week 2--painting in the darks

For the second painting class, I selected 3 of the 6 canvases to work on. This time I had the photos printed and taped them next to each painting for palette reference. I decided to work on "Beet", "Foxglove" and "Red Chard" (for lack of better title) because they all had in common the reds and violets and I thought that would simplify my color mixing.

Shilo guided me with mixing the paint in buckets--how little paint to use vs. how much turpenoid; then split this between 2 or 3 buckets for similar color families, etc. Sounds basic, but this is all new to me, this way of abstract painting.

The day's task was to develop the paintings by putting in the darks. I mixed blue greens, olive greens, dark purple violets and red violets. I also mixed a little bit of dark brownish violet (mixed some blue green into the red violet) for the shadows of the foxglove. Here they are, after Week 2. They all kind of look the same at this point. I still am not sure what they will end up looking like, stylistically, by the last class (Week 6) but I like the abstractness so far, and they still look inspired by nature.

"Foxglove"

"Red Chard"

"Beets"

I took the other 3 canvases home and worked on them that night. Again, for lack of better titles, I'll refer to them as "Snapdragon", "Maple and Iris" and "Hakonechloa, geranium and blue spikes". Shilo said I should just name them "1" through "6", but for me, the plant names help me visualize color palette.





"Snapdragon"















"Maple tree w/ blue iris"












"Hakonechloa, geranium and blue spikes"

back to nature

I started private lessons with Shilo Ratner at her studio.
I brought over 6 canvases--four 24x24 and two 18x24.
We looked at the photos I took of my garden, as starting point for "inspiration" and compositional ideas. The idea is to focus on a color palette for each painting and stick to an "intent".

I mixed 3 different washes of greens and used 3 different sized brushes. Then I splattered, dripped, scraped and wiped, trying to vary the strokes as much as possible.

After some drying time, I worked on four of the canvases, leaving 2 to dry more so I could take them home to work on.

I decided that one would be inspired by the purple/violet leaves of BEETS.


The second one would be inspired by the pink/red stems of my CHARD.


The third one would have the apricot/rose colors of my SNAP DRAGON.


And the last one would be based on the purple/lilac colors or my FOXGLOVE.


Photos of the 18x24 should be vertical (use your imagination!)

For the 2 canvases that I brought home, I decided they would be inspired by my front garden plantings.

One is based on my yellow striped Hakonechloa grass, variegated geranium (chartreuse and burgundy) and Ajuga muscari (purple leaves with blue spikes)


The other is based on my wild irises (purple) and red maple.


This is Stage 1. They are looking garden-y, which is my intent, but I also want to keep them very abstract.

Encaustic workshop

I took an encaustic workshop with Eileen Goldenberg recently. It was from 10-4 and it was FANTASTICALLY FUN. I am a long way from perfecting the technique (still have lots of bubbles) but I certainly enjoyed the instant gratification of not having to wait for paint to dry! Eileen showed us lots of techniques (sgraffito, using wire mesh, copper pipes, tracing paper, photo transfer, embedding objects, gilding, etc. And the EASY clean-up was another bonus!

I went out and bought an electric pancake griddle and a heat gun that very day. The next day, I went to SF and got plywood from Discount Builders Supply, 5# of beeswax from Douglas and Sturgess (that'll last a while) and encaustic gesso from Dick Blick. Now all I need is Damar resin.

I can see how one could get very meticulous and "crafty" in terms of the technique. It seems like it could be very "Zen"and addictive--something that I could be doing into the wee hours.

Here are the 2 pieces I made at the workshop.