Reflecting On Reflections

Today, our last workshop day, was about reflections.  All kinds of reflections.  Carol did a wonderful demo, and then did her raffle where people could buy her demo's - always a fun part of the workshop.  If there was a word to describe my fellow students here, besides 'talented', which they overwhelmingly are (a little intimidating really) is 'warm'.  By the end of the week, it felt like family.  Indeed we shared so much information about our painting lives AND family lives, we all felt like OLD friends by the end.  

We felt totally cared for and were in a safe, comfortable and comforting environment, and the food was so good (and vegan, or gluten free or anything-you-need-free) that the photography students took photos of it.  Well, our class started it, I'm just going to say that...

The courtyard had beautiful statuary and fountains and gardens.  There were walking trails behind our building.  No.  I did not take advantage of those, and, by the fit of my jeans I think I should have....

And to top it all off, Nancy Hartley's husband Brian, brought each of us a beautiful rose at the end of the workshop.   Besides being the person who tackled the division of the dinner bill each night, he was our go-to-guy for medical advice concerning scary rashes, and Chief Advisor for choosing our nightly feasts.  Thank you to Nancy for all her hard work setting up the workshop, and to her and Brian for opening their home on the first night here to welcome us!

Always Responsibly, Original Oil Painting by Kelley MacDonald

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Last week Carol Marine came to my studio and gave a workshop. Today's post was trying to incorporate her lesson on the color wheel.

We had an amazing time! She's an artist who knows her stuff, and knows how to teach it to you as well. She's organized, thoughtful, generous and she gives each student attention. We had kind of new artists as well as seasoned veterans. But everyone was so friendly and nice - I've had such great feedback from them! Here's a shot of what I managed to do during the workshop:

Four paintings of the same subject, 10 minutes each  - on a 6x6 panel, and

Three paintings of the same subject, 24 minutes, 12 minutes, 5 minutes!

And here we are:

Pour Me A Pelligrino, 6x6 Oil

I mixed it up a bit by putting the San Pelligrino bottle behind the blue glass. I have these glasses in green, blue and aqua. They also come in purple and bright green, new this year. I may get them, but being extra wide they seem to chip in the dishwasher, so... maybe not. This was particularly challenging because the bottle showed through the glass, AND had a design of it's own on the label. I think it's kind of 'in your face' close, but maybe not. I was going to do some pansies today but I forgot them at home! I used Carol Marine's 'trick' for the elipses - and, you know... it was easier!

It's A Persimmon, 5x7 Oil

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I love them ... to eat... to paint... to simply look at.  Funny, because orange is not a color that would come up on my 'short list' of favorites.  But I loved the bouncing reflections from the saucer on to the Persimmon, and the highs and lows in the shadows.  The ground on this board is very very absorbent - I think it's gessoboard - so some of the looseness that would/could come from sliding brushstrokes full of paint together didn't happen, but it's OK, I like it anyway.

On my Studio Blog I'm posting some photos from my Artist In Residence day at the Furnace Brook Middle School in Marshfield, MA.  The kids were amazing, and I did two little panels, explaining about A Painting A Day, and they did one (taking turns, of course) and I did one, and I'll post mine there, too - I can't believe I forgot to take a photo of the one the kids did - it was  great!

Gerber Daisies in a Vase, 6x6 Oil

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Here's the whole bunch.  I had this fabric from when I went to Carol Marine's workshop, but I never used it there (too much to think about).  I was a bit intimidated with multiple flowers, plus a patterned background, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  Trying also to think about the dominant value (and in this one I think the dominant value is the middle value, with the dark value second and a smidge - Carol's word - of light values).  So at least for now, I'm sticking with simple exercises that incorporate value dominance, color (Munsel color wheel), edges, and of course, composition.  Not to exclude the 'joy' factor (my own term) - each painting I do must have a certain something that makes me 'want it', something that gives me, and hopefully the viewer, a little jolt of joy.

Workshop Over!

These paintings of peppers were my last painting of the workshop.  
Well, it was a fabulous week.  This was well worth the effort & $$ to get here.  To tell you the truth, I thought this would be sort of an 'easy' workshop, and really just wanted the experience of watching Carol paint!  To my surprise it was a very challenging workshop - no easy ways to do these deceptively simply paintings!  Values, Color, Composition, Edges, Brushstrokes... all had to be 'spot on' to make a successful painting.  Carol was a good teacher... no gliding by with a "that's nice!" - she took every person's painting seriously, for every exercise.  I would highly recommend this workshop for all levels.  She gave invaluable advice on the last day about blogging, marketing, and general business of art.  I found her candid and warm, and incredibly serious about what she does.  You all would have loved it!  The women in the workshop bonded very well, too - please check out my Studio Blog for a little surprise regarding them!

Day 2, Value Studies and Tomatoes

We all did tomatoes today and here they are:

Mine is below on the far right, with the bright green background.

This was one I forgot to put in from yesterday.....  I thought the feather would be the hard part, but it was the Baby Roma tomato!

We did value studies today - nothing new there... EXCEPT Carol was teaching us about the dominant/medium, squinch aspect.  Every painting  (successful painting), is divided into 3 areas, light, medium and dark areas, with one of them being dominant (like half), one medium (like 2/3 of the other half) and a squinch (the last, smallest little bit).  OK, squinch might not be the right word, but it's a work like that.  So we had to do 3 value studies, trying to use one or all of those designs.    OH, and the little numbers on the top left were the number of minutes we had to do them - start to finish - whew!

Carol Marine Workshop, Day #1

Well, here I am in Santa Fe, and after a slight bout of altitude sickness, I'm loving it!  My computer is weird, and I hope this posts OK.  First day painting - it's HARD!  We did a value study, too, as we seemed as a group to have a little trouble there.  This is my set up and my painting.  Blood, sweat & a tear or two went into this one!  Carol's as nice as can be, and it's a joy to watch her at work!   Oh, yeah, on the top of my painting there's a little shadow from the thumbtack used to hold the canvas panel in place.

The Last Of The Harvest, 6x6 Acrylic

The very last eggplant and little Heirloom tomato posed this morning.  This will be my last post before Carol Marine's Worshop in Santa Fe.  Fighting off a cold and trying to organize myself and my house (heh, heh... only kidding about that last thing) before I go, I have to stop painting.  **sigh**  Well, I'm going to try to blog from Santa Fe, and I'll take pictures and show what I've accomplished through the week.  I'm excited because I've never been to Santa Fe, and I've been wearing out the pages of "American Art Collector" magazine trying to pick galleries to visit.  Hmmmm, and Harry the cat was snuggled into my suitcase yesterday, between the t-shirts and the shoes... I think trying to be a stow-away.  The cats definitely know when I'm going away and start acting all crazy as soon as I pull out the suitcase!  Anyway.. it's supposed to be wonderful weather here and in Santa Fe, so I'm definitely counting my blessings!

Lemons 1,2,3, Acrylic 6x6

Up at 5:15 a.m. because my orange kitty needed me to wash his face (I'm not kidding, I have to pretend I'm his mom and let him wet my thumb and run it all over his face and ears before he settles down), I couldn't get back to sleep.  So I came downstairs and saw 3 lemons in a blue bowl and said to myself "Might as well get the Daily Painting started...."  Of course after I painted them in a bowl I decided I'd rather use the fabric I got to take to Carol Marine's workshop next week (YAY!).  So I placed a small folded piece of the purple-y fabric on my stand and repainted it.  I have one HUGE lemon, one small lemon, and one teeny lemon.  Kind of like the 3 bears, only citrus-y. :)