Carbonetti

Jeanne Carbonneti is a Vermont artist who writes books like: The Zen of Creative Painting. Her approach to art is one of mindfulness (the exact opposite of Bob Burridge) and yet her artwork is spontaneous and free, loose and full of movement. Tomorrow I take 6 hours of class with her, and took one tonight too. I'll add my attempt at trying her technique and you can see more for yourself at: http://www.crowhillgallery.com/ I'll say more about her after tomorrow.

Painting with Negative Spaces

Linda Kemp is a Canadian artist who paints in watercolor, oil and acrylic. Her technique is very interesting, intellectual, and yet a wonderful combo of free and controlled. One begins with loose layering of color (this is the part that I am too controlling with and want to work on) building up many layers that are applied wet on wet, yet the colors show through (check out her website by clicking on the title of this post, and you'll see what I mean). After these are dry you go in with the detail work. At no point are you ever painting the subject, you are always painting the spaces between, around, or behind the subject which make for a unique look. Many floral watercolorists use this style to build up layers of flowers, but then they paint in the actual flowers in the foreground, Kemp never does this. She also has a style of landscape that is interesting, dreamy and loose, but we only got a tiny little demo of this in the last 20 minutes so I'll have to try it at home.

Mayonnaise?

Okay, I admit, oil is not my forte. I am a watercolorist, I draw with anything, and I love sculpture, especially using natural materials like branches, grasses, birch bark, etc. But oil paint...not my thing. So to challenge myself I took an Impressionist Color workshop with Caroline Jasper in oils. Ohhhhhhhh. It was an evening class and I was already fried from a day with Bob Burridge. I was not a happy camper when we began and I realized I had no clue what I was doing. It felt like I was laying mayonnaise on the canvas! Well, we began with little oil "sketches" on canvas paper and then developed them. I understand the theory of Impressionist color, but damn if I could figure out how to apply it. After a lot of whining and Caroline showing me that my sketch looked great from across the room even if up close it just looked like a mess, I began on the canvas. It helped me to take off my glasses and hold the brush at its very end (farthest away from the brush part); both of these gimmicks made me less controlling and more free. You'd think after a day with Burridges I'd be quite loose, but that old meany fear just slipped in and got the best of me. This piece is surely not great, but then many of the instructors at this event have mentioned: you don't do your best finished work at a workshop. You take risks, learn new stuff, and then go home to your studio to apply it to your daily work. I'm not sure I'll go out and invest in oil paints (for one thing the paintings aren't even tacky and this is 24 hours later, I have no patience for that kind of waiting:-), but I may try some of these brush work techniques and color techniques with acrylics. On this image the water ended up the last area I worked on and I just blended it, a big no no for this technique. I may go back and try working it up with some brushstrokes and color later (if I can mange to get it home in one piece).

Caroline Jasper

Actually, I was in a Power Color workshop with Caroline Jasper on Tuesday and Wednesday was Bob Burridge, but I'll talk about Caroline here since I just uploaded all the other photos from the burridge workshop. Jasper was a long time high school art teacher and did a lot of research on color theory. She taught workshops for artists on color and was asked to write a book, researched even more, and has written an awesome book called Power Color. I learned a lot of stuff that I already knew, but she broke it down in such a way that the application of the theory made more sense to me. These three studies are just that, theoretical applications of color with emphasis on value in the first one (without thinking of the color itself just its place on the value scale that refers only to its pure hue); the second is about cool and warm colors, receeding and projecting using color; and the third, the mug is a quickie on a similar theme. I learned a lot from her that I hope I'll remember to apply. She has a great book and a great website at: http://www.carolinejasper.com/

Art Woman, Crazy Woman?

Okay, this is it, I've been busy all summer building my studio (well, supporting my hubby and helping as he builds it) teaching, and other stuff, but this week I have been in art heaven. I've been attending the Holbein Vermont Art Event, in Burlington, and am a total art fool at this point. I have one more day of glorious workshops and then will spend most of next week at a family mountain cabin, painting and experimenting with all the techniques I learned this week.

For now let me show you what I've been doing. This first bunch of photos are from a workshop taught by Robert Burridges. He is a wonderfully funny, creative and fearless artist who as an artist by breaks all the rules. Check his site out at: http://www.robertburridge.com/index.html. Honestly, though you just have to see him in person to get the real gist of his magic. The images with this post were all done by me at his workshops (I took 6 hours worth) on Tuesday, Aug. 1.