Sketching with Draw Madison Sketch Group.

We are sketching in a local cemetery.

Another Sunday we met at MaCha tea lounge. Which was a lovely restful place to sketch.

We have been meeting for three years and enjoy getting out and about in the area with good friends. In the next post I will share some of my sketches from the group.

Time flies when you are having a good time! 

Almost one year ago to the day, I made a decision that I needed some time off from posting my art to my blog and to the several art-related lists to which I belong. As far back as I can remember, I have felt a tie to the intuitive side of my brain, of my life. Betty Edward's book, "Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain", had a great influence on how I approached my own art and the art of my children and the children in the classes I taught. Since that time...back in the 1970's, my studies in Early Childhood Development and Education, lots of reading, lots of "trying it out", lots of thinking has taken place. But, a year ago, I wanted to dig deeper, see how I could use this in a broad range of artistic media etc.  I wanted to give myself lots of room to study, paint, draw, and experiment...on my own, without comment, without filtering it through other's views on the matter.
I actually had not planned it to be an entire year, just the spring and summer. But, things have a way of happening and side-roads were followed, health, personal and family, happened and here I am one year later! I have a fat set of sketchbooks bulging, a pile of paintings and canvases, boxes of Zentangle designs and I'm having a ball with it all!
I have no intention of dragging my blog followers though it all, of posting it all, but will just take up where I am now. I will try to comment on various aspects of my experiences as I share new art that relates to it.

These are two paintings I've finished recently.
The first is a mixed media painting on canvas using various papers in collage and acrylic paint.
This was a tough one to get a photograph of because the shine of the acrylics caused glare. Thanks to my husband, Bob Wilson's photo skills, he was able to get a photograph that did not have glare. The blessing of having a resident photographer!

 The second is in traditional watercolor on watercolor paper.
The part that did does not show up  well will have to be imagined...the use of iridescent Daniel Smith watercolor paints on certain rocks, parts of the water and trees to give the scene that "last glow" in the evening light.

When Pears Go Swimming

I'm trying out a new brand of watercolor paints and really like them. They are called Maimeri Blu and are made in Italy. They come out of the tube with an intense color that holds up well to painting with lots of water. Here I used pears as a subject, because that is part of the April project challenge for the Watercolor Workshop group I take part in. Also, I did some playing with effects of spattering, spraying water, dropping in salt and also adding a little alcohol....not all in the same place, but in various spots on the painting.
While this is not quite the fully planned out painting, it does show the "study process" that you need to do to try out new materials.

Lotus

This painting was started from an exercise in intuitive composition I did while reading a book on composition by David Friend. It was started by drawing lines freely on a piece of paper while not looking at the paper and not trying to draw objects.
The next step was to look at my sketches done this way and see what they reminded me of. In this one, I could see a woman sitting and looking down. From there I went on to design the whole painting. It is mostly painted in watercolor, but in some areas white gouache was added to the watercolor paint. Also, in some areas I did a glaze of Daniel Smith Iridescent paints. This is difficult to see on a photo of the painting, but it does give a bit of mystery to the scene. If you click on the painting, you will see a bigger image and some of the iridescent glint shows up. This was a fun process.

Morning Mist at the Lake

Here is another of the projects for the Watercolor Workshop group I belong to. This month we are painting fog and mist. The photo reference we were using had a big clump of trees in the exact middle. So I spent some time rearranging the elements before I was happy to paint it. It was a challenge to paint the atmosphere of the mist and not be tempted to paint the actual trees and lake.

Woman Sitting By a Tree Stump in the Desert

From time to time I like to show art done by my grandson, Benjamin Wilson Feit. Ben loves to paint and to do collage. But, recently he has been making sculptures out of Sculpy. One day this past week a small package arrived at our house from Ben. Inside was this very creative sculpture along with a note from Ben about the sculpture. The note is above, beside the sculpture. By the way....Ben has a great imagination and takes on characters . From time to time he has been one of the Beatles or various other favorites. Right now, he is signing his name as "Bjorn" in honor of one of the musicians in the group: "ABA".

This Old Boat....Needs Some Repair!

This is a painting in watercolor that I did for the January project for the Watercolor Workshop group I take part in. We all paint from the same photo reference, but are free to change, adapt, compose our painting as we want. This was fun as it dealt with an old boat with peeling paint.

Dutch Shoes

The Watercolor group I belong to has a project each month and the December project was to paint shoes. Several years ago, I bought a pair of Dutch wooden shoes at a yard sale and am fond of them as they reflect my Dutch ancestry. They looked rather plain to just paint them, so I added a touch of spring with the tulips.

Snowy, Snowy Night in Wisconsin

I was having a little fun with the October project for the Watercolor Workshop group I take part in. The theme this month is to paint night scenes. Well, it was just too tempting!
It had to be done! My take on art is to paint, draw, etc. in a serious manner, but to, also, have fun, experiment and play!
So old Vincent Van Gogh and I teamed up to have some fun on this one. It is done in Daniel Smith watercolors on Kilimanjaro watercolor block, 300 lb., 10" x 14". The snowflakes were put on first in masking fluid. Then I put on the watercolor paint. After that was dried, I took off the mask and did a wash of Daniel Smith Interference Blue, iridescent paint over the snowflakes and quite a bit of the color area. It is difficult to see the effects of the iridescent paint in this photo, but it shows up on the original painting. Great fun!

We have a family habit of naming the regulars that live here with us at Tree Henge (our name for our home). We have a squirrel that tries to rule the feeders whose name is "Attila the Hungry" and whole army of chipmunks that do clean-up duty under the bird feeders. These are all named for various brands of vacuum cleaners: Hoover, Electrolux, Orick, and our newest addition, Dustbuster. Here is a sketch I made in August of Hoover on his favorite rock in the sun waiting for his turn under the feeders. This is done in ink and watercolor pencil in my sketch journal.

Detailed Study Drawing Crested Cormorant

Not all of my work has been of the quick sketch nature. Here is graphite study made after the trip to Horicon Marsh. We were so lucky to see several Crested Cormorants and while we were much farther away, I wanted to learn more about them at closer range. Using various guidebooks I have on birds, I did some background reading and study. Then using a photo from a "Paint My Photo" artist's web site, I made this detailed drawing of a Crested Cormorant.

Elsie's Summer

Where has Elsie been this summer and why has she not been posting?
After a very long winter and way too much painting in my studio, I decided I really needed to change direction in what I was doing. I do not do well on ice, so I was feeling very housebound. Instead of a focus on more finished paintings, I have chosen to "get out and get sketching."
I have taken three on-line courses from Cahty Johnson (Not my daughter, but one of my favorite art teachers) involving "Quick Sketching", "Artist Sketchbook Journaling "
and Watercolor Pencils. While I have done a few paintings, most of my work has evolved drawing in graphite, ink, watercolor pencil and combinations of these.
Bob and I spend a marvelous weekend at Horicon Marsh recently and I had great fun sketching and Bob enjoyed photography. Here are some quick sketches.

There Used To Be A House Here

I belong to an on-line watercolor artist group and our September challenge was to paint something related to an "abandoned" theme. Here is my painting. It is entitled, "There Used To Be A House Here." It is inspired by my neighbor's lovely old rural mailbox. Her mailbox has the beautiful rust patterns, but is far from being abandoned. I used my "artist imagination" to lean it over, added a broken hinge and broken flag etc. Then I was inspired by the same neighbor's prairie restoration garden and added samples of prairie plants, as if the house had disappeared, and only the mailbox remained and the prairie started to reclaim the land.
It is a glorious fall here in Wisconsin and I love seeing the old prairie plants.

I really love Daniel Smith watercolor paint! He has recently produced a group of new pigments which are inspired by old Mayan colors found on old paintings etc. on Mayan objects etc. I got some of them and just had to try them out on a South West scene. While I made up this scene entirely, I have admired the gates and garden scenes of old adobe homes in the South West.
This is "Blue Garden Gate". It is painted on a 300 lb. Cheap Joe's Kilimanjaro watercolor block with Daniel Smith Mayan watercolor paint.

It has been some time since I have posted on my blog, but I have been painting all along. I'll try to get some of my more recent paintings posted and do a little "catch-up".
This is an experiment using Daniel Smith watercolor ground to prepare the surface of a standard canvas to paint on with watercolor. The surface is not quite the same as watercolor paper, but does present an interesting surface to paint on. I've been doing some Chinese brush painting and so I tired out some bamboo in that manner.

Edge of the Waterfall

I'm finding that those times that I allow the paint to do the work, when I'm open to suggestion from the painting as it develops, I'm often happier with the outcome. This watercolor painting started from simply floating some colors on to the wet paper and letting them do some mingling. I tilted the paper a little to start the action, then watched what happened.
Actually, I applied the paint thinking the painting would be upside down from what I used! After the paper dried and sat for a day or two to "cook", I came back to it and started turning it around, seeing what suggested itself. As it came into this position I could see water coming down and the suggestion of rocks. Then I just started working with the shapes, adding definition. Soon I noticed that there was a falling off at the bottom....I played that up and the waterfall started to appear. Yes, water and rocks are two of my favorite subjects.

Rainforest Lily Pads

I've always loved pond lilies and lily pads. They evoke a feeling of peace, quiet and a pretend world. This painting is mainly in watercolor, but the area of the lily pads are in paper collage and acrylic paint. For paintings like this, I'm having difficulty photographing them because the texture of the raised collage area is lost. I guess the viewer has to imagine the texture!
If you click on the painting, then use the magnifying "plus sign" to further magnify the painting, you can get a sense of the texture.

September 11th Feelings

In September, I was touched once again by the sorrow of the 9/11 experience and got to thinking about my response. Feelings of sadness, of loss, of terror, of the senseless loss of life and wounding that continues, even as the years go by, somehow has to all be dealt with. As war rages on in the Middle East, as mistrust continues, we have to start building bridges of understanding and of hope for peace. My response was this painting: "Out of Destruction, Hope Rises". It is in acrylic on canvas with oriental paper and gold foil collage.

Here is my favorite little artist! My grandson, Ben, is shown here last year enjoying finger painting!

I've been promising to give some ideas on my blog about encouraging children in art. As you look at the delight on Ben's face and the hands all paint covered, you know this is where the action is with little artists. Ben's mother, my daughter, Julia, was " into" art from an early age, also. She now has a studio in her home and Ben shares that area with his mother. Not only is he encouraged to work on a flat activity area, he also, has an easel of his own.
This love of art is multi-generational in our family. My mother was an artist and I grew up doing my art next to her in her "studio" (our dining room table, that had to be cleared for dinner each day!)
Finger painting is always a great way to get little artists going!

When I was a child in school, finger painting was a once a year deal, and then only with some teachers. My standout memory there was that I was all excited to do finger painting in the afternoon with the traveling art teacher who came once a month to our classes. Late in the morning I developed pains in my stomach and tried to ignore them, but soon the teacher discovered I could not get up from my seat, the pain was so bad. My mother was called and I was whisked off to the hospital with appendicitis. The doctors told Mama that I kept saying as I was put under, "I want to finger paint!" over and over! LOL!

Doing finger painting with little kids in my teaching years (pre-kinders to second grade), the thing is that they so enjoy it that they will not give up until they wear right through the paper and have nothing to save, to take home or hang up. So, to help with the mess and to help them have some paintings to hang up, I bought a stack of old cafeteria trays at a flea market and would give each child who was painting a tray to paint on instead of paper. They had just as much fun and whenever they got a picture they liked, I would press a paper down on the tray and they had a "print" of their design and could go right on painting!
Also, as another lark, when we were highlighting the letter "P" in reading, I would let them "Print with Pudding". Now that is fun! Same trays, (washed completely clean!!!!), and I gave each kid a little tub of their favorite flavor of pudding.
We would not do any prints of this! Soon they would "eat" their "paint" ! Finger licking good art!

I've been known to do some finger painting in my watercolor washes....great fun!

A year ago, I was in Blair Co., Pennsylvania, attending my mother's family reunion. The next day, I went to Ganister, where my grandparents lived. I spent most summers there as a child and everywhere are things that bring back fond memories. My grandfather owned a big brick house and on the same property was an old double frame house that, at one time, had been a freight depot for the railroad. Various family members lived in it over the years. In my childhood, this end of it was Uncle Fred and Aunt Barbara Guerin's home. In those days it was stuffed full of kids and the warm smells of Aunt Barbara's homemade bread and other goodies.
Time has passed and it was no longer lived in. In sad repair and need of much restoration, my cousins sold it to the Rails to Trails organization. After restoration, it is now has new life as a rest stop on the trail between Hollidaysburg and Williamsburg. On my last visit, I photographed the old buildings and scenes. This particular door, the old cellar door in Uncle Fred's house just begged to be painted. It represented how time adds a certain patina yet, a sense of timelessness, too! This door was very old in my childhood and still goes on into the next hundred years!
It is painted in pastel on Wallis Sanded Paper. That day, the light played with colors in a lovely way as it streamed down across the door and wall while the shadows had a wonderful purple quality. Moss did its part, also, in the color show! The door, the wall and all the house is ready to go on into the future!