End of Workshop and Mountain Stay

There was something a little different when I left the cabin for my last day of class in Boone...snow on the ground!  None on the roads, but there was plenty on the trees and hills.

On the last day of class we watched Fealing work some more on her demo portrait, and spent a lot of time critiquing the student work from the class.

When the workshop ended, I took a short drive to Blowing Rock, NC, to see the exhibits at the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum.  They were hosting the Watercolor Society of North Carolina 68th juried exhibit, as well as a special exhibit of Anerican Impressionists.

No photography was allowed, but there was a lovely portrait by one of the members of my class in the show- and it won a special award!  Congratulations, Jan Green!

The museum building had lots of carved wooden benches, even in the Ladies Room and the elevator!  I've never seen an elevator with a slate floor.

  There were nice gardens around the museum.

There were hand-painted rocks in the gardens with mountain scenes.

When I got home, my son and his family had arrived, along with two of my son's friends.  I will tell more about the weekend and also our trip to the First Annual Oktoberfest in Jefferson, NC.

Fealing Lin Workshop-Days 2, 3,and 4

This week took forever to get here, and now it is almost over.  This has been an intense week of learning about composition, style, and brushwork.  Fealing is a great teacher and a very nice person. Our class is relaxed and very friendly.  Each day Fealing teaches a lesson in some element of art, and does a painting demo.  She does not mind us taking photos while she is teaching.

We also do some critique of student work each day.  I learn as much from looking at other student work as from trying it on my own.

It has been very humbling to see the amazing work done by my classmates!  There is a high-quality camera that projects the artwork and the reference photo onto a large whiteboard. I really liked this one of a girl who is a professional model.

I have learned my lesson about having a good photo to work from.  It should be taken with no flash, either outside in the sun or with a single light source.  You need some good shadows on the face.

Every day we find a new surprise from Cheap Joe's Art Stuff at our workstations.  We have gotten towels for dabbing our paintbrushes, some Kilimanjaro watercolor paper samples, and some watercolor board.  Joe himself came in today and spoke to each of us.  Yesterday I ate lunch with his granddaughter, Megan, who works in the marketing department.  I am so impressed by the staff at this place of business.

Even though I have to drive 48 minutes each way to get to Boone,  almost the whole drive is on a scenic mountain byway.  The weather sometimes starts out golden, changes to threatening skies, maybe a little rain, and then back to beautiful skies.  I love it when the sun moves in golden shifts across the dark mountains.

I have almost finished two portraits.  I think they are okay, but I want to practice a lot more to get my paintings to the quality that I want.

Here is Lily. with a darker background.  Still has a lot of color!

Here is a smaller painting of my great-niece Holly when she was a baby.  She was wearing my straw sun hat and sitting on the table while I was eating lunch.  The sun light was pouring through the hat and reflecting on her head.

Today Fealing taught us about making loose paintings with groups of people forming interesting shapes.  You do these very quickly, with very few brushstrokes.  Here are two that I tried using her reference photos.

Now that it's dry, I think the first one needs some more darks for more contrast.

The next one looks almost tropical.

One more day tomorrow, a short day where we wrap up our projects and do a final critique.

Fealing Lin Workshop Day 1

This morning it was "up and at-em" very early.  I had a beautiful drive to Boone in the frosty air, with mist rising up from the New River and setttling in the valleys.  When I got there (in 48 minutes) there were two men from Cheap Joe's waiting in the parking lot to help carry our workshop supplies.  I loved that idea...wish it could happen at a quilt workshop when you are toting sewing machines, tools, fabric, rulers, irons, and what-have-you!

Each student gets their own worktable with their own trashcan.  We were each gifted with a Cheap Joe's water bucket, 

pencil, and a free copy of Palette Magazine.

Fealing Lin is a soft-spoken, gentle person with a sense of humor and tons of talent.  We each had to bring our own enlarged drawing of a face on a sheet of watercolor paper.  She helped us each (26 people) with our drawings.  Then she did a demo of the first layer of watercolor washes.  These just blend and drip on the paper with no worrying about shapes or features.

I decided to use the same drawing of my granddaughter Lily's face that I had used previously for a more traditional portrait.  I liked the rainbow of colors.

After that dried, Fealing showed how to start building up the layers of color.  By now my Lily is looking a little like Children of the Corn with no eye color!

By the third layer, the planes of the face are added and some of the features are beginning to be worked.  At this point I did not like my portrait, as the poor girl looked like she had two Wooly Worm caterpillars for eyebrows and maybe two black eyes!  I was getting tired, so I left soon after 4:00. 

There is a Bernina shop just across the highway that I spied when I left.  I went in and selected some red fabrics to start making the quilt top from my gifted red and white sampler blocks.

Then I met two of my brothers and their wives for dinner at Pepper's in Boone.  That was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed catching up with them.  It felt kind of funny to go there because it is right next to where my father lived in Boone, and we often ate lunch there with him.  Miss you, Dad!

I came back to our cabin with an aching back but looking forward to tomorrow's lesson.

Respite

It has been a couple weeks of hard work since we moved in to our new house in Raleigh.

After a few days, I just had to get away from the unpacking and organizing, so Kasey and I took a short drive to the beginning of the Crabtree Creek Trailway, just a few miles away.

Crabtree Creek is most famous for flooding its banks and in the process, flooding the biggest mall in the Southeast, which was built on its banks.  Since then, they have put in lots of flood protection devices along the creek.  The very first one greets you immediately on the trail.  This is only a short distance from the NC Museum of Art greenway trail...this rusty pipe could be mistaken for a type of sculpture!

But there are many more pipes and reservoirs all along the trail.  I didn't mind them.

The path is level and paved, easy walking.  It parallels the creek and sometimes offers some nice water views.

On Thursday night we left for a long weekend at our mountain place.  How wonderful to go up there and not have to do anything!  We had some nice visits with my sister and her husband, our great niece and nephew, and Ricky and Mary's family.  Loved my cabin time!  Once when Charlie went to town, I stayed home and did a quick watercolor of a tiger swallowtail.  My only art for a long time!
  

Of course we took a lot of Gator rides and some walks across the mountain.  Here are a few pics.

 There was a beautiful mist after an afternoon shower.

When we got home, I did one day of my "nanny" duties for my sweet grandbaby Charlie.  She is getting so much personality!  Love, love, love my days with her.

I knew that today we would be having our driveway repaved, so yesterday we went to yet another greenway trail at Lake Lynn.  Very nice!  All either paved or boardwalk, and the boardwalk often is built right over the water.  We saw lots of birds and turtles.

They were supposed to pave our driveway while we were gone last weekend, but they did not do it until today.  We had to stay home all day.  They did a great job, and got rid of all the scary potholes and trenches.

I spent most of my time today trying to fix up our guest bedroom.  We are supposed to babysit for Charlie while her parents attend the N.C.State football game.  We only live 2.7 miles from the stadium now!  They will all spend the night after the game.  Did I tell you that my daughter-in-law's sister is the school mascot at my alma mater, North Carolina State!  Charlie was wearing the NCSU cheerleader outfit that we got for our first granddaughter, Lily.  Love it!

Rainy Weekend

Well, my team (NC State) came very close, but lost to Kansas Friday night.  That's okay...after six years of not even making it to the tournament, we are happy to have been in the Sweet Sixteen!  The Pack is Back!

Yesterday was totally gloomy and rainy.  Finally the rain let up a bit, and we hit the greenway.  Even Kasey did not want to set a paw in this muddy mess of water cascading over the rocks.

The sun came out while we were walking.  Beautiful!

I stopped in Raleigh at The Teach Me Store on Friday.  My grandson's birthday is coming up soon, and I love the selection of challenging books, puzzles, and toys at that store.  What a fun surprise to visit the restroom in the store and find happy, childlike artwork painted on the walls!

Speaking of artwork, I took another class with Steve Filarsky of Art Student Academy last week.  This time we painted pears on a windowsill.  Here is the collage photo from the class.  There were three home-school children in the class along with another adult and myself.

Here is a close-up of my painting.

I would like to work on this a bit more.  Meantime, I need to get out and pull some weeds.  The ground should be nice and soft after all that rain yesterday!

Catching Up

Wednesday evening I participated in another watercolor class with Steve Filarsky at Art Student Academy.  The subject was a vase of tulips.  This time there were only three students, so we had more space, a more relaxed atmosphere, and more time for Steve to work with individuals.  He gave me a few tips that I appreciated.  I am not totally happy with my painting so far, but I think I will spend a little more time on it and see what emerges.  One of the things he showed me was how to get the little highlight on each tulip.

I have also signed up for a six-week watercolor class with Mary Benejam-O'Connell through Wake Forest Parks and Recreation. I think I will benefit from concentration on the basics.  One of my art quilt bee members has also signed up.  It will be at Flaherty Park on Wednesday afternoons starting on February 29.  I hope more people sign up so the class is not cancelled!

On Tuesday I went to Physical Therapy for the last time.  My very sweet therapist, Pamela, said I had met all of the goals she set for me.  Unfortunately, I have not met my personal goal of being able to walk without pain from my old sprained ankle injury, but I am hopeful that it will continue to get better.

Yesterday my sister and Dad came to Raleigh, and Charlie and I ate lunch with them again at Simply Crepes.  Then, last night was a meeting of one of my quilting groups, the Cyberbee.  It was the smallest group ever:  exactly two of us!  Martha and I had a great visit and dinner.  I got to know her a lot better, so it was a good evening.

This should be a quiet weekend at home.  Charlie had some oral surgery yesterday, and can't eat solid foods for a few days.  Since it turned colder this morning, I guess it will be a good weekend for soup.

I took my dog, Kasey, to the dog park in Wake Forest the other day.  This was a first!  She is sometimes very territorial on the greenway and growls at other dogs, and sometimes people, who approach her.  I thought maybe she would learn to socialize a little better.  There were about nine large dogs within the fenced area, and Kasey did not really want to go in.  She sat and looked around while all the other dogs were romping and playing.

After awhile I took her for a walk around the perimeter.  At least we got a little exercise after a couple of laps.

Dogs that never get to run free without a leash probably appreciate the acres of space and the joy of being unleashed to catch balls and chase frisbees.  Kasey gets to be off leash often, both at home and in the mountains.  We have a big yard, and she does not run off.  And, although she looks like she is part golden retriever, she does not retrieve anything.  Throw a ball or stick and she just looks at you like, "Why?"  But she will chase a squirrel, rabbit or deer, with no victories so far!

Now, my granddog Roo is the perfect example of a dog park lover.  His yard is small, and he has lots of stored up energy.  And he has become an expert frisbee dog!

This morning it was really cold, and Kasey and I went to the Sanford Creek greenway where we often walk.  Unfortunately, the earth movers were hard at work clearing the woods behind the creek to build yet more roads and home sites for the Heritage community.  The air smelled like diesel and the noise of the equipment was deafening.  They have installed orange fencing almost down to the creek and cleared out acres of trees.

They always do a nice job on the Heritage projects, but we will probably walk the other greenways and parks while all this construction is taking place.

And when the walks are over, it's time for The Furminator!  This dog brush helps get rid of the undercoat of thick hair- as seen on TV.  And guess who loves to be Furminated!  Ah, bliss!

Watercolor Weekend, Day 3: Tom Lynch

Today wrapped up my scheduled workshops at Art of the Carolinas in Raleigh.  All three were watercolor classes.  Today's instructor was Tom Lynch, a very charismatic teacher whose mission was to teach us the fundamentals of a good painting while having fun.  We did!

This time our classroom at the North Raleigh Hilton had the same mirrored teacher station, but I was not bothered by the directionality problem.  There was no specific drawing or direction to worry about.

He gifted us with a small plein air palette filled with paint, two brushes, and also four quarter-sheets of Gemini 140-lb. paper.  Very organized- everything came in a plastic bag ready to go!

We each made two juicy background washes, one in a warm tone and one in a cool.

We put leaves over the underpainting and painted over them with dark values.

We learned to find a focal point and soften the colors in other areas of the painting.  We added some positive shapes and some veins in the leaves.

Here is mine with a mat over part of the painting.

I ended up with a semi-abstract, colorful painting with a glowing focal point.  I like it, but think I will try it again.  These leaves were kind of torn up, and did not make as crisp an image as I would like.  Compare mine to these of Tom's.

I purchased two Tom Lynch instructional DVDs, and then went to the trade show.  Very overwhelming!  I limited myself to a few supplies that the instructors had recommended:  spray bottles for spraying paint, and some of the 300-lb. Bright White Arches paper that Tom Jones recommended on Thursday.

Oh, yes, and I had to get just one new book from Suzanne McNeill's booth.

Altered Surfaces, by Chris Cozen

Using Acrylic Paints With Gels, Mediums, Grounds & Pastes

I think I have enough projects to get me through the winter!