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.

Still sorting and packing

I can see the end of this project. I will be so happy when it is over and done with. In the meantime, I thought I would share the beginning of a pastel painting that is in progress--calling to me. This is from a photo that I took in Maine when I went to the TEAM conference in June.

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.

More from the Liliedahl Seminar

In addition to the large piece from yesterday's post, we also did a small 8x10 feature study. This was also done in oils using the Bistre method.

Bistre underpainting

Finished study

Off to see the Wizard!

I just got back from the annual HOOT (Heart of Ohio Tole) painting convention. This year the theme was Painting Up a Storm (the Wizard of Oz). My traveling companions and I were only there for 3 days. Two of us took a couple of classes and the other two only went so they could go to the trade show. The best class I took was a colored pencil class taught my Marian Jackson. This project was done on Mi-Tientes paper. I thought it was a lovely design.


In addition to taking a class and attending the trade show, I was also privileged to be asked to present a demonstration. My demonstration was the little raccoon done in graphite. About 30 people attended my demo. It was a good trip.

Teapot

Sometimes we just have to try our hand at something different. On a recent visit to Baltimore, my friend and I went to one of those paint-your-own pottery places. She needed to pick up some items her children had done and I took the opportunity to paint a teapot. When you go to these shops, you purchase the bisque ware and for an additional fee (essentially, the price of the piece again) they provide glazes, paint brushes, and other tools so that you can paint your piece. When you are finished, they apply the glaze and fire the piece. It is ready to be picked up about a week later. My friend had to pick my piece up and mail it to me. I got it a few days ago.

My teapot has a sponged basecoat and then I drew my poppies on the sides with a pencil before I painted it. When you are working with glazes, you cannot be certain what it is going to look like until after it is fired. There is a certain element of surprise in the process and you don't have as much control as you do when painting with acrylics, oils, or even watercolor. Here is my teapot. It is a respectable effort, given that I was guessing at what the result might be.

The Tote Bag Contest

The Buckeye Retreat held a tote bag painting contest at the Saturday night celebration. Everyone was handed a small canvas tote bag when they arrived. There were bottles of paint and bowls of "jewels" set out for us to use in decorating our totes. There were a lot of nice designs. Some people only glued on jewels. Others just painted a design and still others used both paint and jewels. Some people just took their totes home unpainted.

I chose to decorate my tote by painting a bouquet of roses, daisies and berries tied with a ribbon. The choice of colors was somewhat limited, but I think my design turned out pretty well. Mine did not win a prize. The winners were a painted beach scene, a musical score done with jewels and paint, and a design done completely in jewels.

Basket Making 101

Last weekend I attended a decorative painting retreat in Warren, Ohio, sponsored by the Buckeye Tole Painters. While I was there I taught 2 classes and had the opportunity to take a class taught by Howell and Company. They always teach several classes where you make a basket and then, if you choose, you can paint a design on it. I was there to learn to make the basket, so I made sure it got finished. I chose not to paint it. It still needs to be stained and varnished, but it is a lovely basket, if I do say so myself.

More from HOOT

Here is another HOOT project. This one is colored pencil on sand paper--that's right, 400 grit sand paper! The project is very nice, but sand paper will eat up your pencils. This piece will mat to about 6x8. It is done in browns and white so that it has a sepia-tone look. By the way, the cup is not crooked, the photo is. I will need to take another picture with the surface sitting is a better position.

HOOT Convention

Every August the Heart of Ohio Tole Painters holds a large convention in Columbus, OH. At this convention, you can take classes, shop at the trade show, and attend demos of techniques and products. My friend and I attended the convention last week from Wednesday until Saturday. I took a few classes and had a chance to visit with friends from far away. Here is a photo of one of the classes I took. This yellow rose was taught by Pat Lentine. It is done in pastels on Mi-Tientes paper using layering and blending techniques. The size is approximately 14x16.

More from HOOT

This is probably my favorite project from HOOT. This oil painting is from a class with Ginger Edwards. Ginger works in acrylics as well as oils. I have admired her work for a long time and was really pleased to be able to take a class with her. It was one of my Thursday classes. Since I did not know until we left on Sunday that we were not coming home until Friday, I had no classes selected for Thursday (a long story that it is not necessary to tell, call it a communication lapse). So, after registering on Monday morning, I went to the resale board and was able to find two wonderful classes. This was one of them.

Sunflowers
16x20
Oil on canvas

HOOT, continued

Not every project gets completed in class. I took two Genesis classes at HOOT. The first was with Carol-Lee Cisco. It is an 8" wooden plate with a fruit design that can be displayed year-round. It has a pear, an apple, some cherries, and two kinds of leaves with ribbon twined around the design. There is very little left to do on this project. The stems need to be painted on the fruit and the background needs to be repainted in the center of the plate. Finally, the ridge on the plate needs to have gold leafing applied and the rim needs to have something done--I'm not sure how I am going to finish that part yet. Overall, this is a nice project and I was pleased to take a class with Carol as she has announced that she will be retiring this year.


The second Genesis class was an Intensive Study class with Mary Gibilisco. It was a 12-hour class taught over two days. I was a little disappointed in the material that was covered because we did not get to the aspects of the project that I had hoped to spend most of the class time on--the fine details that make a painting come to life. There is a great deal left to do on this piece. The background needs to be painted. You can see the beginnings of the background painting to the right of the vase. There is another morning glory on the left side of the flower arrangement and a number of small filler leaves that need to be added after the background is completed. The grapes need to be improved and a lot of time could still be spent on tints, shades, shadows, highlights, etc.---the "ooo, ahs" that make the piece a finished work. This one will probably go in the closet and not be finished.

HOOT

Last week was the annual HOOT (Heart of Ohio Tole Painters) convention. It is held in the Columbus Convention Center and is a very large gathering of decorative painters. At HOOT, you have the opportunity to take a variety of different classes in different mediums. There is also a trade show where you are able to meet with some of the artists/teachers, see what various vendors have to offer, and purchase virtually everything you need and a lot of things you didn't know you needed. I took a number of different classes. The next several posts will be devoted to showcasing the class projects from the classes that I took at HOOT.

The first piece is a watercolor taught by Gayle Laible. This was a 4-hour class and the project was completed well before the class period was ended.You will note the leaves on the upper left of the design. These were done using negative painting. That is, the leaf was not painted directly. Instead, the background around the leaf was painted causing the leaf to be revealed.

Learning from others

I was reading an article the other day about the fact that historically, artists learned by apprenticing and studying with the masters. Later, there were studios where you could study one-on-one with fine artists and teachers to learn your craft and improve your skills. While private lessons today can be quite expensive, there are options open to us to take classes with experienced teachers. These classes can be small groups that meet once a week or on some other sort of schedule or they can be a more intensive workshop that lasts for just a few days, but involves painting for 8 hours each day. In the decorative art world, the classes are taught much as they would have been at the feet of the masters. Techniques are demonstrated and then practiced on a project. Everyone in the room is painting the same project, but no two finished pieces are ever alike.

This weekend, I traveled to Buffalo, NY, to take a 2-day workshop with Connie Parkinson. Connie is an oil and acrylic painter. Her workshops are generally in acrylics. She had adapted techniques that are traditionally used with oil paints so that they can be used with acrylic paints. It was a wonderful workshop. I can't wait to do some of my own designs using the techniques that I learned from her. Each day was an 8-hour painting session and we completed one painting a day. Here is the Saturday project. It was painted on a 9x12 piece of gesso board.

Sweet Violets

Here is another of the Virginia Beach Ros Stallcup projects. It is a file box for greeting cards. I have not attached the handle, yet. I need to varnish the piece before I do that. The handle is painted gold as is the top edge of the box and the edges of the dividers. This is a really useful piece and the violets are a delightful design. I have left the inside of the box unpainted. It will simply be varnished to protect the wood.

Luscious Strawberries

Here is another of the Ros Stallcup projects from Virginia Beach. I love painting her fruits. The surfaces for this project are a black tin tray and a black tin pitcher. They are really nice surfaces to paint on. The source for these surfaces is Painters Paradise in Wilmington, DE. They carry a really good selection of tin/metal ware for painters. The nice thing about painting on these surfaces is that they require very little prep--just figure out your design or transfer your pattern and paint. On this day we also painted a strawberry pin using a puffy heart wood cut out.

The weary traveler returns

It seems as if I have been gone forever. I had a wonderful trip with multiple seminars, different instructors, and even some time for non-painting activities. The class with Prudy Vannier painting the Christmas clock was great fun. Prudy is a lovely person and a good teacher. The weather was a bit scarey that day, though. We had about 5 inches of snow which made going out to dinner at the end of the day a bit of a challenge.

The snow also made for a nervous time for me because I was traveling on Saturday to Virginia Beach for my seminar with Ros Stallcup. Once in Virginia Beach, however, the weather was absolutely glorious. It was easy to forget the cold and snow I had left behind. We painted 5 wonderful projects with Ros. I do not have photos, yet, but they will be following soon.

My fun activity was a stop in Lanexa, Virginia, to spend a night with Pat Rock at Hollybriar Farm. Pat breeds Lakeland Terriers. Our Miss Windy is a Hollybriar Lakie and she had puppies in December. I got to play with my Grand-puppy. Chaser is now almost 4 months old and as cute as a button. Such fun! Her is a picture of Chaser followed by a picture of her mother, my baby girl, Miss Windy.

Off to study

This is a busy week. I am preparing to go to two workshops, one right after the other. This is unusual, it just worked out that way. Friday I will be taking a seminar class with Prudy Vannier. The class project is a clock (clocks seem to be a recurring theme in my life these days) with a Christmas theme. It is actually quite large--30" tall. Here is the design photo.


Then, I am leaving on Saturday morning to spend a week in Virginia Beach taking a workshop with Ros Stallcup. This is an annual trip. As you can tell from most of my paintings, I tend to paint in a somewhat photo-realistic style. My work is relatively detailed and very tightly controlled. Ros' style is very loose and not so controlled. During the week with her, I have to think about design and painting in a less controlled way. It is good for me. Then, of course, there is also the obvious advantage that Virginia is already a bit warmer than western Pennsylvania. March in Virginia makes me think about Spring!