HAS ANYONE EVER TRIED TERRASKIN?

RED FLOWERS IN A GLASS VASE

PASTE PAPER FLOWERS

Have you ever used Terraskin as a painting surface?
 I read about it in one of my art magazines and immediately ordered some. Terreaskin reminds me of Yupo which I find difficult to paint with watercolor but both are a great substrate for mixed media art work.

Red flowers has an acrylic base in bold bright colors with oil pastel to punch it up even more. Paste Paper Flowers I again used acrylics for the background then glued my hand made paste paper into a pop art creation.

The most important factor is that I let myself go hog wild and didn't worry about creating a master piece.

It felt great to work on these two paintings.

COMPLETING MY PAINTINGS FROM THE JANET ROGERS WORKSHOP

Finished painting.

Workshop start

Let it not be said that I do not complete my workshop homework.

Here are three of the paintings that I started in the Janet Rogers workshop and finished them in my studio. My little angel isn't perfect but I think I captured her essence and the flesh tones that Janet taught us. I am struggling  with using the white of the paper as the highlight value.

Workshop start

I rather like this one. I did add watercolor pencil to accent some parts of the finished product.

Finished

    Somethings can not be saved and this was one of the many that I create.
I was experimenting with hot press watercolor paper and found that I did not like it or maybe I do not know how to use it properly.  Either way it is history in my stash of art supplies.

Workshop start.

Awful!!!!!!

 I will try again to use Janet Rogers techniques because the lady can really paint people well! She also has a style that you can recognize the moment you lay eyes on her art work. 

VERO BEACH ART CLUB PRESENTS A JANET ROGERS WORKSHOP

Lunch with fellow artists

Hi All,

   I may have mentioned that I am co-chair of the Art Club workshop committee which presented a three day watercolor workshop with Janet Rogers. We had her hubby Steve Rogers last year. Both are outstanding artists and teachers, she left the students asking for a five day return workshop for next year.

     It was a sold out event and well worth the time to learn from Janet. My watercolor paintings had taken a sorrowful showing but now I am recharged to buy new limited palette wc paints. Cheap Joe will love me.

    Summarizing what I learned:
1. Don't be so cheap, buy new paint and put out a big blob of it onto a large palette.
2. If I use a limited palette I will avoid mud which haunts my artistic endeavors.
     Aureolin Yellow, Permanent Rose & Cobalt Blue for the transparent triad of colors.
3. Practice(warm up) before each painting by doing swatches of flesh tones & gesture drawings.
4.  Make the secondary orange, purple and green from limited palette triad.
5. After sketching flower, face or figure drop in a puddle of flesh tone then add other colors to create a  variety of subtle color changes. One straight color is boring.
6. A second triad was made by using; Qin. Gold, Alizarin Crimson & Ultra. Blue.
7. Use white of the paper for the highlights of the subject and use the cooled down flesh tone for the shadow areas. That was new to me.
8. Never use blue as the shadow color; they should be a warm color.

Flesh tone swatches.

     Here are my first attempts:

Grand daughter as an angel.

Flowers

Grand daughter on the beach.

    As you can see I am bad at flowers but do enjoy figures and faces. I was amazed at how many times Janet could add another color to "overwhelm" a mistake in color. As long as the puddle is still wet, all the colors are transparent and from a limited palette. I don't fear watercolors as much as I used to and I'm even fired up to paint with them.  

A wonderful workshop.

NEW PLEIN AIR TOYS

Is it true that if I buy just one more brush, tube of paint or equipment I will instantly be a better painter?

EASY L PLEIN AIR SET UP

First let me say that I have no bad habits so I totally deserve my splurge buying  some light weight , easy to lug around painting equipment. I will gladly donate my old wooden french easel to a student at a local school.

SEA GRAPE TREES
My first plein air of this season was at a local park  and it was an enjoyable experience. I did not invest in new equipment until I tried painting plein air last season to see if I liked it.  I DO!

I got my painting home and thought it was horrid so I let the oil paint dry and started over.

Sea Grape Re-do

I did repaint this in my studio so it doesn't really count as plein air but at this point in my art career I am not a purest. I was told the painting has to be 80% done plein air before it qualifies. 

As you can see the scene was simplified and I was concentrating on temperature changes. 

A for effort.

MORE OF THE COLOR PROJECT

A few posts back I startED on a Donna Zagotta Color Project:
Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary, Near complementary, Split complementary, Double Complementary, Triadic and Tetrad.
This exercise should improve my use and understanding of color intended to produce a specific mood.

Let's finish this project.

MONOCHROMATIC:(

ANALOGUS:)

COMPLEMENTARY:)

NEAR COMPLEMENTARY:(

DOUBLE COMPLEMENTARY:(

SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY:(

 TRIADIC :(
 I give myself points for finishing this assignment.  Most of the paintings will be do overs but the point was to try each of the color combinations.

TETRAD ?

I SEE THE LIGHT; AND DARK AND COLOR!

 Photo

      After all the time I have spent reading, taking classes and experimenting I think I am beginning to isolate my problem areas in my painting technique.

     The passion and dedication has always been there and so has the willingness to learn but I think I can summarize three areas of needing insight:  

      * being able to identify the % of light/dark in colors

      * must do a sketch for design and value prior to each painting

      * use single stroke application of paint

      It seems when I hit the canvas or paper I do the same thing as I have always done..dah and I get the same results, a master in mid-tone values. This time I will make myself do a drawing of the values and design of my subject, I pulled out my value chart that I have had for years and will make myself mix colors of different % value before I begin painting. Somehow I will force myself to do single or few stroke painting. A vortex of many strokes takes over my paint brush thinking that if I painting over it one more time it will be just right.  
    What a monster:(

Value Chart

Value Sketch

Do Over



I still had trouble with the few stroke painting but I did improve and I stopped before I normally would. 

ZAGOTTA LESSON CONTINUED

Another attempt at a monochromatic painting.

Paint over the first attempt.

First attempt: yuck!

Step one                
                 OK, I cheated. I really had a  hard time using just one color, it was boring so I took the liberty of using only cad. red but used white, blue and yellow to jazz up the cad. red.


Next I tried to soften the edge on the back strawberry and added oil pastel over the acrylic for a punch.

Used warm/cool temperature changes to the white background and added a gradation to the shadow area.

Final Product:

 I thought the shadow was a bit intense so I softened it but I prefer step one which tells me that I should stop way before I feel it is done.
Lesson learned~!



PS. I used a free photo from Morguefile.com so I could concentrate on the lesson and not finding a subject to paint.