Color Emergence - Watercolors by Chris Sommerfelt

Chris Sommerfelt, http://www.leagueofmilwaukeeartists.com/chris_sommerfelt.htm , is having an exhibit at St. Mark's Episcopal Church Gallery, March 7th - April 18th

Opening Reception: Saturday March 14th, 1:30-4:00pm
2618 N. Hackett, Milwaukee (NE corner of Hackett and Belleview)

Hours: M-Th 10am - noon, Sat & Sun 9am-noon
414-962-0500

Some pastel sketches from Milwaukee Sketch Club session

Some sketches, charcoal, marker/pencil and marker

Been a little busy this week so haven't posted. Here's a charcoal sketch from Tuesday night Milwaukee Sketch Club, a window picture in marker just drawing the negative spaces and Assessment number 4 for design drawing class where we need to show aerial perspective by our marks. Also we had to combine 2 or more pictures. I combined 3.

Also a link to about.com's Painting a day: 28 ideas for February, http://painting.about.com/od/inspiration/tp/painting-a-day-ideas-february.htm

Allen Caucutt Critique at AC Art Association Monday 2/16/09

Allen Caucutt critiqued in a very informative, positive, humorous way. He also urged us to share our art with school students as art education is being cut back and eliminated in schools. He has a show coming up in December at the Cedarburg Cultural Center, http://cedarburgculturalcenter.org/

Here's some links with information about him:

• http://www.weac.org/professional_resources/great_schools/news_and_articles/2006-2007/caucutt_allen.aspx
  
• http://www.weac.org/professional_resources/great_schools/news_and_articles/2005-2006/caucutt.aspx
  
• http://www.cedarburgartistsguild.com/07DIRECTORY.html .

Some topics he mentioned while critiquing:

• We see things 2 ways: haptic & visual, one is the overall view to detail, the other is detail to overall.
• Types of painting: realism, impressionism, abstract & nonobjective (space, texture, shape & form)
• There are no lines in nature, nature has dimension. Lines are manmade.
  
• The need to nurture art in young people to help them become creative people. Visit the schools on vocation day with 3 of your best paintings on varied subjects and talk about what you do.
  
• Enjoy the act of painting
• Experiment with painting with various values of one color
• Experiment with a controlled palette; 1 color + black and white
  

Several painters & paintings mentioned during critique:

• William Turner http://www.j-m-w-turner.co.uk/
• Michael Casey: http://www.mcaseyart.com/
• Gathering Faggots by Thomas Gainsborough http://www.artofeurope.com/gainsborough/gai5.htm
• Picasso's Rooster http://www.globalgallery.com/enlarge/007-14456/
• Barbizon French landscapes artists http://wwar.com/masters/movements/barbizon_school.html
• Seurat's Sunday in the Park http://www.artchive.com/artchive/S/seurat/jatte.jpg.html
• Winslow Homer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winslow_Homer
• Michael Santini http://www.msantini.com/

Some grid ideas from Joyce

• Paint using a grid with different colors in each square but the right values
• Paint a distorted grid

Design Drawing and Color Theory - Class 4 - Line & Landscape

Learned about using line to represent proximity (closer lines thicker & darker while further plane lines are lighter and thinner), aerial perspective (distant objects less contrast, less intense, more fuzzy and hazier) and emotion.

Saw a video on Michelangelo and how he used preparatory drawings. http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/europe/michelangelos_drawings/michelangelos_drawings.aspx

Did an activity where we used lines to express emotion and another activity where we used lines and no shading to draw a landscape. Here's my landscape. I used all the way from thick marker to pen to pencil to try to represent proximity and aerial perspective. It was fun to do.

Petal Pushers 2/28-4/11/09 at Uihlein Peters Gallery

Joyce Eesley, http://www.leagueofmilwaukeeartists.com/joyce_eesley.htm , has quite a few watercolors in this show.

Artist's reception: Saturday, 2/28/09, 1:00- 4:00pm
Uihlein Peters Gallery: Mon - Sat 10am-5pm, 1840 N Prospect Ave, Milwaukee (parking available in the lot south of the building.

Design Drawing and Color Theory - Class 3 - Negative Space

Learned about M.C. Escher and his mathematical prints. Here's more information on him at http://www.mcescher.com/ If you want to learn more about tessellations or how to make your own tessellations see http://www.tessellations.org/ .

Learned about seeing and drawing negative space. Here's my finished drawing of the negative spaces when looking through a window.

Canvas Shlepper

Was in Artist and Display to buy canvas when I met a friend and she showed me this art shlepper for canvases. It works really well. http://freshart.com/index2.php

About.com's February Valentine Painting project

Just submitted this pastel Valentine painting to about.com, http://painting.about.com/od/submissiongallery/ig/Painting-Project-Valentine/Valentine-Project-Instructions.htm .

Took this to Milwaukee Sketch Club critique on 2/10/09. I need to make the sleeves more green and less transparent, darken the darks on the leaves and where the pot sits I need a dark line.

In process acrylic painting

Blue and Yellow don't make Green, a book by Michael Wilcox

I've been reading this book by Wilcox. He writes about the traditional color wheel and how it doesn't work perfectly because there currently are no pure yellows, reds and blues. Every primary color in pigments has a warm or cool feature to it. Therefore when you mix colors sometimes you don't get a clean secondary. I did a few experiments with my Golden Open Acyrlics, (they're real nice, they really do stay open longer, especially if you add the open thinner.) Anyway here's the results of one experiment. I now have a color set of 10 colors, trying to get a cool and warm with each primary, plus some secondary colors and white. Sidenote: Mixing and applying paint with a palette knife makes it so much easier to keep your colors clean than with a brush. Saves paint too. I'm going to do some experimental paintings, where I limit the colors to see how many colors I can get with a limited number of paint.

Jan Lievens Exhibit at Milwaukee Art Museum 2/7-4/26

http://www.mam.org/newsletter/enews/2009/01/0128_eNews.html

Free Admission at Art Institute of Chicago this month

http://www.artic.edu/aic/visitor_info/feb_free_days

Symbols used in paintings

Currently reading "How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters" by Patrick de Rynck. It's very interesting to see how symbols were used to convey extra meaning within these European paintings. http://painting.about.com/lr/old_master_painting_techniques/1814/1/

What are symbols used by today's painters and other cultures to add additional meaning to art?

• Chinese: http://www.chinesepaintings.com/chinese-symbols.html
• Australian Aboriginal Art: http://www.cooinda-gallery.com.au/aboriginal_art.asp
• 19th century symbolism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism_(arts)
• Some ideas about personal symbols: http://www.joggles.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=6601
• Symbolic doodling: http://www.enchantedmind.com/html/creativity/techniques/art_of_doodling.html and http://www.headsketch.com/doodle-symbolism.asp
  

Wisconsin Plein Air Painters Association

Here is a link to WIPAPA: Wisconsin Plein Air Painters Association http://www.wipapa.blogspot.com/

Juliane Rae Mueller - Color Presentation at AC Art Association 2/2/09

Juliane Rae is a member of the AC Art Association, an interior designer, a teacher and an artist. She has taught at a lot of places including the Milwaukee Art Museum, MATC and Australia. She also gives private art lessons.

She is currently exhibiting at the Griffin Gallery http://www.griffingalleryfineartllc.com/ , Anderson Art Center? http://www.andersonartscenter.com/ and Alfons Gallery? http://www.sssf.org/gallery/ .

I looked for her on the web and I only found the following: http://www.livinglakecountry.com/SussexSun/Story.aspx?id=727677 and http://uwmpost.com/article/50/19/908-Post-Magazine-recommends .

She is extremely knowledgeable and her presentation was a lot of fun and packed with information. She mentioned that she does "morning pages" per Julia Cameron's book, "The Artists Way" http://www.theartistsway.com/ and a collage each morning. She showed us her 11x14 sketch book of collages where she puts down her ideas. I really like the idea of doing a daily collage. She cuts out color samples from magazines, etc. sorts them by color and stores them in clean, unused pizza hut boxes for easy access.

There is a lot to learn about color. She mentioned the color wheel which she makes using triangles and showed us color charts she made in various media. Talked about Hue, (tints & shades), Value, Chroma, Temperature. Showed how to pick compatible colors using color wheel. Talked about light sources, color mixing, composition of various paints and pigment characteristics. She also gave us a bibliography of books that she has found helpful.

Some online resources that I found regarding color:

• Basic color theory: http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html
• Liquitex (Acrylic) color charts: http://www.liquitex.com/resources/colorcharts.cfm
• Utrecht Color Aid Design Accessories: http://www.utrechtart.com/dsp_view_products.cfm?classID=1717&subclassID=171710&brandname=Color%20Aid
• Online color mixing palette: http://painting.about.com/library/blpaint/blcolormixingpalette1.htm
• Color Inspirations from the Masters of Painting: http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/20/color-inspiration-from-the-masters-of-painting/
• Gamblin Oils Color palettes: http://www.gamblincolors.com/oil.painting.techniques/palettes.html