Lately, I have been painting some acrylic paintings of waves.
Finally after years of not using white paint in my watercolor painting, I can now brush on as much white painting as I want to.
I have also been studying waves to learn how they work and how I can explain them in paint.
The above canvas is long and narrow.
Did you think this was one of my paintings? HA I fooled you. This is a photo I took Friday night as the sun was setting in Carlsbad. Amazing, isn't it?
I showed my work to an art critter, oops I mean art critic yesterday and his reaction was good. He said, "my work knocked him out".
He is looking at my drawing for Monday's online art class. You can still sign up, if you're interested in practicing your drawing and painting with me this year. You can find me at anywhereart4u@gmail.com
I have been unfaithful to watercolor painting and painting with acrylics all last year.
Acrylic painting is a nice addition to your painting skills. When you use acrylic paint you can slather it on, cover up mistakes and best of all paint with white paint!
I still love watercolors and sometimes paint a subject in watercolor first before I paint it on canvas with acrylic paint.
I'm teaching a few acrylic painting classes these days around San Diego. I even dipped my toes into mixed media last week by pasting textured papers to my canvas and then painting with acrylics on top.
Please print out the above sticky note and attach it somewhere you can see it often. It will remind you to draw. It will help you create a drawing location or zone. It will help you improve your drawing. It will help you lose weight. Well, every statement but the last one might be true. Happy Drawing.....
My father used to say, "You can't dance at too many weddings." Don't you sometimes wonder how much is enough? I do, and have thought that my priorities should be staying healthy, painting, drawing, teaching and spending time with my loved ones. I really don't have time to wash sinkfulls of dishes, vacuum, go to 3 markets, cut up vegetables, provide wise but not bossy wisdom to my 22 year old, put on eye liner perfectly , lift weights, get out of my pjs and much more. Do you? Can you share your secrets and methods with me of how you get it all done?
I did manage to put together a new class to teach in acrylic painting and teach two sessions of it this week and a Friday watercolor workshop. Plus I am scheduling some classes on how to paint furniture with chalk paint and some summer journaling classes and working on my online class and recruiting for my Fall trip to Tuscany. Oh and I made a chicken for a friend who is recovering from surgery.
I live in San Diego and I spend a lot of time in the house, painting Tuscany. I think it's time to get out of the house and paint the scenery in my town. My first painting destination will be Balboa Park. The Park is 12,00 acres and contains museums, gardens, restaurants and the Zoo! A lot of the buildings were built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition that took place there. I am in the mood to paint Spanish Architecture, lily ponds, Japanese Gardens and Organ Pavilions.
I did this painting of the tower in Balboa Park a few years ago. I flipped through the pages of one of my old journals today and found it. That's what got me thinking of how much scenery there is around my town to paint. I have a deluxe watercolor painting easel I bought this summer to take to Vermont to paint. It hasn't been out of the closet since I got home. If you live near me, let me know if you want to join me in my paint the scenery in my town effort. If you don't live near me you could start your own, paint the scenery in my town efforts. I don't want to antagonize anyone who lives in a cold snowy climate with this post. If you like my idea, you can look out your window and paint a snowy scene and I will post it here.
Sooner or later you are going to receive some criticism on your artwork. This criticism can come from anyone you've shown your artwork to; a friend or relative, a teacher or gallery juror or even an editor or a renowned art critic.
Here is Webster's Dictionary's definition of criticism:
the act of expressing disapproval and of noting the problems or faults of a person or thing
: the act of criticizing someone or something
: a remark or comment that expresses disapproval of someone or something
: the activity of making careful judgments about the good and bad qualities of books, movies, etc
None of the definitions above except maybe the last one, tells me anything I would like to hear about my artwork. Or for that matter, anything that might help me improve my artwork. That is why, I believe in constructive criticism, which Dictionary.com defines as:
criticism or advice that is useful and intended to help or improve something,often with an offer of possible solutions
There is a big difference between the these two types of criticism. Let me give you an example of each kind so you can recognize them if you get some criticism.
Criticism "Your painting lacks depth, does not have enough values and your drawing technique stinks."
Constructive criticism " Your painting could be improved if you added a wider range of values, especially in the darker range."
As a teacher I try very carefully to always give constructive criticism if I feel my student would benefit from it. Actually, I have invented my own form of criticism, which I like to call, "compliment what is well done first, then identify a skill that needs improving and tell the person how to improve it." A comment I might make using my form of criticism might be,
"You have done a great job of drawing in this piece. I really like your drawing style. What could make your painting even better would be to work on adding a wider range of values to your art work, particularly in the darker range."
Now, how do you respond gracefully to the first type of criticism? Take a deep breath, do not burst into tears, call your mother, or run screaming from the gallery. Smile, say thank you and see you later. Then exit quickly. Immediately call your best friend, husband or me and vent. Then take a walk and more deep breaths and think logically about the criticiser. Who is she or he? Are they qualified to give this criticism? For example, is their artwork so perfect that they know everything? Perhaps they do. I have heard lots of criticism from art instructors at very expensive art academies. Then, resolve to yourself that you will never, ever take to heart something disapproving mentioned about your artwork. You have to tell yourself, you love making art and you are going to continue making art and you are going to get better and better and better at painting or drawing or sculpting or whatever it is that you do.
You can print this out and post it where you do your artwork.
The very paintable Ponte Vecchio in Florence, where our workshop will begin.
Now that I have your attention, let me tell you about my trip to Tuscany for Artists and Friends on Cct 10-17 and Oct. 18-25, 2015. Your home for the first week in Tuscany will be a 4 Star hotel in the historic hill town of Cortona. Every morning we will enjoy a multi course breakfast in the garden of the hotel complete with fabulous local food and your coffee or tea served in an individual china teapot. After breakfast I will teach a short lesson on watercolor and drawing for travel painting in a small journal and then we will go out exploring. We will take some trips in our own chaufeured mini van and explore the off the beaten track small towns and highlights of Tuscany, lunch, sip wine or sparkling water and savor the sights and tastes. Our trip will take place during olive harvest time so we will learn about the olive harvest, different brands of olive oil and do some tasting too. For those who enjoy wine, we will visit the unique wine caves in the region where you can taste wines of any price range using a special credit card that you put into the wine dispenser and you choose the amount of wine you desire. We will also visit the towns of Montelcino and Montepulciano both of which produce their world renown brand of wine. We will visit and lunch at an Agritourism farm restaurant, where we will dine of local products produced on the farm and dine out of doors with a view of the Tuscan valley, on a 7 + course meal and much more. The cost for this week is $3,200 which includes escorted travel from Florence to Cortona, lodging in a shared room (single rooms are available for an additional fee), all day trips, daily art instruction, cocktail and snack hour and all breakfasts.
A $500 deposit will hold your spot and the deadline to sign up is March 8th.
Our second week's workshop will be based in Umbria, the region that neighbors Tuscany and is filled with picture perfect walled villages, vineyards, hillsides of olive trees, castles, wineries, pine forests and food that is delicious, healthy and unsurpassed. This region is off the normal tourist route, so it will be a unique experience to discover the tiny hilltop towns that date back to the Roman and Etruscan settlements. This week we will have daily painting instruction, lots of time to stroll and explore the wonderful towns of San Gemini, Todi, Spoleto, Trevi and more.
The price will include a nice discount if you sign up for the first week in Tuscany as well. The cost for the week is TBA but will include lodging, breakfasts, tours and art instruction.
Valentine's Day is a great day to remind yourself to love the artwork you create and not be concerned with judging your finished product.
If you enjoy the process of making art, the splashing and brushing on of the paint, the feel of the pencil as it scratches the paper, the adding a bit of this and that and the choosing of where and what to add to your work, then that is more then enough.
In our fast paced society it's fortunate and stress reducing to make something with our own hands, based on our personal designs and choice of materials. Do we really need to judge our work after we have finished, washed our brushes and stored our paints? Perhaps a healthier alternative to criticism might be to congratulate yourself for taking the time to do something creative, for trying, for thinking out of the box, for taking a risk and exploring the world of art.
From now on, remember to be an "Artistic Explorer" not an "Art Critic". The next time someone asks me what my job is, I might answer, "I am an Art Astronaut."
Happy Valentine's Day
It has come to my attention that many aspiring artists do not have enough time in their days to practice their drawing and painting due to their other obligations. Can you imagine that there could be a more important way to spend one's time other then drawing and painting?
Apparently, some people (including myself) have mysterious people in their lives that expect them to prepare meals, clean house and probably do other things like buy their dog food and drive them to their doctor's appointments. This is an outrageous situation. How can our artwork improve if our lives are filled to the brim with useful, responsible activities?
I have an idea on how to solve our time crunch. Please print out the pass I have provided below and present to anyone requiring you to do something that cuts into your drawing and painting time. Let me know how this works for you. If it does not, I will come up with something else.
February classes began last week. All students are doing well. I post each of the 4 monthly lessons every Monday morning.
This is the finished drawing from today's lesson. Students can practice all the techniques explained in teach lesson 18 minutes or more as often as they want each week.
If you missed signing up for February and can't wait till March to get started, contact me at anywhereart4u@gmail.com and I can arrange for you to purchase the last 2 weekly February lessons.
The most requested subject that my students want to learn to paint and draw is a cat. I thought I could review lessons 1 and 2 and teach you lesson 3 by using a cat as our drawing subject.
It's especially easier when drawing a cat to use a photo because cats move move around too much when you are trying to draw them.
Start your drawing by finding the basic shapes and drawing them with a light pencil line on your paper.
The next step is lesson 2, find a unit of measurement (I am using the height of the photo cats head).
I measured the number of head heights in the photo cats height and width. Then adjusted my drawing (below) and marked the number of head heights in the length and width of the drawing to get the correct proportions in my sketchbook drawing.
Lesson 3 is learning how to use guidelines to get everything to look good.
The vertical line above helps me see that the chest touches this line but the side of the head does not.
The next line I measured was a horizontal line on the tallest part of the cat's back to see where it intersected his face. Then I drew this on my cat drawing.
Then I used drew guidelines (picture below) to find the angles of the cat's head and features.
You can add more guidelines if you find them helpful. They are a little humiliating at times because they can point out where our drawing is off, but that doesn't mean our drawing is wrong at all. It means we have another tool passed down to use by age old artists to make accurate sketches. No one sketches perfectly by sight. The experienced artists I know, use these guidelines to shape up their work.
A good teacher is in touch with her students learning emotions and gives them encouragement when they are frustrated or stuck. So if you are feeling like this is a lot of stuff to know about and might want to quit. Please don't, just continue practicing and these concepts will become 2nd nature to you and your drawings will improve.
Here is this weeks assignment.
After you have found the basic shapes it your drawing subject, the next you have to do is make sure your drawing looks like it has correct proportions.
Proportion is making sure the head is not to small for the body or the legs too long or the tree you are drawing may have too small a trunk. Basically if your drawing doesn't look quite right you need to measure it to make sure all the parts are the right sizes.
I found a hippo in my studio willing to pose for me for a reasonable fee.
You need to decide on what you want part of the hippo you want to use as a "unit of measurement". I decided to use the length of the hippo head from is the front to the back of his cheek. I measured this by holding up my pencil and measuring the length of the head and marking the length with my finger on the pencil. Then I used this length to find how many heads long the hippo is. Then I drew a head on my paper and marked the length on a piece of paper and so on.
Then I used my pencil and measured to find out how many heads tall the hippo is. Then I sketched out the rest of the hippo in pencil on top of my measuring marks. He/she looked ok. Your subject doesn't have to be perfectly measured unless you are going to build it and send it into space.
Here is your assignment #2. Email me if you have any questions at anywhereart4u.@gmail.com
Patti Ladd is student of the week. She attended my Friday afternoon "Watercolor and Drawing Fun 4 Every1 workshop this week and showed me her sketchbook in which she practiced the week's assignment #1.
This morning I saw my sketchbook on the kitchen counter. I thought that I would love to practice my basic shape drawings BUT I had too much work to do. Then I remembered the drawing assignment. The requirement for the drawing practice was 18 minutes and I could spare 18 minutes before I went off to work. I set the timer on my smartphone for 19 minutes, grabbed a pencil and looked out my window for something to draw.
Doing the drawing was actually stress free because I remembered I only had to practice seeing and drawing the basic shapes. Usually I have a zillion drawing techniques running through my head when I draw and don't remember the basic steps to drawing and use them as building blocks to a finished drawing.
While I was drawing a little bird landed on the rim of the pot. Usually, I would think, I draw lousy birds. Today, I shut up my inner art critic and said, I can draw a birds basic shapes. Success, from the tyranny of that omnipresent art critic!
The timer went off just as I was finishing the drawing. I think being able to set the timer on my phone could have been crucial to my making time to draw. I knew the timer chime would remind me to stop. Without it, I would have lost track of time.
If you have a timer on your phone, use it for your drawing practice sessions. If not, use your oven timer or one of those kitchen timers. Let me know if modern technology helps you find time to practice your drawing.
I decided if I was going to spend 11 months carrying around a sketchbook to do my weekly assignments in, then I would make it look pleasant. I made an interesting cover out of a drawing I did, ran it through my laminator and pasted it on
My Daybook is now stain-proof and virtually indestructible. I also made tabs for it and laminated them too of course.
if you would like a my cover and tabs, just let me know and I'll send you the file so you can print them out at home.
By the way, how's your sketching basic shapes going? If you send me a copy of your sketchbook page, I will send you a gold star to reward your efforts.
Socks has basic shapes beneath his exterior shapes! Who would have guessed? It made drawing him much easier except he changed positions before I had time to finish his picture. I am doing my drawing and painting assignments myself. Sometimes when I arrive late to class or don't do my homework I have to stay in at recess to finish my work.
I listened to you when you said you wanted to learn to paint and draw better.
You said you like drawing and painting, but can't seem to fit it in to your busy life.
I had some ideas about how to help you do more artwork. I thought making small portable art studios out of recycled mint tins would allow you to paint & draw whenever you found some spare moments. Then I thought if I taught some classes so you could learn more drawing and painting skills that might help you draw and paint more often. These ideas didn't work for most of you.
I have another idea that has been percolating in my head for a while, swirling around trying to fit all the concepts together into a concrete method you could try. It took a while to fully form but this morning it jelled and popped out of my mind like a 1950's jello mold dessert.
You will need to buy a sketchbook similar to the one pictured here. I bought 2 of these this morning on sale at Aaron Brothers.
You need to get a sketchbook with paper that is 93 lbs or more so that you can paint in it with watercolor paint and the paper won't disintengrate. Choose whatever size you like and will use. This one has 60 pages and I think depending on how big you like to draw, you can use an entire page or divide it into smaller sections.
I know what you're thinking. "I've bought sketchbooks before and they never helped me find more time to draw and paint, and I am not going to listen to Barbara and go out and buy another one!" But just hold on a second, I am not done explaining my new motivational idea yet.
Take your new sketchbook or grab an old one, open it. On the blank page write with the first pencil you can find,
The Drawing and Painting DayBook 2015
Here is your first assignment, tape, staple or glue it in your sketchbook, that way the dog won't eat it.
Here is an example of finding and drawing basic shapes. I looked at a china salt shaker that was sitting on my kitchen table and drew a box first about the size of the salt shaker. Then I went about finding and drawing the basic shapes in the china chicken.
I drew the biggest shapes first.
I drew circles on the outside of the chicken to get the curves.
Once you have refined your basic shapes and erased your excess lines, you can add a few details and you are done! Your next assignment will be given next Monday, Jan. 19th followed by the 3rd assignment on Jan. 26. I suggest that you try to practice this drawing concept as often as you can find 18 minute periods of time during this coming week. The more you practice the better you will get at seeing and drawing. Plus you will get comfortable with this foundation drawing skill.
I would love to have your comments if you buy a sketchbook and practice my drawing concepts for the next 3 weeks. Starting FEB. 2, each month I will be offering a month of guided drawing lesson assignment for $20. per month or 11 months of drawing and painting lessons for $150. Every week you are entitled to email your drawings to me for help, advice and complements. By the end of 2015, if you follow my assignments weekly, I will have you drawing and painting like the cat's pajamas.
Since I started my yellow period, I am finding yellow everywhere.
First I found twelve tubes of yellow watercolor paint in my office. In my continuing quest to become an organized artist, I decided to make a paint sample of each color yellow and compare them. It was somewhat interesting to see the color range of yellows, from egg yolk to pale lemonade. If I manufactured paint I don't think I would call yellow orange "hansa yellow dark" I would call it something we can all relate to like "old mustard".
I found lots of yellow subjects to paint hanging on my Meyer lemon tree in our backyard. The tree was filled with fruit in all ranges of yellows.
I painted 🍋 three lemon paintings this weekend and I think this is just the beginning of my yellow painting period. My husband is happy because my interest in painting lemons has led to me developing an interest in baking cookies, cakes and breads using the painting subjects.