Playing with Acrylics and Stencils and Gelli Plates and Rice Paper and... and... and...!

One of the joys of being a teacher is that I get to learn so much from my students...

For the last couple of years I've been working with a group of five women who asked me to teach them how to do Zentangles.  We worked with Zentangles extensively for about a year then I began to feel I might have reached the limit of what I could teach them about Zentangles and started trying to bring in some other concepts and exercises.  They got right on board and began bringing me things they wanted to learn.  In this way, we have ranged all over the place from book making to drawing to paint pouring, etc.  We have traveled to the beach for a week and Wintergreen for the weekend, becoming dear friends along the way. I feel utterly blessed to have them in my life. We are a goofy group of very unique women who somehow manage to get along - probably because we accept each others' eccentricities with an indulgent smile, knowing they will accept ours too without judgment.  It's quite extraordinary!

But I digress...

A few months ago at Wintergreen, Barbara told us about an artist named Elizabeth St. Hilaire whose work Barbara is bananas about. We talked about having Elizabeth come up here to teach a workshop and I contacted her to see how difficult that would be to arrange. Elizabeth was lovely, but the cost was going to be a bit high and the logistics more than I wanted to take on. Barbara showed us a video she'd bought and a book Elizabeth wrote. After watching the video and reading the book, I decided that perhaps I could offer the group enough instruction that they might get what they're looking for without the effort of bringing Elizabeth here.  Fast forward to warm weather...

We set up 8 tables in my wavy back yard - one per person plus two for supplies: fluid acrylics, stencils, sponges, mark makers, rice paper, tiles - anything and everything you could imagine to get marks onto paper.  The idea is to create interesting textures and colors on paper. Then we will tear up that paper and collage it onto a board to create an image - our goal is to create a beautiful apple!  I am hoping we will create other images as well since we have thus far spent about 6 weeks on this project, but we'll see how that goes!

For four weeks, and counting, we set up in the backyard and painted and splashed and splattered and made very interesting paper.  Last week we stayed in the studio creating our own stencils and printing plates out of foam core and other interesting objects to use to create more textures on the paper. We even made our own Gelli Plates out of gelatin and glycerin - I sure hope they work!  This week we will finish that up then go back outside to create more paper the next two weeks.

Then, finally, after 8 weeks of prep!, we will return to the studio where we will create a collaged apple out of torn paper.  I sure hope we have the right color papers!

After our last class, I found myself making some more stencils in my studio after class, then I wanted to play with them, so I got out a canvas and began creating a painting using the stencils and fluid acrylics.  I'd been wanting to paint the image for a while and woke up knowing this was the right way to do it.  I wasn't collaging the paper onto the canvas. Instead, I used the paint through the stencils directly on the canvas.  Here's the result:

It is so utterly different from anything I've ever done before! I really like how it turned out.  I'd gotten up at 6 AM to have time in the studio before I had to start my day and ended up feeling totally energized by 9 when I had to start the rest of my day.

The next day I finished the first piece all the way then began on a second.  It was going to be another representational piece, but I ended up having so much fun with the patterns and stencils, I left it as is. 

The hosed-down version.

I then began a third piece which isn't finished yet.  It's based on a photograph I took in Iceland of a rusty old door (piece of a boat??) beside the lake in Laugarvatn.  I piled on the paint, then realized it was way too heavy so I took it outside and hosed it down before it dried all the way. 

The Rusty Wheel
Acrylic on canvas
24"x 18"

 For the more final version, I left most of the stenciled part washed away, but glazed it with bright color.  I couldn't manage to get the wheel the color I wanted so I collaged paper on it - after all, I'd made reams of paper for just that purpose!  It was fun figuring out how to apply it and make that work.  For the left hand side, I created a few templates with irregular circles on it and used those to create the stones.  This piece is almost, but not quite finished.  Looking at it again today after a week of not seeing it helps me see some places I'd like to work on.

When I left for the workshop Friday, I was so excited about what I was doing with these canvases, I couldn't quite imagine focusing on pastels again. Now that I'm all excited about pastels, it's hard to know what to do with all the acrylics and canvases I just bought!

Am I fickle or what??!  So much fun to be had in the world!  I am one lucky woman!

Loosen Up! Workshop with Marla Baggetta

As soon as I saw the title, I knew this was the right workshop for me!  "Loosen Up!" it was called.  And it worked - at least for the duration of the weekend.  The jury's out whether or not the change will be somewhat lasting.

Marla Baggetta was brought to Richmond by the MidAtlantic Pastel Society, MAPS, a group anyone with interest may join (I highly recommend it!)  Marla was an excellent teacher - fun, enthusiastic, caring, knowledgeable, with a whole stack of interesting and challenging exercises which really got her point across.  Interestingly, she taught the very same concepts I teach in my Intro to Pastels class, but she had different exercises to get the point across, more advanced ones.

One of the first exercises we did was to draw an apple.  I have my students draw apples as well, so it's an exercise I've done probably 200 times.  It was fun to see her approach and to modify mine accordingly.  She drew her larger and used much lighter, larger strokes than I do, not necessarily rounded to show the form of the fruit. I encourage my students to use strokes that go around the apple to help give a sense of form and volume.  She also barely looked at the apple, just making up a lot of it including the light source.  It was fun watching her delight in creating.  She really loves to draw!  I loved seeing that!

I drew four apples because I wanted to keep testing myself to do something new - a new view of the apple, using completely different colors and values - anything to test myself. The first one is fairly normal. These are about 9"x 12".

   

Very frowsy edges!

The bottom of the apple. Very intense colors.
Marla suggested that I got a bit heavy-handed
with the pastel so I tried again!

The fourth and final apple, also upside
down.  (Chris thought it was a picture of
mountains and sky.) More muted colors.

My favorite exercise had us consider composition and the values found in a given composition. We were to analyze the composition and break it up into 3-5 values, then draw that thumbnail according to Carlson's Theory of Angles/Planes (The link is to Marla's video explaining the theory in more detail than I have here.) which says that the values of elements in the landscape ascend from lightest to darkest in the following order: 

1. arch of sky - lightest, source of light
2. ground plane (except water which may reflect the sky and be equally light)
3. angled planes (like mountains)
4. uprights - trees, etc.

Once we drew our thumbnail according to this theory, we were to mix up the values and draw the thumbnail three more times using different values for each portion.

Once done, we were to use different color schemes to draw the thumbnail:

1. B&W&gray
2. realistic
3. saturated (intense colors)
4. neutral
5. tints
6. shades

After this lesson, Marla showed us a composition she had created out of thin air which she has drawn hundreds upon hundreds of times using these ideas.  She did a demo to show us how she goes about using these ideas and incorporating them into a painting.  Then she challenged us to use the exact same composition and our own color/value/intensity choices to create a piece.  I did two.

 At first, I did everything in this image bright bright bright.  She came over and commented that when everything is bright, nothing is, and encouraged me to dull some portions down.  Thus the darker/duller foreground and duller sky up top.

I thought of Spring colors when creating this one. I haven't sorted out the difference between "loose" and "fast" - too much programming from my youth, I suppose, when "fast" and "loose" were synonymous for girls!  Anyway, I did both of these very very quickly. I'd like to learn to work more slowly and thoughtfully AND loosely.  I like the strokes here and the colors.  I think I could have made it a bit stronger if I'd given it more thought as I went along. I will say, though, it was very fun tumbling along around the page, throwing colors at it without a photo reference.  Very freeing!

Our next exercise was to use our own photograph, the one we had made the thumbnail for and worked with extensively.  Here's the way my thumbnail developed (we were asked to create a vertical, a horizontal, and a square thumbnail for the image, but I only did horizontal and square (the third image is for a different image I hope to work on tomorrow):

That turned into the B&W and grey images show first in this blog post.

My first attempt at drawing this image wasn't as successful as I'd hoped: (oh! It feels so vulnerable to share this and to share my efforts.  It seems so much safer to share just my final outcome after I'd done it three times!)

I like the water and sky, but the mistake I made was to try to draw the vertical trees AFTER the sky was in.  It isn't possible to get the trunks dark enough.  Marla came around and suggested I draw the tree trunks before drawing the sky then drawing the sky around the trunks and branches.  I'd thought that would look weird and not so good, but she showed me how she does it, and I can see that it works.  So here's the second attempt:

I feel like the foliage in the trees on the right is a bit heavy-handed so I decided to try it again, this time as a square composition:

I feel like I manage to convey the sense of the rising sun better in this one, and the foliage on the right is effective.  I also like the light on the road.  However, the brush on the left is too high, darn it.  I do, however, like that I used lots of colors in the brush and trees, making it much more interesting.  I will try it one more time tomorrow to see if I can nail this puppy!  I'm not sure why it matters so much to me - I guess I just want to learn how to create a scene like this.  It's difficult! I won't learn it unless I keep practicing. Stay tuned!

The third day we had the opportunity to draw some pictures on our own using the information we'd learned the previous two days.  I worked on one piece from Iceland, one from the James River. I did thumbnails of several images then chose these two as the most successful to try.  There are a couple more I hope to draw this week when I get enough time to play again.

Rounding the Bend, Hrisey

Man and Nature
Huguenot Bridge from Huguenot Flatwater

The last exercise Marla challenged us with was to take the largest piece of paper we brought with us (mine was 19"x24") and to draw a single object from around the room on it, loose, fun.  I almost got finished before the critique started!

I'm so glad I took this workshop. It was great being with a group of pastelists who are serious about their craft and already are quite skilled.  And working with Marla was a true gift. I feel like I learned a lot which I will use in my work from here on out - now, finally - maybe! - I can loosen up and let the energy I'm feeling come through more clearly!