Travel Teaching

I'm just back from teaching at a decorative painting retreat in Ohio. I taught 4 classes in colored pencil and took a basket making class. It was a very busy weekend. Once the retreat started, I was booked every class period. One of the classes I taught was called Your Pet in Colored Pencil. I had 3 students who each sent me photos of their dogs before the retreat started so that I could adjust the photos, select their pencils, prepare their packets and select some papers for them to choose from. For my demonstration/teaching piece, I chose to use one of their photos. This little Schnauzer had elements that each of the students needed to know about, so he was a pretty good demo choice. When I was selecting papers, I found a piece of purple card stock and that was what I used just to show them that you could be very creative in your choice of backgrounds as long as what you select supports the colors in your subject.

Yet Another Little Toy

The toy series is a lot of fun. This little guy has been sitting on my desk for years and when the outside temperatures start the day at -16, I have to agree with him! He was sold by Avon maybe as long as 10 years ago. I can remember when Avon only sold cosmetics. Now you can get almost anything you want from your Avon representative. This little painting is about 6x9 and is done in pastel on gold pastel mat. Pastel Mat has become my favorite surface to work on. I painted him last night as a test of the possibility of teaching a lesson using Skype and a webcam. With a little tweaking, it will work quite nicely.

Pastel Make-It-Take-It

December is Make-It-Take-It month at Town and Country Decorative Painters. I am teaching a small pastel. I hope folks like it. The piece is 5x7 and is painted on Mi-Teintes paper using soft pastels.

Latin American Church--finished

My student was back today and we finished the Latin American church. I am very pleased with the sky. Skies are a challenge for me and this one turned out very well. The finished size is a little less than 8x10.

Back home!

I feel like I have been away forever, but it was only a week. The retreat in Ocean City was very nice. My class was small, but the students were happy when they left and gave me ideas for things to submit for next year. That's a good sign. I made a friend at the hotel. Seymour kept coming to my balcony and right up to my sliding door to see what was going on in my room. I took a lot of good photos to use for reference.

The weather was perfectly horrible. When I left yesterday the ocean was angry--grey, big waves, loits of noise.

On my easel

Today I have three different meetings to attend so life is getting in the way of doing a completed small piece. But, I still have something to share. My student this morning wanted to start on a portrait of a little girl. This is a not anyone special, it is a little girl she found in a very old Walter Foster book on portraits. The book is so old that the price printed on the cover is $1.00!! In any event, we started on that project this morning. We are working in pastel on Mi-Teintes paper. The size is 9x12. This is as far as we got today. We will work on her again next week. I suspect it will take another two lessons to finish her.

Christmas Make-It-Take-It

I have to teach a make-it-take-it in a couple of weeks. The requirements are that you have to provide 15 kits that include directions, the surface, a line drawing, everything you need to complete the project. I had these two different styles of laser cut snowflakes, but I only had 12 of each so I needed to come up with a design that works on both styles. I stared at these snowflakes for months waiting for them to tell me what they wanted to be. Finally, I found a piece of clip art that would work nicely. If you want to make similar ornaments, here are the steps to follow:

1. With a barely damp paper towel, wipe DecoArt Warm White across the ornament from about the center to the bottom edge. Repeat with DecoArt Winter Blue from the center to the top edge. The colors should overlap where they meet. You are essentially staining the wood.

2. Sponge the back of the ornament with Winter Blue to cover.

3. Sponge the metallic of your choice around the edge of the ornament making an uneven edge around the design area. (I used Silver on the large ornament and Champagne Gold on the small one).

4. Trace your design onto the center of the ornament using blue Chaco transfer paper.

5. Paint the design. For my design I used Lamp Black. Your design may be different and you may need to use more or different colors.

6. Varnish the piece and when it is dry, thread a piece of narrow blue ribbon through the top of the ornament to make a hanger.

A Watercolor Request

I have a student who requested a cardinal project. She wants to paint a gift for a friend and her friend loves cardinals. So, here it is. Male cardinals are not my favorite birds to paint. While they are colorful, they are pretty much one color and it is challenging to create his form. The female cardinal, while not as bright and cheerful looking as the male, is actually much more fun to paint.

Theodora is finished

I have a small class of three ladies every Tuesday morning. They are learning to paint with watercolor. They used to come to my continuing ed class at the college, but those classes are not filling any more, so they come to my home. The first piece we worked on since we started these classes is a piece I call Theodora's Tea. I created this painting several years ago. It was the very first pattern packet I designed and developed myself. Even though it is a few years old, students still love to paint it and it is a charming little painting. Here is Theodora.

Learn To Paint Month

The month of October is designated as Learn To Paint Month. The decorative painting club is celebrating this month by holding free Learn To Paint classes at 4 different locations in our region. This coming Saturday, I will be the instructor for the session in our town. We will have two classes at the local library. They will be open to the first 15 people who sign up for each session. We will be teaching the same simple project in all of the class locations. The project is a small diary/notebook with a papier mache cover. We are painting a design that was published by Prudy Vannier for use with these types of events. We are providing all of the materials--paint, books, brushes, tracing paper, etc--for the classes and there is no fee for the class. We hope that we will inspire some of the participants to want to study further and to perhaps even join our group.

The Learn to Paint project

A Watercolor Demo

Saturday I spent a couple of hours at the Pat Catan's store in Hermitage, PA, doing a watercolor demonstration. Pat Catan's is a regional art and craft chain with stores in Ohio and Southwestern Pennsylvania. I will begin teaching watercolor classes there on June 18. There were a couple of people who not only stopped to see what I was doing, but also expressed an interest in taking the classes. These will be weekly classes lasting 3 hours each Monday. My plan is to teach from now until sometime in October and then take a break until sometime in March. That way I don't have to worry about the winter weather issues. Here is the piece I painted during the demo. I think you may recognize the rose. This version is painted on a 4"x5" sheet of 200-pound watercolor paper.

Watercolor Class

This weekend I will be teaching a watercolor project. The piece is called Standing Watch. It is from a photo taken by a marsh near our old home. I grew up in Delaware and we lived for a number of years in Maryland. These areas are flat and you have coastline, so there are swamps and marshes--after all, you are near the water. When we moved to the mountains of northern Pennsylvania, I was amazed at the number of marshy areas you find in the mountains. In any event, one day we were driving by the marsh and saw a white heron standing in the water. This is my interpretation of that photo.

A cool surface for painting

I was looking for an unusual surface to use for creating a Make-It-Take-It and I wanted to use Genesis Heat-Set oils to do the project. In a very old book, I saw a project that had been painted in oils on a piece of cork--the AH-HA moment!! I had some 6x6 cork tiles in my studio just waiting for inspiration to strike. One of the issues with Genesis is that whatever surface you use must be able to be heated to a temperature of 265-degrees and I was not sure about cork. The good news is that cork works very well. Because there is some texture on the surface, it is a little trickier to paint. On the other hand, if you choose the right subject, the texture enhances your painting. It is not necessary to do any preparation to the surface before painting. To give the piece a little more character, I rouged a little color on the corners and down the sides of the piece. Here is my Genesis MITI. I cut the 6x6 tile down to 3x6. When the piece was finished, I glued it to a 5x8 piece of black mat board. The piece can then be placed in a 5x8 frame for hanging. I hope the people at the retreat like this piece as much as I do. It will be a good introduction to Genesis.

Make-It-Take-Its

I have spent the past couple of days designing make-it-take-it projects. A MITI is a project that can be completed in 2 hours. Most decorative painting retreats include the opportunity for attendees to take these short classes. I believe that MITIs should be an opportunity for people to try new techniques, new mediums, new surfaces. The cost of these projects/classes is generally no more than $15, so you can try something you have not done before at a very low cost.

One of the projects I designed this week is painted on a plastic garden clog. Once finished, this clog can be used as a planter. In order to paint on this material, you need to rough it up with a little bit of fine sandpaper. Then clean it with rubbing alcohol and paint away. The acrylic paint adheres very well and you do not need to put any sort of top coat or varnish on it. In fact, it will probably hold up better without.

Retreats and conventions

One of the nice things about decorative artists is that they get together to paint and share their knowledge. A number of the decorative painting clubs hold conventions. Some of them like HOOT in Columbus, OH, are quite large lasting a full week and hosting dozens and dozens of classes. Others are very much smaller lasting a weekend and hosting a couple-three dozen classes and they call them retreats. The club that I belong to, Town and Country Decorative Painters in Butler, PA, holds a retreat each year in April. The best thing about retreats, aside from the comraderie and all-around good time, is that it gives you the opportunity to experience many teachers who may paint in different styles and/or mediums all in one place in a short period of time. It is an opportunity to take a class in a new medium with a very small cost. The classes at retreats and conventions are generally either 4 or 6 hours long. There are also Make-It-Take-It classes that last only 2 hours. To get information and see the projects for the Town and Country retreat, you can go to: www.townandcountrydecorativepainters.com
I will be teaching two classes in Genesis Heat-Set Oils on gesso board. Both are 4-hour classes. Here are photos of my projects.

Setting up my studio--finally!

I spent this evening working on my studio. We moved into our house just a year ago. There is one room on the second floor that has a lot of built-in storage. It was originally a room for 2 children-boys we presume. There are 2 closets, 2 little built-in desks, and 2 built-in drawer units. In addition, between the two spaces where the beds were built in, there is another closet. I set my painting tables in one alcove and my mat cutting table in the other. There will be enough space to set up a couple of folding tables so that I can teach classes of 4-6 students. The problem has been that we needed to spend this first year putting a roof on the house, renovating the kitchen, and trying to figure out how to stop the water that was pouring into the basement every time it rained. My studio has been on hold. One of my big projects is "hoeing out" the surfaces and other stuff I really will never use. I have decided that I am concentrating on watercolor and Genesis oils and only doing acrylics when it is a project I love. That means getting rid of all the wood surfaces that can only be used with acrylics. What a job!!! I am really looking forward to being able to hold classes at home and also having a place to work comfortably. So, there was no painting or designing today. Just taking some time to varnish a couple of projects. Here is a Genesis piece that I will be teaching in April at a local retreat. The grapes are painted in grisaille (grey scale) and then glazed before the tints, highlights, and shadows are applied.

Retreat Report

I'm back from Ohio. The Buckeye Tole Painters retreat was a pleasure. I had small classes for both of my projects, but everyone was happy with their results and that is what counts. I had an opportunity to meet some new friends and build some new painting partnerships. The trip was well worthwhile. I had taken an extra, tiny project for the watercolor class just in case we finished the published project early. It turned out to be a very good thing because there were no electrical outlets in the classroom so we could not use hairdryers to move our piece along. Instead of sitting around waiting for paint to dry, we worked on the second little fun project in between steps on the big project. Here is the Simple Sheep project that we did as an extra freebie. The sheep were created by applying masking fluid to the paper using a small piece of cellulose (kitchen) sponge. Then the sky, grass, and brick wall were painted in before removing the mask and finishing the sheep. It was a fun little project.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, it's off to Ohio I go

Today I am busy packing up to go to Ohio where I will teach two classes at the Buckeye Tole Painters annual mini-retreat. Packing for a retreat or convention is always a challenge. You not only have to pack your clothes, but you have to pack everything you need to paint. If you are teaching, it means making sure you have all your surfaces, pattern packets, paints, and miscellaneous items for students in addition to what you need to paint. I will be teaching a watercolor class Friday evening--a piece call Hometown Holiday, our Courthouse tower during one of our holiday celebrations with fireworks. Saturday afternoon, I'm teaching an acrylic class on a wooden pictureframe. I call the design Going Fishing.

JAL Studios introduced

I am new to blogging, so I hope that you will bear with me. I am a painter. I suppose I think of myself as a decorative artist because I teach using the decorative arts model and I take classes from wonderful artists in the decorative arts world. However, my work spans both the decorative art world (painting in acrylic on "stuff") and the fine art world (painting wall art for exhibit). I earned the TDA designation from the Society of Decorative Painters as couple of years ago. Earning that designation takes a great deal of effort. You must pass a written test, document 100 hours of teaching, and submit a video tape of a class along with all of the supporting documentation. After all of the required work has been submitted, been reviewed by a committee, and received a passing score, only then are you entitled to use the designation TDA. I paint in a variety of formats. I particularly enjoy painting miniatures and small works. I was fortunate to have one of my miniatures juried into the Chambersburg, PA, Annual Miniature Show in December. This is the third year in a row that I have had a work in this show. The photo above is the painting from the show. It is 2.5" x 3.5" and is painted on gesso board in Genesis Heat-Set Oils.