2012 Clay Ball...

I'm thrilled that my painting "Dreamscape" sold in the silent auction!
I celebrated with artist friends Denise, Cynthia, and Deanna!
Deanna's painting sold in the silent auction!
Cynthia's painting sold in the oral auction!
It was a festive evening Saturday at the Convention Center!

Weekend Workshop....

I spent the weekend in a Acrylics and Color workshop with Cynthia Herron at Salem Art Association Bush Barn Annex. We talked studied Hue, Value, Intensity, Color Temperature, and Color Mixing. We made color wheels....I used the colors I had in Golden Liquid Acrylics and made tints on the outer edge of the wheel, shades on the inner circle. Afer a fascinating and fun demo by Cynthia on color mixing and color matching, we did an excersise on our own. I chose this magazine ad and worked on Canson acrylic paper with a brush and the palette knife.

Then we moved on to talking about Palettes, such as Limited, Classical, Warm, Cool, or Chromatic. Color Schemes came along next, with a new assignment of picking a Color Scheme and sticking to it for a painting of our choice. I once again revisited this favorite peaceful place that I posted about a couple of weeks ago. I have alot to learn about working with acrylics.....not only about mixing colors, but also about applying the paint to the surface. I used a canvas board for this study, and used a palette knife and a brush to apply the paint. I worked at staying with an Analagous Color Scheme.....Red Orange, Orange, Yellow Orange, Yellow, and Yellow Green.

It was a great workshop shared with a warm group of artists! Thanks to Salem Art Association!

Shades and Tints....

I started "Acrylic Boot Camp" this week. it will be a fun journey exploring acrylics and all those gels and mediums. Here's my shades and tints excercise that I did today.

These are all the Golden OPEN acrylics...

Hansa Yellow

Quinacridone Magenta

Napthol Red

Pyrrole Red

Van Dyke Brown

Phthalo Blue (Green Shade)

Phthalo Green (Blue Shade)

I must say I do love the way the paint flows when using the OPEN Medium Gloss!=.

I'm looking forward to continuing this artfelt journey!

Streetscape....

For something new to challenge myself....A streetscape!


Liquid acrylic underpainting on Belgian mist Wallis paper,

then on to the first layers of pastel...

kinda wild for me,but oh so fun!

Art Day.....

It was an Art Day today!
We explored scratchboard techniques.

I chose a vintage engraving image  to use as my inspiration.

Leslie and her reference photo,
trying out the scratchboard paper first,

then on to the Ampersand scratchboard.

Deanna exploring the scratchboard paper, with her reference landscape photo

Denise's delicate Bleeding Hearts, she added watercolor....

then explored adding more texture in the background.

A wonderful day of Art & Friendship!

A Peaceful Place

Silverton's Scenic Wonders

19 x 11"

pastel on panel

2010

Reference photo taken August 2009

Yesterday was a day off for both my husband Robby and I. We decided to take a drive and found ourselves revisiting a spot that seems to be a peaceful place to pause. I seem to revisit this same spot in my painting as well. It's was fun to take time to search through my picture files and find reference photos and paintings from the last few years. This one was taken yesterday......February 7, 2012

Reference photo taken October 2011

Studies done in January 2011

in Marla Baggetta's Loosen Up Workshop

Reference photo taken May 2010

Reference photo taken May 2011

This photo was taken just a few feet down the road. If you look close, you can see the same vista in the distance through the woods. Here is the painting inspired by this photo......

Spring Woodland

18 x 12"
pastel on black Art Spectrum Colourfix

2011

I'm grateful for this peaceful place, and I will look forward to revisiting it many more times in person, and in my paintings. One of these times I will take my easel out there and set up to paint it plein air!

Creativity/Color

I spent the day with my granddaughters Lily and Gracie today. After playing several games of UNO, we headed for the art room and worked on making color wheels. The inspiration was this color wheel made back in the 70's by my older brother Jim.

We decided to cut up our paper and paint each square it's proper color, then use a template to cut out the shapes and glue them on the background, using Jim's color wheel as an example.

It was fun mixing the colors to get just the right hue. We found the oranges to be the hardest to get the proper variations.

We traced our shapes on to our color swatches. Gracie chose triangles, Lily and I recycled templates from our last Grandma day art project. We got them all cut out, then the arrangement decision came of how to lay them out.

We were happy with our results.....What a fun project.....A fun lesson in creativity and color!

Jim, I thank you today for your inspiration. I have a new sense of gratitude for the artist you were. I remember you spending time with your art when you were struggling with this life. I look back now and have a better understanding of what it must have meant to you. It must have given you a sense of yourself that the schizophrenic mind couldn't or wouldn't allow. I hope a sense of peace for a time.....

Tree Study
by
 Jim Kallis

1949-2002