Old Oak by the River

A few blog posts ago I showed the first draft of this painting.  But I noticed this morning that I never posted the finished painting. It's16 x 20 on Yupo paper.  It's definitely an "interpretation" or "impression" of the photograph that Russ Lewis took a few weeks ago along the river here in Hawthorne Park.  Actually with Yupo paper you are forced to work in this way.  

My favorite Yupo artist will always be the late George James.   He was very amazing.  I have 3 of his DVDs which I treasure.  If you google his name you can find snippets of him on YouTube advertising his DVDs.  If you are serious about trying the substrate out I'd recommend his first DVD as THE most comprehensive.  I've been asked to do a short intro to Yupo at the Art Club a week from tomorrow.  

Yupo is but mid-range in price as far as paper goes.  You can buy large sheets 26 x 20 for about $4.00 and this painting is half that sheet.  You can buy it in tablets 9 x 12 for about $12.  It comes in different weights but all are about the same surface.  

Mostly the painting is just celebrating warmth, sunshine and an old tree that has given pleasure to many and helps to hold the river bank together...and home to probably a million different life forms.

Once you become a "tree whisperer" all trees take on a somewhat holy reverence.  

Yupo Painting from Sept 18th class

Watercolor on Yupo by Leslie Johnson

There is nothing more pleasing to a teacher than to have his/her students carry on and complete some paintings in the style or medium or technique that you shared with them!

Here is Leslie Johnson's completed Yupo painting after the Watercolor and Yupo class on September 18th.  Her choice of the simple shapes of bottles is absolutely charming and really gives her the chance to play with enriching the surface of her painting.  It also gives the illusion that the glass is either art glass OR there is something intriguing inside the bottle!  

She has a wonderful combination of colors that show case the bright colors that appear on this plastic surface...very rich. And because of the richness she really features the fascinating texture possibilities. 

Great job, Leslie and I hope you will spray this with a couple of light coats of acrylic clear mat spray.  Although Cheap Joe advertises in his catalog that some Yupo art is framed without glass...I am very reluctant to do that myself.  I do frame watercolor on canvas that has been sprayed without glass. So I am sure that is possible.  I'd probably suggest like 5 coats of spray in that case.  

Love this painting, Leslie.  Thanks for sharing.   

Would You Like My Autograph?

Ginny teaching at WC on Yupo Class in Woodruff, WI on September 18

Ah fame.  Guess it was a slow news day at the Lakeland Times. Plus I think the photographer thought the word "yupo" was curious! 

Here I am doing my demo for the class at the Woodruff Town Hall.  We had a good day and lots of fun art.  I posted about this earlier.  

Just Foolin' Around

13 x 20 (half sheet of Yupo Synthetic Paper

I am missing a few folks in this photo but here are most of them!

Working on a Yupo surface is just like playing.

Just amazing fun and sometimes it even turns out.

My repeat of the Flying Reindeer above was just a fun way to use a drawing I already had on a new surface and to demo to the gals in the class (8) that you really have SO much freedom to experiment with this surface.  The trick is to "let go of the old way of using watercolor". 

We wiled away a very damp, misty, dark Wednesday yesterday in Woodruff doing just that.  My how the time flew!  Leslie had the coffee hot and a nice coffee cake for break time.  We worked from 9:30 to 3 pm and I hope everyone will keep on "playing".   Remember you can find You Tube Videos by Carol Ann Sherman and George James online that will give you some pointers.  

It's almost time to close up my summer studio again.  It's always such a hard thing to do.  I wait to the last minute.  It seems to me that when that door closes for the season that I need to get in the car and go...but usually we have at least a week of packing that follows that.  

I'll be down in the Lake Geneva, WI area for a few days now and hope to get in a few sketches there or at least some good photos.  

"A Burr Oak We Pass" by Mark Nesslar

11 x 15 WC/multi-media on two sheets of Yupo

The top sheet is translucent...

you see the darker grayish tree which is another painting under it.

Actually I posted the first sketches for this painting a week or so ago and the poem by Mark was posted with it.  

I am entering this painting in a juried show in Wisconsin that pairs artists and poets.  It's going to be hard to enter this digitally because the idea of the double painting is just not going to show up very well in a photo.  But it is something new for me to try this technique. I took this photo under artificial light so it's not the best either!   

The front tree is a poured painting and then when it was dry I cut it out (so to speak) by re-wettting the rest of the painting and lifting off the color I did not want.  It will be a technique I can demo for my Yupo class (see side bar) on the 18th. The "tree that died" is painted on regular Yupo paper and slipped under the first one.  So it has a feeling of another dimension.

The painting is dedicated to my friend, Kendra, who passed away on August 12.  I have loved this interpretive kind of painting which is somewhat "out of my comfort zone".  So it has been an interesting assignment on many levels.  My friend, Christine knows how to do professional photography or scans for submissions like this and is going to handle that end for me.  

I have to call this "multi-media" since I used ink for the lettering.  

Here is Mark's poem in case you didn't see it the first time:

A Burr Oak We Pass by Mark Nesslar

A tree will sometimes grow in a way such that it appears unnatural.

Say it grew around another tree and that one died, was cut into pieces,

And hauled from the forest by draft horses and log chains, and of the scars,

where it pealed the earth, none remain.

If you choose to look, not at the tree, but the space it describes,

you see where two shapes entwined.  The powerful barked limbs

curled to hold the air as delicately as the lover holds the beloved,

while the space, remembering most patiently the years embrace,

extends outward to encompass all.

Working with Watercolor on Yupo

Preparing for teaching the Yupo Class

First small sketch w/grid lines, second tiny color sketch (on Yupo scratch paper), 

and final drawing on  13 x 20 half sheet of Yupo

If you are planning on taking my Sept 18 Yupo paper WC class I want to remind you to bring your watercolors and brushes and water container...I like several size flats brushes and whatever else you like, a box of tissues (non lotion kind), a roll of paper towels, scissors, masking tape, an old shirt or apron (it is messy), newspapers and/or plastic to put down on the table.  Bring a ruler and a yardstick (or T-square), pencil, and please choose your subject ahead of time.  

The key actually is to pick things that have simple lines in them...a simple still life, a simple figure or figures, etc.  Remember we are going to play with "textures" and it will be more fun if you have some larger less complex subjects. It is especially fun to have a "border" around your subject out of which the objects can emerge.  Optional.  

It would be VERY helpful to actually have your subject drawn on tracing paper or very thin drawing paper ahead of time as well. Then we can tape up the two papers and trace the subject onto Yupo. The dimensions of a half sheet of Yupo that we will be using are: 13 x20 which is a half sheet.  

The idea for this drawing/painting came from a poem written by my son-in-law who is a poet.  I would hope that the painting might turn out well and I can use it for Christine Alfrey's poetry in WI project next month.

Here is the poem:

A Burr Oak We Pass

by Mark Nesslar (Madison, Wi)

A tree will sometimes grow in a way such that it appears unnatural.

Say it grew around another tree and that one died, was cut into pieces,

and hauled from the forest by draft horses and log chains,and of the scars,

where it pealed the earth, none remains.

If you choose to look, not at the tree, but the space it describes,

you see where two shapes entwined.  The powerful barked limbs

curled to hold the air as delicately as the lover holds the beloved,

while the space, remembering most patiently the years embrace,

extends outward to encompass all.

Nostalgic Look Back

Yupo half sheet with WC

Well I think this is the final version.  I have signed it.

She now has lovely floral shoes with slight shadows. The facial shadow is gone and I have just added some different shades of skin tones to infer her face.

Next I'll need to spray coat it several times with mat acrylic clear spray to fix the painting. And I need to come with a title.

Thanks to everyone who has given me support in finishing this one up.  It's been fun.

Now I am on to some sort of crafty stuff I need to finish up and then I'll have company for a few days.

Monday I hope to have a group of en plein air painters here.  Cross your fingers on the weather.

Final Touches on the Watercolor on Yupo

WC on Yupo Half Sheet

I think I am satisfied with the car shadow now.

  

I am not sure about the lady's face yet.  I have inferred a shadow on her face and that might be distracting.  Guess I have to let that sit awhile and see how it feels.  It would not be hard to start over again on the face.  On Yupo everything is removable.   And you can start right over again. 

I might also put a little color or shadow on her shoes.  Carol Ann says Yupo is about "shapes".  You don't need a lot of details.  In fact in most cases details are almost impossible anyway.  A fun painting all in all.  

Yupo Painting nears completion

Watercolor on Yupo (half sheet)

So I am now to the point in this painting where I need to sit with it awhile.  I see several areas that need some work but I need to think a little more about how to approach them.  I do plan a face or at least the shadows and suggestion of features on the woman.  I am pretty happy with the cars. Certainly no more needs to be added.  Rather some things might actually be taken away.  

Carol Ann Sherman says the picture is sort of "ghostly" as a ghost of the past appearing. This may suggest a title to me.  

I am waiting for Barb and Deb to give me a critique on this now.  Remember, this is Yupo, guys.  Transitions are more abrupt and colors are more opaque on Yupo. I am currently think of rewetting the entire shadow under the car and then "lifting" off several values back.  I think that shape is fighting with the car shape for dominance.

Beautiful day here in central FL...full sun and 77 degrees.  We are getting some clouds this afternoon now.  85 and sunny for Easter but then rain the rest of the week.  Boo hoo.  I have company coming!    

Watercolor on Yupo

Watercolor on Yupo 14 x 20

This painting was photographed indoors under indoor lighting.  Not a good thing.  I will resend under natural light at a later date.  The skin tones all turned orange (which they are not).  But the other colors seem fairly close to what they are.  Also wc on Yupo dries very shiny so you cannot put a light directly over the painting or you get major glare!  

I am thinking of cropping it slightly more than it currently shows.  Pulling in a little on left and right I think.  Carol thought so too.  But I will toss that around for awhile. 

I posted this a few days ago partially finished.   

But the colors are totally "intense" and that sort of comes out in the photo okay. This is partly the fun in Yupo!  I did this in Carol Ann Sherman's Yupo workshop yesterday at the Center for the Arts.  A very fun workshop...Carol is great and the others in the class were great too.  It was a sponsored workshop from Leesburg FL Art League.

I decided to post this today (even though not the best photo) because today I am going into Orlando to get my iMac computer operating system updated from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion.  This is TWO upgrades.  BIG DEAL.  I am really nervous about this and am afraid that "things ain't going to work they way they are supposed to work" after this is done.

Sigh. So I decided to send all my newsletters and post all my blog stuff and Facebook etc this morning.  Then I will back up the computer and tidy up my desktop, etc. At least I'll be up to date.  I expect I'll have to sign up for at least two one to one workshops on how to use the new system! And the Apple store is in Orlando about an hour away.  Not too convenient.

Wish me luck!     

The Yupo Process: Day 2 of Workshop

half sheet/WC on Yupo

This is day two of the Yupo workshop with Carol Ann Sherman.  Lots of fun.  As you know I did the drawing at home and brought it to the workshop...so I was ahead of everyone who was still putting pencil to paper.  I truly feel it is so important for workshop leaders to either give us all the same drawing to work on or to have us bring a finished drawing ready to paint.  At least in a two day workshop.

Sorting through photo references, drawing and then transferring a drawing takes most of a day in a workshop.  Sigh.  So I did get one painting done and this one started.  I'll post the finished one tomorrow.

Lots more to do on this lady and car of course...lots of decisions about background, colors, and etc.  Carol Ann says that because it's an interesting drawing I do not HAVE to actually paint in a face.

Somehow I think this will be too distracting to have her be like a "doll" in the painting.  But faces are hard...especially in Yupo.  Still I may give it a shot.

ps Does anyone know if there is a word for a drawing/painting that slips outside the boundary of the main drawing...as in the lady's umbrella and her feet?  Is there a name for that?  None of us could think of it.  

Watercolor on Yupo: Carol Ann Sherman

Carving out my painting from an all-over coating of  WC on Yupo Paper  (18 x 24)

Photo reference for paining

Carol Ann Sherman introduces WC on Yupo

Everyone who has ever participated in a workshop knows that you get sort of "drained" of your brain each day.  

I loved that Carol started us out with  a "sampler" of different ways to use paint on Yupo...especially good for newbies and for us more experienced...a nice refresher. And something to keep for a reference.  

She usually begins (after the drawing is on the paper with graphite) by covering the entire paper with a background color or colors.  Then she "lifts" and "eats" her way back through the drawing starting with the lightest lights.  

Because she uses her paint very thick on subsequent layerings, she can paint on top of lighter colors.  BUT in order to get that fresh light you can take the color away and get back to white paper and then lay down color again.  

I loved the negative spaces in this painting.. what you see above is probably only about an hour's worth of painting at the end of the day.  I'll get back to it in the morning and I hope to lay on the color for a second drawing that I made (I blogged that drawing a week ago...about the old car and the Victorian lady).  

A great day...more to come tomorrow.

Easter Egg Zentangles AND Yupo

Quandary, Flowervine, Oakling, Twile

This is Zentangle One of the Easter Egg series.  I can't believe I haven't seen more eggs on Zentangle blogs yet!  Surely they will be coming!!!?  I laughed at these as they sort of look like "potatoes" rather than eggs.  So "funky" Easter eggs.  

Yupo Sketch

Sorry the Yupo paper sketch is a little faint.  I took the photo under artificial light at night.  It is just graphite on white paper (about 18 x 24).  I am prepping for Carol Sherman's workshop on March 26-27 at the Leesburg, FL Center for the Arts.  

I am bringing several prepared sketches with no backgrounds because I am going to plan those out with Carol.  You can get very "abstract" with wc on Yupo if you want to.  I may infer buildings or just trees and flowers there.  

The reference photos were from two different events.  The lady with the umbrella was at the Mt. Dora Art Fair two years ago garnering people to come to eat the Rose Garden Restaurant.  The car was from a car show at the Leesburg Street Fair the first weekend in March.  

Yupo Workshop ahead

First off, this paper is not purple/blue/violet although it kind of looks neat that way.  It is just a fluke of how I tweaked it in iPhoto in an effort to help the "contrast".  In actuality at this point it is just graphite on stark white Yupo paper. This fairly large (half sheet of wc paper size.)

Those of you who have used watercolor on Yupo know the CHALLENGES of it.  It is a slick plastic surface and takes you way way out of the normal watercolor techniques.  

I am totally a fan of George James techniques in this technique and have all his videos.  BUT Carol Ann Sherman is coming to Leesburg, Fl and so I bought HER video and have been watching it in preparation for the March 26-27 two day workshop.  

Her style is quite a bit different than James although she uses some of the same tools.  In any case since it is such a short workshop I wanted to have my drawings transferred to the Yupo paper IN ADVANCE so I can spend more time listening, watching, and thinking about the application of color and paint.  

One thing Carol does is put down a fairly hard line of graphite in her drawing with no attempt at erasing it. It becomes part of the painting.  AND because she puts down a ton of paint on this surface one needs a fairly dark line in order to "find your way" again.  Her first thing to do is cover the entire paper with a fairly opaque layer of paint.  Then she "eats out" the white areas.  

I am going to put together two different drawings on the Yupo and also bring several smaller blank sheets for experimentation.  I took the photo reference for this at the Lakeridge Winery Music Fest (Clermont, Fl) last winter.  I was able to sneak around behind the band and take this rather unconventional perspective!

I'll be posting the creative process as it goes along.  

Yupo Demo for Jan 23 Florida class....

It's fun to re-visit a medium you have come to enjoy so much. This is done on a half sheet of translucent Yupo paper with white paper behind it.

One of the positives about the see-through paper is you can do a drawing and then lay it on top and trace so easily. Although this toucan was a pretty easy drawing...I like the objects in Yupo paintings to be fairly simple with lots of empty spaces for me to play and experiment in.

This is a demo I am doing for my Hawthorne Park friends for Monday's class. I am not done...it's so much fun to add and subtract some of the textures in the background.

And it is fun to pick a subject that has bright interesting colors. I am an avid fan of George James and I'll be showing the class about half an hour of the first of his 3 part series called "Mastering Yupo: Techniques for Synthetic Paper." You can find those wonderful foam rollers he uses at WalMart for about $2.50.

Happy Valentine's Day

You'll recognize this painting from a few posts ago...and you can scroll down to see what it looked like "before" so as to compare. I had so much fun with this watercolor on Yupo! It's often very hard to stop a painting like this. Yupo allows you to fiddle endlessly...which can be both good and bad as you know!

I have tried to slip in "just enough" darks to accent the lights and to thread the darks in and out of the painting as I did the lights. I wanted both mystery and reality in this painting...both abstract quality and realism still allowing the viewer to enter in and make the painting say just enough but not too much.

This is a half sheet of Yupo (13 x 20) and I like the color combinations a lot. I am glad I lost the original reference photo at some point so that I was freed up to do whatever. We should all probably do that more often!

I am now into the framing stage for our Hawthorne Park show coming up in a few weeks and I have to choose a painting for the Leesburg Art Association show too! Hmmmm. Not my favorite thing...framing. You hear me whine about it just before every show!

Gorgeous weather here in central FL now and we are seeing 80s in the forecast for this week for the first time since November! Yippee. The plein air group will meet this Wednesday with much happiness! Hope you all are having a great Valentine's Day!

Yupo Demo

During the Watercolor on Yupo class yesterday I started this demo. It is just blocked out at this point. It is a half sheet.

I decided on a still life/ interior. I did have a photo for inspiration but shortly after doing the sketch I misplaced the photo...which is probably just as well.

Right now I am just looking at shapes and lights and darks...trying to connect some of the shapes and look at some of the values. Although in Yupo everything is possible. I can get back the whites and go back in with darks at any time. I think it is harder to stop painting in Yupo because of that.

I still have lots of ideas about how to manage and manipulate the paint and push the textures a bit. I want to work on the dresser so it is not stark white but is still a light. I am not too sure about the tangent line of the mirror behind the lamp...I may "fatten" up the lamp a bit. I haven't decided how the ams on the chair will work in yet. There are some books stacked on the dresser (a chance for another shape and a way to connect darks?) So many fun things to think about.

We had a really nice group at the class Monday morning. 8-10 people and lots of good discussion and we watched part of the George James Part II DVD.

Pat shared one she did after the last class and she had traced her drawing onto the yupo using a waxy carbon paper. What happened was the lines resisted the paint. It was an unexpected surprise! I will try to get Pat to send me a good photo of that as it really turned out quite uniquely. I think you could do this with wax paper too.

Happy Ground Hog day tomorrow!

Also I hope all of you are safe on this blizzard day! OH my gosh. Couldn't be happier to be in Florida right now!

Lovin' Yupo All Over Again!

I go away from Yupo for awhile and sort of "forget" it is there. Then something comes up and I am back. What a fascinating thing it is!!!

George James made all the difference for me. His techniques are bright, fun, colorful, upfront applications. Just the way I love to work with watercolor. Click here for a 2 minute video of George.

I am joining my friend, Phyllis, in teaching a refresher Yupo class next Monday here in Florida at my Fine Arts Club. I decided to start off the refresher with some of James' basic techniques illustrated on a sheet of Yupo.

I created some samples to remind us all various things to try: variegated washes, flat and graded washes, cutting out, lifting with spray, lifting with objects, ghosting, value adjustments, and glazes.

And some of the basic tools of the trade.

Kleenex is a must. Good assortment of flat brushes. A foam roller. Watercolor paints and a sprayer.

After that the name of game is "innovate". What have you got that will make a mark, a stamp, or lift off color in an exciting way? Sponges, stencils, screens, stamps, etc.

Yupo comes in various weights and transparent as well. I love heavy weight or transparent myself. You can draw on it using a watercolor pencil which, of course, will disappear.

Winter Solstice

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night in the Northern Hemisphere.

Poets over the ages have proffered plenty of advice for the coming months. Poet Pietro Aretino, born in the 15th century, said, "Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius." William Blake wrote, "In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy." There's a Japanese proverb that says, "One kind word can warm three winter months."

Emily Dickinson wrote, "There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons — That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes." Existentialist Albert Camus wrote, "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." Victor Hugo once said, "Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart."

American writer Minna Antrim gave these instructions-in-verse:
"Brew me a cup for a winter's night.
For the wind howls loud and the furies fight;
Spice it with love and stir it with care,
And I'll toast our bright eyes,
my sweetheart fair."

This was taken from my daily message from Garrison Keillor. Do you get it too? The Writer's Almanac is a wonderful daily message of poems and other interesting facts. Click here.

I did this little santa (watercolor on Yupo) a year ago as a possible Christmas card and then rejected him in favor of something else. But I've always liked him. Although I am in Florida this solstice...we have had some chilly days here over the past weeks....so a little hot cider and a warm blanket can feel good down here too in December and January. I wish you all a very merry holiday!!! Sorry I've been so slow to blog this fall and I resolve to be back to my studio and sending out more frequently.

Pretzel Wagon Revisited

I have cropped this image slightly...but I am not sure...I may have cropped too much (I just laid a mat over it...I didn't actually cut the paper). I added a few more details on figures, added more dark behind the standing figure, changed the shadows a little bit under the wagon, added shadows under the figures, inferred another awning behind the trees and put some texture into the foreground.

I'm trying to find that elusive "interesting place to stop".