Additional Pictures of my Students with their Paintings

 Zentangled Inspired Watering Cans (Idea from Ginny Stiles - thanks Ginny!)

Zentangled Abstract Bottles

 Yellow California Poppies

Christmas Birdhouses

Above are pictures of my students holding their  projects from this latest session of classes at Riverside Arts Center in Wapakoneta, Ohio.  This is a great group of people, good friends and good artists too!!!

The Muses and Papier Mache

 Theresa's Cottage!

 Rose's Cottage

Barb's Cottage 

 Two weeks ago the "Muses" delved into papier mache - literally!  A real mess but lots of fun.  We covered baskets with papier mache and made them into imaginative little houses to be homes for pointsettia pots for Christmas.  Today we painted them with acrylics and they are so cute.  I had to show the back of Theresa's (below) because her snowman was so cute!

The back of Theresa's!  Isn't her snowman cute?

Dump Truck Paintings from Class at Riverside Arts Center

Didn't they do a great job on this dump truck painting.  We (almost)  finished these on Monday evening so I took a photo of them.  Great bunch of artists and paintings!!! 

Patricia's Dump Truck

Yes! Another truck painting!  My friend Patricia took a picture of this truck and gave me the picture to paint - she knows I love old rusty trucks - especially if they are abandoned in an old, weedy field too!

I have prepared this painting to be the next lesson for my watercolor class at Riverside Art Center in Wapakoneta, Ohio.  The painting is small - 8" x 11" inches and is painted on hot-pressed printmaking paper.

IH

I did this watercolor sketch today of an International Harvester truck abandoned in a barnyard.  Instead of starting with a line drawing as I usually do, I started by blocking in shapes and then adding some details after the shapes were in.  I think it worked, but I still prefer using my usual approach.  I did learn alot today, though.  This painting is 5" x 9" and is painted on 140 lb. hot-pressed watercolor paper.

Zentangle Inspired Art

I borrowed this idea from Giny Stiles, an artist friend who lives in Florida.  I asked her if she minded if I used the idea for the class I teach on Monday evenings and she graciously gave me her blessing! I also borrowed the idea of the two watering cans - but - I promise, I did my own drawings.   These are the two that I did - believe me, the students did a lot better...their work just blew me away and I will post them Monday night (after I photograph them!)  These are both 1/4 sheet of 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper - watercolor with zentangles in colored and black sharpie markers.

Urban Renewal

This is the latest in the experiments on Rives BFK printmaking paper.  Once again I started with a pencil drawing and then a wet-into-wet watercolor wash using pastel colors, followed by watercolor glazes over the wash in the abstract areas created by the drawing.  I finished with some linear accents using Prismacolor watercolor pencils. Lots of fun doing these and the printmaking paper is amazingly easy to use with watercolor. 

Urban Darkness

This is another experience with the printmaking paper..it works very well with this type of painting - small and controlled.  I wonder how it will act with washes - guess I'll have to find out!  I call this one "Urban Darkness" ...I guess because of all the attention on New York City following "Sandy!"

I first did an abstract drawing of a city skyline using  curvalinear and geometric shapes.  I  did a wet-in-wet wash over my drawing and then did glazes over  the wash, adding, linear detail at the end with watercolor pencil.  I am fascinated right now with combinations of round and rectangular shapes.  I am enjoying my experiences with this new paper (Rives BFK) and how it reacts with watercolor instead of printing.  I love experimenting with media - guess it's the art teacher in me.

The Rainbow Connection

My friend Ginny Stiles has inspired me to check out the abstract watercolors of Peggy Furlin - she does beautiful work.  I decided to try something similar to her work and it was  much more difficult than I expected. 

I started with a wet-in-wet background - I poured Liquitex acrylic inks using yellow, red-violet and pthalo blue and lots of water - I moved the paper around a lot in order to get the colors to blend and mix.

Then I did a light pencil drawing of the composition and painted in the various shapes using watercolor.  I used the Rives BFK printmaking paper  (6x10) which worked very well for this work.