It’s been more than a month since I posted about anything art related. Sorry. It’s been busy and I think I have a pretty good excuse.

As things have settled down, I have had to spend a lot more time at home. Getting out of the house takes a lot of planning. That means that I should have a lot of time for “arting”.

I have to admit, some evenings I have felt creative (or at least bored enough to try), but the flashes tend to be short lived. I have finally put the house back in order (for the first few weeks there were a lot of closed doors to conceal the evidence), and this weekend I was even able to set up corner of my office as a studio.

I’ve been thinking about goals for the coming year, which seems to be the only way I get things done. Among the first shows I would like to enter is the “Wild Women” show at River Gallery, but I think I have my piece(s) picked out for that

Next, I’d like to enter a piece in this year’s Salem Reads event. The book is “Good Morning, Midnight”. I was inspired by the first page of the book to create this non-objective piece.

Or maybe it’s this way?

Next, with a vague idea about trying to enter something in the American Academy of Equine Art Spring Online Showcase.

It’s okay for a study, but needs another attempt if it’s gonna be in a show.

Finally, I’ve been spending some time getting to know my “new” (year old) watercolor pens. I thought they might be portable enough to fill some of the short, quiet moments.

I might add some collage or other things to it. I have to admit the watercolor markers felt enjoyably like being a kid and playing with the art equipment, but I’m not sure I enjoy the effect enough to continue.

There is an official, art post. I wish everyone Happy Holidays!

Prologue

The last few days I’ve been thinking about angels. Not really the ones with wings, but the people who call, write, move things, take care, find resources, respect wishes, give hugs, and leave comments. Sometimes it feels so amazing that there are so many in my life and Mom’s.

Thank you, every one of you. I must have said thank you a hundred times in the last week, and every single one has been completely heartfelt. While my Thanksgiving did not involve turkey, I have rarely felt so grateful.

For now, Mom is out of the hospital (!!!!!) and staying with me. We are making some tentative steps in the direction of trying to get her all the way back to her home in Lincoln City, but it’s a long journey in many ways. But it is what she wants, so that is what I will do.

In the meantime, I’m back to work and I need to finally get this blog about the workshop out. So, here goes.

Peggy Judy Workshop

I had originally signed for this workshop up on a bit of a lark. My art friend, Ruth Armitage, published that she would be teaching a workshop at the Tubac School of Fine Art, LLC. When she posted the flyer, I noticed a piece by oft-admired artist, Peggy Judy. After a little bit of research in the costs of a flight and an AirBNB, I decided to enroll.

As you now know, at the last minute, it looked like I would not be able to attend. But after shifting (shoving) a few things around, I was able to wing my way down to Southern Arizona with an extra day for a little birding.

Tubac School of Fine Art was smaller than I expected, but VERY well stocked and laid out with charming hosts. I’d recommend the facilities and I’ll keep an eye for other workshops to take there.

Day 1

The title of the workshop was, “See More. Paint Less & Strive for Better Composition.”

Before deciding to take the class, I had contacted Ms. Judy and asked if I could come as a watercolor painter. Peggy replied I could, so I packed up a few blocks of watercolor paper that would fit in my case, purchased the suggested colors (this may be another post sometime), loaded up some reference photos and paintbrushes. One item on the list perplexed me–acetate. I have recently been seeing oil paintings listed as being “on acetate”. I know artists sometimes use red acetate to judge tonal values. But I couldn’t imagine what it was for. Still, I decided to purchase some for my kit.

After a brief lecture to get the group familiar with her work and some of her concepts. Peggy told us to take out a reference piece (most people had come with 8.5″x11″ reference photos), put a piece of acetate over it, and paint on the acetate. In oil. For me, she set out a few basic oil colors, loaned me a brush, and told me to go to work.

Ah… okay. So, I had come with small reference photos, so I tore a page out of my trusty notebook and went to work.

The acetate forces the artist to become loose. Judy implored us not to dab, to vary our brushstrokes, and to leave interesting edges.  She kept talking about painting the planes of the shape and not to try to make a painting. My brain started to hurt.

Naturally, being me, I couldn’t just do one piece, I had to experiment with several.

This one was ripped from my painterly paws at a very early stage that Peggy decreed was done.

I decided to try again with the bison. She suggested outlining him in red and then painting him in, letting the red become “an interesting part of the painting.”

After Peggy deemed the various artists were loosened up enough, we were allowed to get out a canvas and paint. I hadn’t brought a canvas, so I decided to try on watercolor.

Hmm. It was pretty hard to get the loose effect, so Peggy encouraged me to just paint oil on paper.

I still wasn’t satisfied. I was trying to impart the essence of this big bull that had lumbered down to drink on the National Bison Range.

Oil does not dry quickly, so I put it aside to work on (yet another) painting.

Frankly, I was even less satisfied with this one. Thought I did like the red on his face…

Day 2

After a night of sleep, I decided that I needed to spend a little more time on the concept of painting the planes of an object. So, as a gift for my AirBNB host, I sketched out his house and painted this on acetate as a thank you gift.

Even doing a landscape, this concept of planes was really difficult.

I fiddled around some and decided to work on this.

I got to this stage…

… and Peggy suggested bring out the camera and using it to see in black and white to determine values.

Ah ha! Too light all over.

Better. Now for the finishing touch…

I stopped there. I see some issues with my base drawing and the overall composition, but I like the “light” part.

At this point, most people had shifted to painting horses heads. Clearly, group think had set in.

I know what I would do to fix this in watercolor, but not in oil. Peggy told me that the concept of washes was available in oil, too, but I would need the paint to dry more. Fair enough.

I was also pretty frustrated with the medium. Everyone else was sliding paint right on their canvases, and it felt like I was spending all my time just getting paint ON the paper. We decided to gesso some paper for the next day.

Then, I messed around with this one to save it from being “traditional” (Peggy’s description.)

Day 3

Once again I slept on it, and came in hopeful that my gessoed paper would improve the experience.

I also had pondered the situation and decided that for what I wanted to learn, I needed to pick simplier subject that I had already done some value work on.

So… I did these.

I focused on the concept of outlining the start in a color, then smooshing the paint into it to make an interesting edge.

And again.

And some more.

And the last of the day.

This was the day I felt like I “came into my own.” It was the day that made me seriously think about taking up oil painting. And it was the day that made me most grateful I had come. I felt like I learned two things that I can take back home with me and apply to my art.

I would recommend Peggy Judy as an instructor. I had a good time and learned a lot. She is an exceptionally warm instructor who take a lot of care with her students. For me the only flaw was that I felt most of the students were not as “serious” as I was and were just there to make a pretty painting. Fair enough, but a little disheartening.

One more thing to ponder. Peggy said something in the beginning of the class: “If you are slow painter, you need to speed up. If you are a fast painter, you need to slow down.” She said she was a fast painter and she was always fighting the slow down battle. I completely empathize. It’s the first time I’ve heard another painter admit that. However, I’m still not sure how to do it!

I have so much to report from this week that I can’t think of a way to explain it in a single, themed post. So I searched for another word for “random” and came up with “erratic.” That fits!

Dawson

In May I started fostering with Marion County Dog Control with the (internal) goal of fostering four times a year. My first foster was Toby, who was a nice dog who took a while to find his forever home.

With various summer commitments, workshops, and vacations, I hadn’t taken another foster, but two weeks ago (October 12) I picked up my second foster, a dog named Dawson.

I’m not sure about his name, but he has been a charming house companion. To the point I was seriously toying with the idea of keeping him. He and Key got along like a house on fire!

IMG_3824

But just a few days into the foster, I was contacted that another foster family was interested in adopting him as a companion to their “failed foster”. We made arrangements to meet, the dogs seemed okay together, so we got the okay to give Dawson to the new foster family for a trial run, and I went home, more than a little sad.

All seemed well and Key does enjoy being an only dog (he’s a jealous soul). Then on Saturday when I was in a birding class I got a phone call. I pushed ignore, but when the class was over I checked my voice mail. It was Dawson’s new foster family telling me that things weren’t working out and they had taken him back to the shelter. Oh, and by the way, now he had doggie flue and a urinary track infection.

I was FLOORED! I had  made it clear that all they had to do was call me and I would come pick him up.  But apparently they just decided to ignore me, shelter procedures, and everything else and so Dawson was back in the shelter.

I called the shelter, but they couldn’t give him back that day. So I had to wait until this morning (Sunday) to pick him back up. And, good news, he’s as healthy as when I turned him over to the foster family.

My guess is that, in spite of my warnings about him needing potty training help, they didn’t take me seriously. And apparently, the gal tripped and broke her wrist during the week. So, it just got to be too much and she bailed.

I’m trying to be forgiving, but I’m having a little trouble. If she had just waited 30 minutes he would never have gone back to the shelter…

Dawson is back with me, though, and doing fine. I’m still on the fence about a permanent adoption, and in the meantime, he’s back on the web in case I’m not his destined home.

An Expensive English Muffin

I did an “art” post on the 19th, but I did not post about Key’s NW2 trial on Saturday.

To make it short, it was a repeat of the Grant’s Pass trial. A decoy box in containers (with an English muffin) destroyed our chances for a title, though Key’s work on everything else was GORGEOUS!

Well, at least we have the winter to work on it!

Amok Art (Part 2)

For whatever reason, I am really having a good time with the latest experiments based on the WSO convention workshops.

In the last few days I’ve put some finishing touches on these two paintings.

I started these paintings.

I’m actually very pleased with “Alone With Her Thoughts 3”. While it’s monochromatic, I’m very pleased with the lost and found edges and the general experimental feel. “Yellow-headed blackbird” was somewhat successful, but I’m not sure I started in the right place. I’m pondering that.

I think that word pondering is just right to depict my current art life.

On that same note, I ordered some photo prints of some reference photos for the Peggy Judy workshop I’ll be taking in a few weeks.

Time flies…

And I just saw that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is next month.  Gulp. Over committed much?

My mom won’t like these. That’s what I tease her by saying whenever I do anything experimental or abstract. And I’m usually right. So, Mom… you’ve been warned.

Playfully

As I said, I had a really good time at the WSO convention and an especially good time at the Margaret Stermer-Cox (Peggy) break out session.

To recap, I took this image…

Sketch 3: Working toward detail and mood.

And turned it into this value study…

And threatened to paint it!

Amok

One wasn’t enough, so I ended up with two versions. Both use marbled papers from the Liz Walker workshop I took a couple of years ago.

“That’s Not the Shape of My Heart” – 11″x16″ mixed media

“The Unconfidence of Pink” – 12″ x 16″ mixed media on board

Experimenting

I don’t think either are finished, particularly “Pink”.

There is a glare on both that makes the photos a little weird.

I learned a lot. Such as better planning is necessary. And surface matters. And being able to use black is fun!

I like them. I like where they are going.

So… Mom… sorry, there are going to be more!

A couple of week ago two stories hit my inbox nearly simultaneously. They made me mad. And I decided to share my anger to (hopefully) educate my non-artist friends. So, yes, this is me on a soapbox. It’s a sermon.

And I’m not sorry.

Ripping Off Bev Jozwiak

The first incident was a Facebook posting by Bev Jozwiak, and inspired local painter from whom I have taken workshops.

This is my painting selling on ***.com without my permission. Get so sick of the rip offs. ~ Bev Jozwiak

For my non-artist friends, what Bev is saying is that someone took a picture of her work and/or stole an image from the internet, cleaned it up, and is now selling it for cheap at one of the big online print companies.

I’ve heard stories about this over the years. Placing a copyright on the image does no good because there is software that can take it off in less time than it took to put it on.

Some artists swear by only putting up low resolution images. Again, this can work, but software is so good that it can compensate for that. Additionally, some work (like Bev’s) is “impressionistic” so a little fuzziness just adds to the effect.

Further complicating the issue, not all countries have the same copyright laws as the United States.

The best the artist can do is to contact the “store” and complain. Most times, they will take down the image or at least move it to a place on their site where it will attract less attention for a while.

But the moral of the story is the artist is out of pocket. Not only for the image that was stolen, but for the potential art space. The buyer of the image clearly wanted something for that space and now it will not be an original.

The disputes of Charlie Mackesy

A few weeks ago I “liked” a new artist, Charlie Mackesy. I was drawn to his “Boy and Horse” series, a series which is brilliant in its simplicity.

A few days after Bev Jozwiak posted, a series of posts on Charlie Mackesy’s page indicated he was having a dispute with a company that he felt was ripping off his work.

While Mr. Mackesy has not been overly forthcoming about the details of the dispute, as I understand it, the company took his images and either used Photoshop to change them slightly or hired an artist to redraw them. Then they added words and printed the result on T-shirts and other merchandise.

And all Mr. Mackesy can do is sue. He probably won’t win. A simple line drawing is not hard to copy and the copyright laws indicate that if an image is changed a mere 10%, it is not copying.

So what should you do?

As Americans, all of us are familiar with the idea of using our buying power to effect change. It’s about the most American system we have.

As art consumers, I would like to implore you to start looking at what you are buying and insisting on using those dollars to move our system to support artists.

Don’t trust those websites! Only purchase directly from artists. Don’t know an artist… I can help you out! Or use Google to find a local art group. If a gallery seems too scary, consider an open studio sale or co-op gallery. A sidewalk artist. A plein air competition. I guarantee that any of these places are someplace you can find an artist who would be THRILLED to sell a painting.

Don’t have  the budget for “art”! You’d be surprised. Many artists have older pieces that they might sell at a discount or “bin” work that has a “flaw” (you’ll never see it) that prevented them from framing it up for a show or gallery. These pieces are a WONDERFUL addition to a space. And don’t discount some of the HGTV options such as framing up family photos or your child’s artwork. These options are MUCH better than ripping off an artist.

Finally, reconsider purchasing “prints” in all their forms. T-shirts. Plaques,  Posters. All of these are easy ways that an artist can have an image taken from them. If you want to purchase a print, get it directly from the artist.

No one knows better than an artist there is no free lunch. But consider your part in the cycle before you grab that candy bar!

This weekend was the Fall Convention of the Watercolor Society of Oregon. I was really lucky because it was in Salem (where I live) so it was super easy. I was also able to offer accommodations to my friend, Sandra Pearce, and when she won third place (!!!!) at the show, I think some of her prestige rubbed off on me.

Sandra and I went to the juror meet and greet on Friday night, then to dinner where we saw lots of painting possibilities (that’s what happens when artists get together…)

Saturday morning, Sandra went to teach a plein air class at Minto Brown, and I started the first of my four classes of the day.

Of course, I perused the vendors first and spend FAR too much on two TOTALLY necessary brushes, a cradle board, more matte medium, and lots of (free?) swag.

Class #1: Color Confidential

Ruth Armitage and Beth Verhayden gave a talk on use of color in painting, focusing on the emotional impacts of color choice. It was really good and gave me a lot to think about. As a “getting started” excercise they asked for volunteers to play a “Jeapordy”-like game on color. I volunteered and walked away with a tube of Quinacridone Coral by Daniel Smith. Score!

Class #2: Paint and Collage like Picasso

Jean Lea, a fellow Salem artist, lead this interactive session. Class participants had been told to bring a variety of items and use them to experiment.

I apparently didn’t read the instructions well, so I had just brought my sketchbook, pencils, eraser, and pens. I decided to play anyway, stealing some paint from a neighbor to finish the experiment.

I flipped through my sketchbook and saw this sketch from the spring convention.

Sketch 3: Working toward detail and mood.

And so, by the end of the class, I had created this!

And I had taken this little doodle…

Marsh wren

… to this.

I might even paint it someday.

Juror Critique

Next I went to the juror critique. Our juror for the show is highly respected painter Robbie Laird. I would have liked to take her workshop, “DISCOVER THE ABSTRACT NATURE OF NATURE” but I have this pesky job.

I don’t believe in submitting images for critique that you are “finished” with; I like to submit images and I haven’t completely signed off on. This time I got down to the submission wire and realized I didn’t have anything special to submit, so I send in this little experimental piece.

I had briefly spoken to Ms. Laird on Friday at the meet and greet and she had asked me if I was putting something in the critique. When I told her yes, she asked me (something like), “Do you really want to hear my thoughts or are you just wanting to show off?” I told her with a laugh that I had submitted an experiment that I was stuck on and I would like to hear her thoughts on getting unstuck.

Ms. Laird had each submitter (not just me) stand up and explain what we were hoping to get out of the critique. She had a very pleasant way of tactfully saying something interesting about each piece. When it was my turn she told me that she was enjoying my experiment, really liked the area around the head, but that the elbow was too stark. Fair enough. She said a little more, but the moral of the story was to keep going!

At the beginning of the critique, Ms. Laird imparted this quote from artist Mary Whyte.

Mary tells her students that they need three things to become accomplished artists:

1. Something to say

2. The ability to say it

3. The courage to do it

I had my marching orders! I’ll go back and do some more and see if I can resolve this piece.

Simplify

The class I had REALLY been looking forward to, however, was the last of the day. I had organized all the break out sessions and I had talked Margaret Stermer-Cox (Peggy) into teaching a class entitled, “Can You Simplify?” If you’ve seen Peggy’s stuff, you’ll see why I was so excited; it’s GORGEOUS and full of big shapes.

Peggy might not be the most natural teacher, but she has a lot of artistic training and knows her art history. She lead us through a layout exercise.

Sorry my picture is blurry; this time it wasn’t intentional

Then we added a figure to it. I used the same figure study as earlier in the day and came up with this.

I’m really going to try to paint this!

Having spent all my money and with my brain on fire, I headed home. I decided a few conventions ago that I just don’t like going to the awards dinner, and even though I wanted to support Sandra (3rd place!!!). my sanity won.

Sunday – Juror’s Lecture

Sunday is always the WSO business meeting followed by the juror’s lecture. The business meeting was pretty standard fare. The lecture was good, a bit of a preview of the workshop. I’m going to try a few of the things she demonstrated. It looked like fun.

So, another WSO convention in the books. I’m tired and my mind is busy. If only I didn’t have to work tomorrow, I’m sure I could get lots of painting done!

One last note

One of the things I  like most of the conventions is that when you go, you get to talk to about 200 people who are just as excited about geeky painting stuff as you are. If someone says they bought a color, everyone else wants to know which one. You can talk about your struggles, your failure, and your successes and the other artists nod knowingly.

Everyone needs that a couple times a year.

1. I had guests this weekend. This is my excuse for no art.

2. I am tired tonight. That is my excuse for this post.

3. The last few weeks have had some fun art things. My painting, “Flammagenitus Clouds” (unfinished version shown below) got The Art Department Award at the Paint the Town event. $25 for art supplies!

unfinished – “Flammagenitus Clouds”

4. My painting, Arminda’s Poppies, got into the Waterworks Unplugged (NWWS 2018 Waterworks Members Exhibition) exhibition.

5. Next weekend is the Watercolor Society of Oregon Fall Convention here in Salem. My painting did not get in, but I’m still excited to go for two reasons (that are connected). I was in charge of scheduling all the classes and I think it’s an awesome line up. I’m excited about attending!

Second, my friend, Sandra Pearce, is coming to stay for the weekend so she can attend the convention too. Let me pause here to brag on her! She participated in the Washington County Plein Air event this weekend and took home “Best in Show”, “Best Nocturne” and the “red dot” (sold a painting.) Congrats, Sandra! Drop the mic, indeed!

6. I’m going to try to participate in Inktober. I’ve prepped my sketch pad. Wish my luck!

7.  It’s the end of the day. For the first time in weeks I am fully prepped for the week with food in the fridge, money in the bank, and a “clean” house. I feel really on top of things.

Let’s see what disaster happens…

I always seem to go on vacation with big plans. And then I spend my free time watching TV or reading. I am proud of myself on this trip, however, because I did a small part of my goal to do some painting!

A couple of years ago I made a journal in a class at the Watercolor Society of Oregon convention.

While I brought more supplies than this, I am very proud to announce that I filled the journal on this trip! Yeah!

And here it is…