Colin Page Workshop

This weekend I attended a Colin Page (above) workshop at the North River Arts Society in Marshfield, MA. The class was overwhelmingly filled with my 'peeps' from the South Shore - and we had a lot of laughs as well as good lessons in observation and working with values and color.
The first day we were at Scituate Harbor, it being primarily a Plein Air workshop, and I struggled with this little lobster boat (they MOVE!). I was thinking of Colin's loose but definitive brushwork for the background trees, and his 'sparkle' in the water. The hardest part was the 'dark white' of the side of the boat in shadow.

SOLD

I thought what I loved about this painting above was the 'pop' of blue inside the boat, but what turns out to have grabbed me was the color changes in the water from blue to lavender to 'muddy' green... Also the man who owns this boat came to talk to me, and it turns out that THIS boat was built in Warren, RI, where my studio is! How about that?
The second day it rained, so we painted indoors. Oh, what was I thinking with this figurine (it was Colin's and actually had a smiley face painted on its belly)????? I was happiest with the blue pitcher in the background...
I painted this because there was nowhere else to sit when it turned out I had to move after we'd started painting. I have an allergy to turps except Gamsol, and there was someone using Turpenoid, so when my eyes started burning and lips started tingling I knew I couldn't paint the pink carnations in a jar I'd chosen. I was almost in despair over this (all blue? stripes? a painted pitcher????) but Colin helped me eliminate the non-essentials and calm down and just DO it. :) If you ever get a chance.. it's a worthwhile workshop!

This weekend is the Festival of the Arts - worth going to even if I didn't get into the juried show ;) The art in the show is great, and I do have about 10 pieces in the 'Art Sale' barn. There's music, demo's, high quality crafts, hands-on stuff for kids, and food. Worth the trip if you're in MA, RI or even NH. In Marshfield, off Rte 3A - you'll see the signs.

I didn't do a Daily Painting yesterday or the day before, because I've been working on a fundraiser for the North River Art Society's annual Festival. They gave you a pillowcase (of course I took TWO) and you could do... whatever. Sounded fun, but I'd never decorated a pillow and was waaaay out of my league. I did countless sketches, dyed the pillowcases blue (another first for me) and changed my mind about what to do with them a thousand times. Ended up with a starfish theme.

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!