Weekend Workshop at Cape Cod Art Center

I will be teaching a 2-day colored pencil workshop at the Cape Cod Art Center in Barnstable Massachusetts on Saturday and Sunday, July 30 & 31st, 10 am to 4 pm each day. Cost $220/members and $250/non members. 

In this studio workshop we will focus on creating drawings of exciting seascapes. Learn how to capture the atmosphere of smooth water, sea foam and waves. We will cover the transparency and reflections in water as well as building form, light and shadow and working with surrounding beach and land formations.

For more information or to register follow this link to Cape Cod Art Center website. 

Material list is below.

 

Cape Cod Art Center Workshop

I taught a 2-day colored pencil workshop at Cape Cod Center for the Arts in Barnstable, Massachusetts. After an introduction to working with colored pencils: materials and techniques, students worked on small still life drawings to get used to the medium. One the second day we worked the sunflower drawing with colored pencil on UArt 800 sanded paper. I wanted students to become familiar with colored pencil drawing on sanded paper and how it differs from non-sanded (traditional) papers.

Small class and still paying attention to Covid social distancing but it was really fun to be able to work together in person!

 

Two New Workshops!

I am teaching two workshops:

UPCYCLED BOOK SCULPTURE WORKSHOP 

Tuesday & Wednesday July 13 - 14, 2021, 10 am to 4 pm

Warwick Center for the Arts

3259 Post Road, Warwick, Rhode Island 02886 • (401) 737-0010

Members: $130 / Non-Members $150

In this 2-day workshop we will transform your book into a unique piece of artwork. There are endless possibilities of ideas for repurposing books into something fun and imaginative. A book sculpture can create a special memory or just a fun piece to embellish you home. Students will learn about techniques for altering books, folding pages and adding embellishments such as collage and color to pages.

This will be an in-person program, so we will be taking covid precautions. 

SESASIDE TREASURES IN WATERCOLOR PENCIL WORKSHOP 

Saturday, June 26, 2021, 10 am to 4 pm

Warwick Center for the Arts

3259 Post Road, Warwick, Rhode Island 02886 • (401) 737-0010

Members: $90 / Non-Members $125

In this one-day workshop we will be capturing the essence of the coastline by drawing and painting shells and other seaside treasures. Artists of all levels can discover the versatility when working with watercolor pencils. We will learn about tips and techniques on how to manage the color wet or dry as well as how to mix and layer colors, create washes and textures. Watercolor pencils are portable, versatile and great for travel, quick sketching or a detailed drawing. They can be used alone or combined with other mediums.  This will be an in-person program, so we will be taking covid precautions. 

For More Information Click HERE for the WCFA website

Accordion Book and Colored Pencil Workshop

I am going to be teaching this 2 day workshop in October. Please contact me if you would like more information or to register. It's going to be a lot of fun. Although I realize many of my readers aren't in the area! 

Relief Monoprint Workshop with Frieda Dean

I've been regrouping after curating the Bristol Art Museum Fine Points exhibit so I am finally getting around to sharing these photos and writing about a Relief Monoprint workshop I took with artist Frieda Dean at the Providence Art Club in July. Frieda Dean is the sister of Angel Dean who - besides being an artist - coordinates Event Planning and Member Services for the Providence Art Club.

Frieda began by explaining her process of inking small, medium and large stencils on two sides and layering them between two sheets of printmaking paper (like a sandwich). We learned that we needed to plan out our composition and layer different sizes, thinking about both front and back as they would be sandwiched between two sheets of paper. This allowed us to pull two prints at one time.

The workshop was great fun!

 Here is my inking area, I was experimenting with different oranges and yellows on my artichoke stencil.

 Above is one of my stencil layouts on paper ready to print, below it is lying on the press ready for me to add a top sheet of paper before running it through the printing press.

 It is a messy process and takes up a lot of space but great fun! Below are three of my finished prints. I have added some colored pencil embellishments to all three. The bottom print is created on Asian rice paper with a texture.

Three New Folded Books

Here are three new folded books that I created last week. I'm teaching an altered book workshop at Providence Art Club in a few weeks so I decided to sit down, fold a few more books and write down all the instructions for my students. 

I will credit Johwey Redington's website for the instructional videos to create these three sculptures. Click on the link and you can see the different folded books on her website. I added my own ideas to the books I created. The Yin-Yang book (middle) was a colorful book containing some maps and map images on the inside covers. I tore out a few pages so I would have just enough to fold so the end inside cover illustrations would show. 

I did the same for the last book here with the red end pages, I tore out a few pages so the red would show at either end.

Watercolor Workshop

I haven't worked in watercolor for a while but here in Florida a watercolor workshop at the Society of Four Arts caught my eye. It was being taught at the Society of Four Arts by master watercolorist Sue Archer. The description intrigued me as it was for advanced artists and focused on color theory, composition and design. Feeling like I could use a "tune-up" or refresher in these areas, I signed up for the workshop and was not disappointed. The workshop consisted of five intense days of lectures, demos and working on our own exercises and watercolor compositions. I found myself coming early and leaving late because I was so inspired to work and mingle with the other participants. 

We worked using a limited palette of transparent or granulating colors only. The colors I used were: Hansa Yellow, New Gamboge, Quinacridone Red, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Manganese Violet, Cobalt Blue, Indanthrone Blue and Sap Green.

Here are some of my studies done in class. The top image are three simple (or not so simple) value patterns using three values only to merge shapes together. We then picked the value study we felt was most successful and added color in the fourth block.

Just below, we chose two white objects and set them up in order to see light and cast shadow. My first piece was worked in values of gray only. I went back in afterward and added some areas of reflected light in various grays. The lower piece is the same principle only using wet-on-wet technique with Raw Sienna, Cobalt Blue and Manganese Violet to create colorful shadows. Afterwards we created rich darks in a wet on wet background. 

The bottom six small paintings are wet on wet watercolor skies using transparent and granulating washes. I later took the next step and added a horizon and more detail to the washes. 

A Figure Drawing Workshop

Over the weekend I took Derek Gore's Wet & Wild Figure Drawing Workshop at the Providence Art Club. We were asked to bring just sheets of large paper, Alphacolor charcoal and a water container. We started off by wetting sheets of paper and drawing on the wet surface with charcoal. Our first poses were a very short 30 seconds so that we could begin with just simple gesture drawings. 

After several 30 second poses, we progressed to one minute poses, then five minute poses but never longer than 20 minutes. It was a great lesson in which to study the figure with your eye at the same time your hand is moving to sketch on the paper. The poses were short so we could not get wrapped up in details. These are my sketches, some of my paper crinkled from the water and has created an interesting effect in these photos. 

 This figure was done on Yupo paper, I have never worked on Yupo before and possibly added too much water because it was running everywhere on the slick surface.

It was a really enjoyable workshop that helped me to loosen up and sketch large. I went home exhausted but happy to have achieved some insight on the medium and the figure. Derek Gore is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and works in drawing and collage from recycled magazines. Take a look at his website: derekgores.com

Abstract Painting Workshop

 I always like to try new techniques in art because I believe we learn from each different medium. I decided to participate in a 2-day abstract acrylic painting workshop titled Intuitive Art taught by Theresa Girard. Theresa is quite an accomplished artist and excellent instructor which really helped me because (as you know) my art is very detailed and realistic. I really hoped this class would help me loosen up a bit and experiment with shapes, value, color and line. Above is a black, white and three shades of gray value study, 12x12". I think it's okay although I'm not sure what to do with it next.

 This pieced together study is an exercise in charcoal in which Theresa instructed us to move in make certain marks with charcoal and then move away from the painting. We did this several times, in and out making various lines, marks and shapes. In the end we cut them up and reassembled the squares. I like what I've got started here and plan to do something with it.

The other three photos are of the various paintings done by students at the end of the second day. We walked around and Theresa critiqued our work and gave us suggestions. I won't show you mine, it's a big blob right now! I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop, learning from Theresa and also learning from my colleagues in the class. I definitely would take another abstract workshop, while I was extremely tired from thinking so hard after the two days, I enjoyed the journey to abstraction!

My Colored Pencil Workshop for CPSA

I was honored to be asked to be one of this year's workshop instructors at the Colored Pencil Society of America's international conference and exhibition in Tacoma, Washington. This one-day workshop is called Colored Pencil Goes 3D and I taught students how to design and finish a colored pencil box. In this workshop I taught the process of image transfer and then adding colored pencil on top, thus skipping the step of sketching out the design and also having somewhat of a grayscale image to help with the values. After completing two small drawings we learned how to adhere the drawings to the top and inside of the 5x5" Ampersand Claybord Box Kit.

Here are photos of just some of the very creative students working on their drawings. 

Here you can see this student is creating a seahorse drawing. The black and white image is shown along with the color reference photo and her small drawing is in front of her.

This student created a beautiful butterfly with colored pencils and I liked the way she left the transferred black and white image in the background without adding color.

This student decided to skip the image transfer process and drew directly on the Claybord surface with graphite, colored pencils and black marker. The Claybord is very smooth so it will only accept a limited amount of colored pencil but look how beautifully she is managing the floral design.

See more examples of creative artwork below! Everyone had their own variety of subjects and styles.