Kansas in November

Just returned home from Kansas to be apart of the Kansas National Watercolor Society Reception in Wichita. My hubby and I had a delightful, fun weekend touring the Wichita  Center for the Arts, Wichita Art Museum and the Indian Museum. Shopping in 20 something degree weather was a new experience ....layers and layers of clothing......

 Karl Zerbe   

"Building" 

 Chihuly 

 Blackbear Bosin 

Stencil Girl Blog Hop with Jane LaFazio!

The Pods and Eucalyptus stencils that my friend Jane LaFazio designed are just fab! 
take a look! 

StencilGirl Products is giving away a prize on their blog StencilGirl Talk. 

  ALL comments left on ALL blogs are eligible to win. The more blogs you  leave comments on, the more chances you will have to be the lucky winner! The giveaway will close on Monday, November 11, 2013 @ 11:59 PM Central Time. The deadline has been extended! Wednesday, Nov 13, 11:59 Central Time! 

We all used Jane LaFazio's leaves and pods stencils from Stencil Girl Products for our creations. Take a look at each Artist's Blog listed at the end of my post.......

Jane's Pods stencil...I used a mix of red and gold acrylic paint

 Masa paper with acrylic, watercolor ...all stitched up with recycled sari ribbons

 Gold acrylic paint was used here with Jane's Eucalyptus stencil

 The Masa paper was soaked in water, crinkled and FW Burnt Umber Ink was added

 while the paper was wet. I also painted some of the leaves and pods with watercolors.

 Our theme was Gratitude...

Have fun Hopping!

StencilGirl Talk

Jane LaFazio

Mary Beth Shaw

Linda Kittmer

Jenny Lee Cochran

Kirsten Reed

Janet Joehlin

Corrine Gilman

Helen Shafer Garcia  Hey...that's me! 

Leslie Tucker Jenison

Ruth de Vos

Deborah Boschert

Julie Snidle

Mary C. Nasser

November News

November news.....

I'm flying to Kansas in a couple of weeks to Wichita for the Kansas National Watercolor Society Exhibition. My painting "Morning at Elfin was accepted! I also get to spend time with my hubby who's been working on a job nearby. I've never been to Wichita ....I love touring new places..

Teaching a one day workshop at

San Diego Botanic Garden on Sunday, November 10

Watercolor Batik Tree of Life 

Reach into the sky and create connections between branches and earth while creating universal Tree of Life themed mixed media paintings on Masa paper and canvas. A special batik-like technique with Masa rice paper will create wonderful textures and crevices for the paint to flow in to. You’ll play with colored pencils, ink lines and collage elements to further embellish your paintings. 

 

Pastel and watercolor....

I saw a great demo this week at San Diego Watercolor Society given by Catherine Gill. She's a phenomenal plein air artist who works with Watercolor and pastel together.  I've worked with pastel and watercolor as a combo also so it was great to see another artist's version of the process. 

So with that in mind I gave some demos  combining the two mediums with my personal twist. 

The paper was soaked first in water for about 15 min. Pastel lines were drawn for shapes and color arrangement. rich charged watercolor washes were added....Catherine called it the ooze factor....

more watercolor and pastel combos added...all on wet paper. 

 This demo was based on fish hooks but they ended up becoming real fishy......same process with watercolor and pastels......

 and this last painting....not completed....was based on Wayne Thiebaud style of altering perspective angles. This time the paper was not soaked in water but I did start out wetting the paper and painting watercolor washes. Some pastel lines were added while the paper was wet. When the paper dried I started to add pastels using blending and layering techniques. 

Boot planter mini tutorial part 1

These boots are in my garden....my hiking boots from the 70's. Over the years the leather has hardened and cracked so I decided it was time for them to have a new purpose. They traveled through many a mile in the Sequoias, the High Sierras on backpacking trips. They kicked a few stones, held up on many miles of girl scout camps and keep me from tripping up on the trails. Here's to the new life old shoes with many stories.....

here's a mini Pastel tutorial...my new Pastel class starts this friday at Escondido Adult School. 8 weeks on friday afternoons.... 

I started out with charcoal on tinted sanded pastel paper. The charcoal lines were softened with a paper towel, my fingers, and set with denatured alcohol using a big acrylic brush. This keeps the dust down and solidifies the dark values onto the paper.

Started to bring in background color with nupastels..these pastels are hard and provides a   good way to start up color on the surface. 

this image paper background was altered...it's not this yellow! What I wanted to show you was the foreground surface. I used a variety of soft and hard sticks and "scumbled" the colors...I love this word...it means to take a color stick, hold it on its side for a broad mark and gently layer colors. This allows translucency of color layers to slighty blend.

See the sticks at the top of the page? I brought out warm and cool colors with tints and shades to start layering "broken color" on the shapes. I started at the toe area of the boot. Broken color refers to the technique where you draw color lines...drawing lines side by side for visual blending rather than blending. 

More warms and cools on the boot.....and the shoe strings

now I'm starting to bring in some bright colors on the succulents ....working dark to light. 

more steps on part II ....in a few weeks! 

Create Overture

What a great summer it was! I taught in New Zealand, Sequoias, New Jersey, San Diego, Chicago, Irvine...did I leave anyone out? On the flight home from Chicago I thought about how incredible it was to have taught so many interesting, creative, mindful, fun, funky gals! I'm so thankful that I can share my creative sense with others. I've grown so much creatively because of them....thank you, thank you, thanks!

 Demo for Paste Papers at Create Chicago

 my youngest student's owl painting at Montecito Family Camp in the Sequoias 

 Sisters Shafer in the Ponderosa Room (Montecito Family Camp).....seriously...we learned 3 cords....

 Student work from Create Mixed Media Retreats

Glenneth  from my New Zealand Book Arts Workshop

 My sister in law Angela at my New Zealand Book Arts Workshop ....having a great time! 

 Happy San Diego Watercolor Society Students!

 A beautiful paper using my very talented friend Jane LaFazio's stencil

 Student work from Create

and last but not least....me....looking forward to a great Fall teaching session!
Take a look at my Workshops -  Classes pages for details!

Obon Festival with the Urban Sketch group

 Yesterday I attended the Obon Festival in Vista, CA with my friends. The Urban Sketchers  were there in force drawing the sights. I have a fab short film to show you but the google gods wouldn't let me add it....or it's just that I don't know what I'm doing.....I'll try and add it to FB...

 These are quick gesture drawings with a brown Tombow pen. 

 I added water to make the pen lines flow and a bit of watercolor. 

 Here you can see the effect just from the Tombow pen with water added. 

 and...some watercolors...

Circle grid patterns

Thinking of Circles today ....

my friend Jill Hall has a new exhibit based on Circles opening tonight at

Inspirations Gallery NTC  in San Diego from 5 to 7....the show runs  till September 2. I have 5 works in the show......

Create Chicago Mixed Media Retreat is coming up soon! Sign up here for spectacular workshops. I'm teaching 4.....

Deconstructed Paste Paper Plethora

Negative is Absolutely Positive

Collage Monotypes

Crinkly Iridescent Vestiges 

great student works from Create New Jersey! 

grids and circles from New Zealand ......

a new painting featured in the Circles show at Inspirations Gallery 

More wonderful examples from Create New Jersey....thanks to my students!!