Eat, Drink, Play!

Yesterday I taught a full day workshop in painting techniques using Golden paints, gels and pastes. It's very rewarding - and fun - to turn artists on to completely new ways of creating artwork which is unrelated to artistic experience or drawing skills. The materials lend themselves to playing, creating, and being mesmerized by texture, sheen, and seeing how color dances with surface and light. Although I'm a representational painter, I often go to my studio and get lost in this world of color and texture magic. This is my "chicken soup for the soul" when I want to throw control to the wind and play with wild abandon. Sometimes I feel like a mad scientist conducting exotic experiments - mixing, pouring, layering, dripping, oozing, scraping, spraying, ... one idea feeding the next. I'm sure my husband would prefer some of this creative energy be directed towards cooking actual meals, like with food. No such luck anytime soon. Sorry honey, my studio is way more fun than the kitchen!

This Weekend's Boston Workshop

Here is a small sampling of the work created in the Boston Workshop... 12 people created 87 small paintings / technique swatches in 1 day (5 hours).

Listed below are blog posts about this weekend's Boston workshop, "Not your Mother's Acrylics" written by two students that attended it.

They totally validate my own experience in working with these new acrylic materials -

1. 'why would I ever want to paint on (or with) _______ (fill in the blank with a paste, gel or ground) and
2. 'I can't stop thinking about new ways of incorporating _____(fill in the blank with a paste, gel or ground) into my work -- and I can't get to sleep!

These gals say it much better than I, so read on...

http://lindabranchdunn.blogspot.com/2011/01/just-by-doing.html

http://jeannewilliamson.blogspot.com

No wonder everyone was exhausted - in a good way, they really explored a slew of paints, gels, pastes, colors, surfaces, textures, techniques, iridescent and interference materials, and more. Some people did small reference sections on each board, with notes off to the side outlining what material and paint types they used, others did actual little paintings and used one technique for the whole thing. We encouraged everyone to write step-by-step notes of their process, because its so easy to get lost in the moment, going with the flow, then look at what you did and say "how the %$@*! did I do that?" If you want to recreate that cool thing you did, better take notes, because so much material gets covered, it can be quite overwhelming, but incredibly exciting.

I will be offering this and other types of workshops in the Rockland/Westchester area soon, through the art centers I teach at (Rockland Center for the Arts, Rye Art Center and Pelham Art Center), as well as free Lecture/Demo's where I will be giving out free paint and product samples to all that attend. If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll put you on the list to be notified of upcoming classes and dates. I will post these on my blog as they are scheduled, in a new listing called "Workshops and Demos". BTW - all levels welcome!

Golden Artist Colors - Gels, Pastes, and Grounds Demonstration

Today I did a demonstration for the Scarsdale Art Association on Golden Pastes, Grounds and Gels. Basically this was about how these Golden products can be used as grounds (as a surface to paint on) and mediums (mixed in with the paint). Every year I get invited to do a demonstration for their artists and I usually do a "Fast, Loose and Bold" painting. This year I offered them the option of teaching a mini-lecture on how these various products can provide new and interesting surfaces and textures they can integrate into their paintings. The lecture went very well - LOTS of questions about the products and the correct way to use them.

Its very fulfilling for me to share this information, because I myself find these options so exciting. The more I work with them, the more I think of new ways to use them. I have never considered myself drawn to working in thinner type watercolor-style paintings... until now. My niche is all about thick paint. Will that change? Probably not. But the fact that I so thoroughly enjoyed working on these various grounds made me realize that I want to work with them more. For instance, when I travel or paint en plein air, schlepping around a suitcase full of heavy body paints is, well.. heavy. Working in a watercolor style would lighten my load immensely. The thought I had while painting in this very fluid style was that "the painting is painting itself" - the colors were flowing and mixing and pooling in the grooves of the texture - wow - its so cool. And it felt really natural and... fun. I feel like I just discovered a treasure chest full of toys. Can't wait to get into the studio and play with them more! I'm looking forward to teaching hands-on workshops in these products, which will be posted here on my blog as I start adding them into my schedule. I will be co-teaching a hands-on workshop about Golden products in Boston this coming weekend with a friend of mine, and very much looking forward to it.