Posts Tagged ‘workshops’
Fourth of the four paintings
Today, I finally got the chance to go up and work on the last of the four oil/cold wax medium paintings I started in Dallas at the first of the month. I really liked this combination of colors… magenta, red, orange,gold-ochre, etc. But the painting was not finished.
I didn’t know whether or not I would do what I did with the last one and almost totally re-paint it or not. I slathered a little cold wax medium on the top of the fairly dried paint and used a few oil paint sticks……opened up my palette to look at the colors I had there that might work with this one. I did use some sticks but also brayered them down a little softening the edges that I made with the sticks and an occasional brush mark or two.
I kept looking at it as I tried to keep layering some more paint on the other paintings wooden panel edges………finally, I decided this is where I am leaving it, at least for now. It is a blessing and a curse like pastels that you can keep coming back and painting more later if you wish without much difficulty as long as you don’t put a final varnish on top. AND cold wax medium and oil paintings generally do not have one unless you want a glossier finish.
I even started thinking of titles………. This one… Out of the Clearing 2.
This is the way I left it in the studio today.
Out of the Clearing 2, oil on 20 x 20 x 2 inch wood panel
The painting below is where I started……..
Artist’s Showplace workshop report
I’m not sure I’m really ready to make a report on my first ever 4 day workshop…………..but ready or not, I will. As mentioned at one point earlier, I felt like I’d jumped off a bridge when I agreed to do a workshop. If you know me, you know I don’t take responsibilities lightly. I used to always worry myself into either being over–prepared or I just would not commit. Sometime in the past decade, I have mellowed a little…. I figured I would give it a shot, so I said yes when Cecie Borschow at Artist’s Showplace Gallery and Studio lofts in Dallas asked me to do this last fall. HA HA…. So I told her I hadn’t a clue what to call this workshop but it would be about Process and Abstraction. It would be using acrylic on canvas or at least large paper. Hence, Abstract: THE PROCESS.
SO……….waiting to see if it ‘made’ or not, I decided not to worry too much too soon. Well, what do you know, it made. I had a brief outline of what I might cover. Then I went out of town for the Fifth Annual Encaustic Conference. I came home and promptly got sick with two weeks to go before the workshop. SO…. no time to worry then either, huh.
I did what I do when I paint…. after all this workshop is about the process and of the kinds of processes abstract painters might use. I was intuitive in what I would cover other than the outline. I would have to evaluate as I went what the attendees wanted and what level they were on when it came to painting abstractly. There are so MANY different processes and products obtained from the processes……and I wanted them to use theirs, and not mine. I did demo every morning since if they didn’t like what I do, they would not have signed up………..and we all talked about our work. I asked questions, they asked questions. I hope I brought a little enlightenment in to what processes I use and that they took away at least one thing that will be an ‘aha’ moment for them.
This was an enormously rewarding experience for me and I hope it was for the eighteen people who attended.
Thank you to Nancy Johnson Standlee for sending me some pictures of the workshop. If others have some, let me know……….I would also love to see the work you finished up after the workshop.
