Finished 2 more baby portraits

I accomplished my goal of 3 finished pastel portraits by the end of November. My goal for December is to concentrate on value using Conte Crayon and Ken Bronikowski's technique. (See November 15 post.)

Finished baby portrait & mke sketch club sketch

Last Saturday took a mat cutting class and on Sunday learned how to mount artwork. A bit pressed for time right now so will post my notes later. Meanwhile finished a baby portrait and also here is conte crayon sketch I just did tonight at the Milwaukee Sketch Club.

Charcoal Sketch from Milwaukee Sketch Club Tuesday night sketch night

Experimented with Ken Bronikowski's technique but used charcoal not conte crayon.

Joye Moon, Wisconsin Watercolor Artist, Demo at Artist and Display 11/16/08

Joye Moon, http://www.joyemoon.com/ , did an excellent Watercolor demo yesterday. There were also copies of her book, "Exploring Textures in Watercolor" by Northlight books, http://www.fwbookstore.com/category/s , was available to buy and have her sign. Her exhibit based on her book at Gail Steinhilber Gallery at UW Oshkosh just closed November 9, 2008. There is also an article about her in the december issue of watercolor magazine. You can see her yearly newsletter, exhibits and workshops online at her website.

She uses Maimeri paint from Milan, Italy. It's highly pigmented and they refine the gum arabic a second time before they use it. http://www.allbusiness.com/services/museums-art-galleries-botanical-zoological/4355113-1.html , http://italianartstore.bizland.com/store/maimeri_artisti_oils.html , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoO7pv1Cc7U , http://www.lindacoulter.com/About%20Paint.htm .

Joye uses Richeson Premium Watercolor Paper, 140" cold press. http://www.richesonart.com/products/pages/prmwcpaper.html

First she gets her supplies ready for phase one:

• She tears her wax paper into shapes. Wax paper has a line that runs parallel to the selvage edges.
• She pulls her plastic wrap to make "happy" stretch marks
• She opens up and pulls apart to make more organic shapes of Kerlix's 100% cotton Kendal surgical gauze
• She lines up her salts; Epsom, table and popcorn; largest to smallest
• Her isopropyl in a bottle with eyedropper

Then she wets both sides of her paper with very well with a large brush

Then she lays down her wax paper, plastic wrap and surgical gausze in relationship to a flow of movement.

Then she adds color:

• big brushes to small
• thin colors to thicker
• light colors to darker

Then she applies the salt

Then the alcohol drops

If paint not moving under plastic she may lift and spry more water underneath.

Then she lets it dry over night.

In phase 2 she paints the negative space, starting with thinner color to establish the shapes. Hard edges can be softened with a wet brush. She uses a thirsty brush to pull color. Again lets it dry overnight.

In successive phases she continues to work the negative spaces using thicker colors. She always uses tip of brush to keep nice edge by rotating the paper. To subdue an area she may spritz with water. To paint rocks, she makes some randomly placed and sized rectangles in a shape then connects them. The triangles can be the mortar or shadow between the rocks.

She showed how you can paint a shape with fresh water, than used sandpaper to make crumbs to fall onto the water and color it.

She generally works on several paintings at once. Her technique looks very fun, free flowing and creative.

Gamblin Oil workshop by Andrea Harris at Artist & Display Saturday 11/15/08

This was an excellent workshop & I really enjoyed it.

Andrea Harris, http://www.andreaharris.com/. Gamblin artist representative taught the workshop and did an excellent job.

We learned about and used

• the Neo Megilp medium which suspends and supports the oil paint in a soft gel providing luminosity, an atmospheric effect like William Turner, http://www.j-m-w-turner.co.uk/ , is good for indirect painting and
  
• Cold Wax medium which allows you to create impasto or direct painting techniques and can be used as a final varnish. Andrea spread a very thin layer of cold wax on her substrate, added paint directly from the tubes and blended right on her substrate. A rigid substrate is needed to prevent cracking if you use more than 30% coldwax medium. Galkyd gel improves flexibility of coldwax.
  
• Neo Megilp is shiny while Cold Wax is a less glossy, matte finish. Both mediums extend your paint. Modern oil paints are a lot thicker than in the days of the "Masters".
• Discussed Gamvar which is a removable with Gamsol varnish.
• Gamblin mediums are balanced while cold wax is lean. Linseed oil, safflower and standard oil are fatty. Need to paint fat over lean? or thin to pastelike. Gamblin mediums dry by evaporation not oxication. She starts sketching by using artist color like raw umber and a lot of medium. Oil over acrylic sketch may result in poor adhesion of oil.
  
• Gamblin has a special black called chromatic black which made by mixing quinacridone red (cool red) with pthalo emerald (warm green), 2 colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, allowing you to have more lively, shear, not muddy black. You can use it to darken colors without muddying them. mix it with TiZn white to get a beautiful gray which can be used to tone down colors.
  
• Someone in class mentioned the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend http://www.wisconsinart.org/

We painted still lifes of fruit using 3 color pallettes, Old Masters, Modern and Impressionists colors, http://www.gamblincolors.com/oil.painting.techniques/palettes.html over Ampersand gessobord panels, http://www.ampersandart.com/ . They're really easy to work on and archival too. I really enjoyed painting in oil with how easy they blend and allow you to get exactly the color you want. My husband liked the paintings and has them now while they are drying.

Old master paintings were all about value & used a limited mineral based palette. Impressionist (see painting with orange background) paintings were about color and had more mineral based colors created during the industrial revolution. Modern (see painting with black background) and the spectral palette is about intensity.

Conte portrait drawing on bond paper by Ken Bronikowski at milwaukee Sketch Club on Tuesday 11/11/08

Ken is an excellent artist and teacher. I found some information about him at the following:
http://www.finelinedesignsgallery.com/artists/KenBronikowski.html
http://www.riveredgegalleries.com/REGBronikowski.html
https://www.peninsulaartschool.com/Painting___Drawing.html

Ken started out with smooth bond paper toned with sanguine? conte crayon. Then he looked for shapes and drew them in. He used an kneaded erasor to pick out the highlights. This paper and technique is very forgiving. You can keep adding and subtracting pigment.

He also talked about the colors he uses with his Winsor Newton water miscible oils
(Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colour see http://www.winsornewton.com/main.aspx?PageID=35 )

• 4 colors for portraits: Ivory black + yellow ochre = greens; white, yellow ochre & red to make purples. (He refered to Anders Zorn 4 color pallette, http://andysartblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/zorn-palette.html , http://www.alsing.com/zorn_eng/18601889.html and http://www.artgraphica.net/free-art-lessons/anders-zorn-oil-painter/anders-zorn-oil-painter-2.htm )
  
• 5 colors for landscapes: Cadmium yellow light, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson, pthalo green (yellow shade), ultramarine blue and titanium white

He paints with I believe Dan Gerhartz from Wisconsin. (There's another artist out west named Dan Gerhart http://www.dangerhart.com/ but I don't think that's the right one. It's interesting how midwest art can be less edgy than art elsewhere)
http://www.shafferfineart.com/The_Art_of_Daniel_Gerhartz.htm
http://www.meyergalleries.com/santafe/bio/62.asp
http://www.thecollectionshop.com/xq/ASP/ArtistName2.Dan_Gerhartz/Dan_Gerhartz/qx/Artist_Profile.htm
http://www.framingfox.com/danfger.html

His brother, Steve Gerhartz, has a website. http://www.stevegerhartz.com/about.html

I started a new pastel portrait Thursday.

San Angelo, Texas

Some pictures of San Angelo murals and quick plein air sketches. Visited relatives in San Angelo, Texas last weekend. Had a great time with my relatives. Angelo folks were very friendly.

• Went to the Kendal Art Gallery (home of the San Angelo Art Club) http://www.sanangeloartclub.org/ ,
  
• Did a quick plein air in the park at the foot of the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, http://www.samfa.org/ . Also a neat tile mosaic bug car is near there.
  
• We viewed the historic murals,http://www.historicmuralsofsanangelo.org/ and also some cool alley murals that my cousin found in Alley 2 and other alleys.
• There's also a neat mural of 3 longhorns in the shopping center http://www.sunsetmall.com just outside of Barbed Wire & Roses.
• Did another quick plein air in a disc golf park, Brentwood park which had a stone lined revetment running through the park to direct water. For more info on the park see http://www.sanangelotexas.us/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={16FFA976-9FFB-484D-944D-E25CB22A0863} and http://www.discgolfscene.com/courses/Brentwood_Park .

Guest Speaker Pamela Anderson, Underwood Gallery Owner & Artist at Wisconsin Pastel Artists (WPA) Nov 6, 2008 Mtg

Pamela Anderson, both an artist and the owner of Underwood Gallery who has a sales background gave a talk on how to approach a gallery and market your work.

Here are links to her websites:
http://www.paintmysky.com
http://www.underwoodgallery.com (Exhibition by Fred Bell 12/9/09 - 1/9/09)

There is also mention of her gallery's 7th anniversary at http://www.villageofwauwatosa.com/

It is important to be professional, organized, polite, not waste the gallery owner's time and have good follow up.

Mentioned that you can never get enough exposure.
Some ways to market yourself:

• Face book (and other viral/social networks)
  
• drop off cards with different art groups
• blog postings

Proper framing of artwork is important.

Carol, a wpa member also gave a short framing presentation. Mentioned that there is a fitting tool used that squeezes in nails to put frames together, $35? through Dick Blick but may also be found at Rockler's woodworking and hardware on hwy 100 & watertown plank road (845 N Mayfair Rd. Wauwatosa, WI 53226. http://www.rockler.com/retail/index.cfm?store=7 ) Looks like it might be Framers Pliers for $43.99 that she is talking about under handtools/picture framing tab)