An Old Dog

Normally I think of myself as as a pretty good teacher and watercolor artist. I'm confident. My formal education led me to teach music. I have much longer experience teaching and painting watercolor. But... I'm often humbled by what I myself learn from students in my classes.

I learn as I prepare to teach a class, reviewing notes from workshops I've taken, re-reading parts of my many watercolor books, looking through a very thick 3 ring binder filled with 30 years of articles cut from watercolor magazines, reviewing techniques on art DVD's, and doing research on the internet. Even if I already know much of what I plan to teach, a review is beneficial. Making lesson plans helps me organize my thinking. Preparing handouts with illustrations and class notes force me to find the best way to explain "why" of design and the "how" of techniques.

But one of the best ways for a teacher to learn is to listen to their students and observe what they do.

This year I had requests to teach the use of texture in abstracted paintings in the winter class I teach. While I have never taught this before, it is what I currently paint at home in my own studio. An advantage is that every class demo I finish will fit comfortably with the style work I am showing.

Putting random texture on the paper is the first step - and the easiest. Deciding what to do after that is far harder! When preparing visual examples of possibiltiies for that next step, I realized that painting the first, textured step in gray, then adding a second step in color would make it readily apparent to my students which was step one and which was step two.

As I proudly held up my samples in class, a student provided me with that AHA moment when she said, "These paintings would be great in black and white!" I had not thought of it myself, but that idea was immediately appealing to me. I could hardly wait to get started.

The goal I've set for myself is to complete a series of eight textured paintings that are essentially black and white. Each will be vertical and have two containers with unusual plants. I've completed the first two paintings in this series, and look forward to the exciting creative challenges posed by working within my self-imposed limitations.

Thank you Kay! I'm very much enjoying your suggestion. Disciplining msyelf to paint with such a limited palette forces me to employ design prinicples in different ways than usual. I may be an old dog, but I'm still learning new tricks.

Both "Two Vessels" paintings I've completed can be seen in the"Paintings" category on this website.

Flying in Cyberspace

Early in 2011 an exciting invitation arrived in my email. The writer was a fellow artist, Sue St. John, who discovered my website and liked my work. She invited me to submit two images of my choice for a cyberbook she was compiling. The book was to be titled "A Walk Into Abstracts Volume 2." I felt honored!

I had no idea of what a cybergook was or how it worked. With a bit of research I found that it is a book that can be bought online to be instantly downloaded, viewed, and stored on your own computer. There is no need to top off your gastank ata $4 a gallon for a drive to a bookstore, no fee for a membership card that gives you a discount equal to the price the card, and no hunting through thousands of books to find it. With much of our population regularly using computers, it seemed like a terrific idea.

The concept for the book was for each artist to write a detailed explanation of the process and materials used to create their painting. We were to write to the question "How did they do that?" which is also the subtitle of the book. And the challenge was to have it fit on a single page.

I shared the news of this appealing oppotunity with my artist friend Liz. Both of us decided to apply and spent considerable time discussing which images to submit, but that was only the beginning. Both Liz and I love words and like to write. Perhaps it could be said we are easily entertained, but we very much really enjoy reading what the other writes, providing endless critiques for each other, honing even that single page to make every word count! Of course we wanted our explanations to be succint, but we felt that what we wrote had to be interesting as well - not simply a dry narrative. I lost count of how many rewrites each of us did for our entries.

Happily each of us had both entries included in the book. You can see more about this book at www.awalkintoabstracts.com and watch a short slide show of some of the paintings from the book.

Does having work shown in a cyberbook count as being "published?" I think so! To have an artist unknown to me see my work and invite me to participate was affirming. The idea that I'm soaring in cypberspace with a couple of my paintings is a kick, and I don't even need to worry about dealing with those dreaded pretzels or a tray table.

Alley Patrol

This bitter cold day with residual ice and snow reminds me of a day about a year ago when I was preparing to teach a watercolor workshop.  Two teaching goals ever at the top of my list are to find unique subject matter and methods that are interesting to students of either gender and the teacher.

I personally enjoy painting doors, and I had never assigned that subject in any of my previous workshops. Painting very old doors with colorful peeling paint that showed through another layer of a different color of peeling paint sounded fun and instructive.

Artistically anticipating the changing seasons and holidays is not my forte.  For instance, I get excited about painting poinsettias during the Christmas season, and the resulting paintings are invariably ready to hang for Valentine’s Day.  Paintings that include patriotic themes or flags are ready to frame about August 15. I paint spring in summer, Christmas after the New Year, Fall in Winter. But No one is interested in Easter themes for Mother’s Day. Should I say I am very early or a bit behind?

At least last year I realized that the first assignment to paint a weathered door could be repeated as a second assignment by adding snow flurries, a few icicles hanging from the door handle, or snow that fell softly into a small pile on top of an as yet unused door handle or collected on the top edge of a raised door panel. And for once, what I had in mind was perfectly “in season.” Like today, it was cold, with ice and snow on the ground. My photographs didn’t show flurries, icicles, or collected snow, but we could invent those details for the subsequent assignment.

Even though it was really cold, the need for reference photos for my students sent me outdoors with my camera to hunt for old doors that had unusual handles, broken screens or windows, layers of peeling paint, cracked walls, rust, and maybe even graffiti.  I hoped to take enough door photos so each student could choose a different reference photograph.   I soon realized the best doors for my purpose were back doors of the old buildings downtown.

If anyone saw me that afternoon, driving slowly down the alleys, parking at odd angles, sometimes stopping to take a photo from my open car window in an effort to stay close to the car heater, I would surely have been suspect. At least I wasn’t wearing a mask. Luckily no one called the police, thinking I was planning a robbery.

The image I’m sharing today was the demonstration painting I did in the first class to show students some techniques to effect a weathered door.  Finding a pleasing abstracted design of a portion of my own reference photo, I chose to paint only part of a door. It had the advantage of having several weathered textures - a broken stucco wall with underlying bricks exposed, a rusty screen, weathered wood, and rusty metal screws and nails.

My students enjoyed painting old doors. They did a great job, and I was proud that each put something of themselves into their paintings rather than replicating the reference photo.

Listening to My Painting

When I first heard an instructor say, "Listen to your painting" I really didn't get it. I thought about that directive many times, but still didn't understand. While I waited for the message, I found myself whistling the them from "The Twilight Zone" between my teeth. It took a long time for me to be able to hear what my paintings were saying to me because I was trying to be too literal in my interpretation.

At long last I understood. I simply needed a lot more experience to understand the language of artistic creation. What a painting "says" is not audible, but rather intuitive. The message doesn't come from a specific compositional rule, technique, or painting formula, but rather the sum total of all the artist has learned. Once you understand the language, the message is usally quite clear. Without conscious effort I have a strong feeling that a certain area of a painting needs more texture, that line needs to curve, the next shape needs to be round, an edge needs to be soft.

In my last blog I wrote about using the computer to sketch or paint over a photograph of the first step of a painting, and shared one of several sketches. But when I went back to work on the actual painting, intuition took over. The painting took on a life of it's own. I used my computer generated plan only as a suggestion, allowing myself to pay attention to what the painting needed to be interesting and exciting.

Today I'm sharing an image of the finished painting. It is quite like my sketch, but it is also somewhat different, and happily so. I think what I painted intuitively is visually more exciting.

"Flowers in a Red Striped Vase" is the second in what I intend to be a series of four abstracted floral paintings, each having some element with red stripes. I've added this image and the first in the series, "Flowers on a Red Striped Cloth" to the gallery of paintings on this website.

So if you see me with one ear cocked toward mypainting, feel free to whistle a few bars of the theme from "The Twilight Zone." I won't even hear you, because I"ll be listening to my painting.

Painting with a Mouse

No, this does not involve Mickey or Minnie. Nor have I discovered a mouse nibbling my watercolor paper in my studio. Rather, it is a computer mouse.

I am an artist who likes to start a painting with color and texture in mind, rather than a specific subject, and then take advantage of interesting, even exciting things that happen on the paper that I could not possibly have planned. Sometimes I love the first step, but am undecided about how to develop it into a viable painting.

I’ve found an enjoyable, risk-free way to find my way out of that corner I’ve painted myself into.  I power up my computer. While it is groaning and buzzing (the  equivalent of early morning yawns and stretches) I take a digital photograph of the first step of my painting. And after transferring the photograph to the computer, I can paint and draw on it endlessly with the mouse.

Should the background be olive green or red orange? Would it be better to make it transparent or opaque? And solid, even  color or textured? Maybe spray paint.

Hmmm. I love the color and texture on the left side. I’m going to “clone” that in the upper right hand corner. No no no! That is not good, so I “undo” to back up as needed.

If I am really stumped about what direction to take a painting, I send my photograph of the first step to 3 artist friends. If they aren’t too busy they will usually email advice within hours, sometimes making their own suggestions in the form of a computer sketch on my photo to email back to me.  

Once I have a version I like, I save it in an onscreen file. But if I have other ideas to try, I start over. This process is really enjoyable, and I sometimes generate 4-5 versions of the same painting before choosing one. I suppose it is that creative right brain business, but by this time I can hardly wait to work on the actual painting!

Finally I choose my favorite version and print out a 4x6 inch photo reference to use as a guide. Plans are only that, and I often make changes as I continue to develop my image.  And if I am uncertain at any point, I can always take another photo and harness that mouse to help me.

One of the things I’m currently working on is a series of at least 4 paintings, each of which will have brighter than usual colors, dominance of a spotted texture, and stripes. I intend for this small series to be abstracted florals. But if I find that one or more of the starts could better be developed into a landscape, or a group of people at a party, I won’t hesitate to go that direction and simply not include it as part of this series.

In this blog I’m sharing an altered photograph of my first painting step for a new piece of work.  And now that I have my computer-altered sketch for how to proceed, my motor is revving.  I’m itching to apply paint to what will likely be the second painting in my series of four. The first, an orange floral, will appear in the work shown on this website as soon as I think of a title. I sometimes send a photo of a finished painting to friends, asking for suggestions for a title. Any takers to help me title the first in this series? I’m too busy painting the second.

Oh….please don’t send any mouse traps. It’s fall, and I’ve already set my supply of traps in case any real, unwelcome mice are looking for warm winter lodging.