROUND
Mix ultramarine (4 parts) to alizarin (2 parts) to yellow ochre (1 part or less?) add water and use this to paint the background. Make sure you mix more than what you’ll need. I like to store this purple/black mix in a bottle that I can squirt on my palette, or sometimes right onto a painting. Add extra water if it doesn’t let enough of the marbled pattern show through.

As you paint the background, cover the CretaColor pencil lines. The pencil will bleed into the paint a bit, but will leave a crisp edge.

And that’s all there is to it!

Winter Solstice Chant
By Annie Finch 
Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,
now you are uncurled and cover our eyes
with the edge of winter sky
leaning over us in icy stars.
Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,
come with your seasons, your fullness, your end.

I feel very lucky!
I’m taking a portrait workshop with Lynn Powers, an amazing artist and skillful teacher. Perhaps she absorbed some of her skill growing up with mom, artist Jan Kuntz, or producing art videos with Creative Catalyst. Lynn has definitely found her own unique voice and it is fascinating to work with her.

Here’s a recent portrait of hers…
A WOMAN OF COLOR

See more of Lynn’s work at Gallery Calapooia in Albany.

Or, Lynn’s WEB SITE


















Lynn said I could share the homework assignment from the first day of class.


A. CHOOSE THREE OF MY PAINTINGS THAT I LOVE.
They can be any subject or style.

I used these three:

 
B. NAME THREE ELEMENTS OR PRINCIPALS OF DESIGN THAT ARE BASIC TO THE PAINTINGS.
Analyze them and be specific. This will help in discovering what is driving your work.

Here are mine..
1. PATTERNING: Sometimes intricately painted, sometimes marbled — all my favorite paintings have repetitive shapes that give texture to my work.

2. COLOR: I love the play of warm to cool color, often using invented or exaggerated color. Notice the predominant use of the secondary color palette.

3. VALUE (Light/Shadow): Pushing the value range is something I’ve worked on, using subjects that are lit to create shapes in the highlights and shadows.

C. WHAT IS IT I WANT FROM MY ART, OR TO COMMUNICATE WITH MY ART?

This required a bit of pondering.

I want my work to be unique and distinctive — to convey my own personal vision — to interpret and not simply record.

I want to playfully weave looseness into the rendering of my subjects.

I want my art to have ambiguity and mystery — to leave something to the imagination or elicit questions in the viewer.

I want it to be evocative — to move others.

So I was pretty happy with these thoughts. Never before have I had such a clear “MISSION STATEMENT” of what I want to achieve in my work.

Talking it over with my husband over breakfast, he said I should add just one thing…
            a subliminal message, imparting an unconscious desire to buy the art!
Hey, why not?