Christmas Brunch with the Quilters

It has been a busy week with many Christmas functions and parties.  One that I look forward to every year is the Whacky Ladies brunch at Brig's Restaurant in Wake Forest.  Besides the great food, we have a gift exchange and also share small gifts with everyone.

I hit the jackpot this year on the gift exchange.

I thought Lori had made this Christmas stocking, but she says it is from Hobby Lobby.

It was stuffed with lovely gifts...the best being four yards of beautiful fabric!

There was also a very pretty journal, which I will enjoy very much.

 And stuffed in the toe, some Ghirardelli chocolate squares!

Opening all the small gifts was like Christmas morning.   I thought I took pictures of these as well, but I must not have.  I will take one of the owl pincushion made by Gloria next time- it is so cute!

Charlie and I used a gift certificate he got as a retirement gift to eat at The Angus Barn in Raleigh with our friends Ricky and Mary.  They decorate it beautifully at this time of year, but you can always count on seeing lots of quilts hanging on the walls.

I have continued to paint lots of angels, and sent this one to a relative who just turned 90.

I purchased some cards with a framed mat that allows you to insert photos or artwork.

I think that soon I will be offering these for sale in an Etsy shop to raise money for cancer research, a subject close to my heart.

I hope that you are enjoying the holiday season.  Busy as it always is, Christmas time is my favorite. I have been sharing a Bible journaling page each day of December to try to keep in mind the "reason for the season."  Here is one that I did recently.

Sterling Edwards Landscape Painting Class

Today was a double-header for me at Art of the Carolinas, with both morning and afternoon classes.

First up was Big Brush Landscape Watercolors, with Sterling Edwards.  Sterling lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina.  He has a deep voice, sort of like Sam Elliott.  He was very laid-back and fun to learn from.  Here is the painting that he completed in class today.

Waterfall painting by Sterling Edwards, Art of the Carolinas 2016

Edwards says that he used to do photo-realistic paintings, but now exclusively works with colors  and shapes rather than detail.  He has his own line of Big Brushes with stiff nylon bristles.  He used those in his demo.

I ended up not purchasing his set of brushes.  I used my own brushes, including some that I inherited from my father.  Here is what I came home with today.

Waterfall painting by Jeanne Turner McBrayer in Sterling Edwards' workshop

Sterling helped me add the darks along the waterfall and made it a two-tiered waterfall.

I would like to rework the trees at the top a bit to make them more interesting.

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Contemporary Figure Painting Class

Now I will report on my first class at Art of the Carolinas 2016 with Bob Burridge.  The title was Contemporary Figure Drawing.  The advertised photo example was this:

That is what I thought he meant by a contemporary figure in art.  I was quite surprised to find that it was a Life Drawing Class with a nude model!  It was not embarrassing or awkward at all.  First we did timed sketches in charcoal on gray paper. The model assumed various poses and we sketched until time was called (just a few minutes to start with.)

I will share some of my sketches.  Please note I have never taken a life drawing class before, OR worked with charcoal!

There was a strong emphasis on dark against light and light against dark.

After using the charcoals on toned gray paper, we graduated to adding acrylic paint on watercolor paper.  Bob thought my painting of the seated figure was very successful, but said I should soften and lower the line between dark and light background that is dividing the picture in half right at her elbow.

All together, I probably did eighteen sketches or paintings during the one-day class.

 Did I mention we were to exaggerate the model's features?

I have to say, I really loved this class, and would take any class from Bob Burridge again.  He is fun, down-to-earth, and hugely talented.  He was very encouraging.  And, I would love to take another life-drawing class so I can get better at it. 

This afternoon,  I visited the Art of the Carolinas Trade show at the North Raleigh Hilton.  I came away with some replacement tubes of Holbein watercolor paint at half price, some toned gray paper, a casein spray which is supposed to protect all artwork without mounting under glass, and some new Pigma Micron black pens.  I also got some 11 x 14 gallery-wrapped canvas for only $2.99 each.  I had no problem finding parking, and the lines were not too long for checking out.

Tomorrow I will take a morning and an afternoon class with watercolor artists Sterling Edwards and Tom Lynch.   I can't wait!

Signing Back In

It has been a very busy couple of weeks!  A weeklong stay in the mountains, four days at Merlefest, a house full of company, and then a sinus headache that has lasted for 13 days have kept me occupied.  

We finally got the propane gas heater installed in the basement of our mountain cabin.  Just in time for summer!  Doesn't matter, I am looking forward to being able to quilt in the colder months.  One of these days, we will also have a ceiling, sheet rock walls, and a floor!

Here is another journal page on the Amazing Race Facebook challenge...next stop Italy.  Of course I thought of the great wines of Italy, and decided to try to paint wine glasses/bottles.  For this I looked once again to the free Bob Burridge videos on You-Tube and on his website.  He gives such insight into how light is reflected and bounced around in glass and liquids.

Both of these paintings are in acrylic, and are blatant copies of Bob's paintings as I try to learn his methods.

Then...off to Germany.  I decided to try to paint like Wassily Kandinsky, who although a Russian, spent a great amount of time in Germany.  Here is my impression of his painting Houses in Munich (1908).

I love the bright colors of his palette and the freedom of his brushstrokes.  I painted this freehand with no drawing ahead of time.

I am also working on two paintings of flowers inspired by Bob's videos.  They involve painting bright splotches of color, and then forming the shapes of the flowers and vase by negative painting around the original colors.  Mine are both works in progress on top of some old unsuccessful journal pages.

You would never believe what these two pages once looked like.  I like being able to paint over some bad attempts.  These are both done in acrylic paint. It is much easier to do the negative painting with a more opaque paint than watercolor.

Next up are some more Bible art journaling pages.

In the first one, I used Bob Burridge's techniques again to apply the light pastel colors of the angel, and then use darks to negative paint the shape of the angel and wings.  This one is done in watercolor. I like that you can still see some of the original bright colors under the dark blues and purples of the background.

Judges 6:12

Here are some other recent pages.

Psalm 145

Hebrews 4:10-11

Romans 5:8

Jeremiah 31:3

On Wednesday, I babysat for my three-year-old granddaughter, Charlie.  I used to keep her two days a week until last summer, and I still enjoy having her stay with me when possible.  We did lots of painting together, and I used her paintings to make a Mothers' Day gift for her mommy.

We painted the butterfly and bubbles together, and she painted some vast expanses of paper with colorful glitter paint that were cut up and used in the flowers. 

And here is a beautiful bouquet of my own from my South Carolina family.  Inspiration for a future painting?

We are lucky enough to live close to our other son and his family.  This morning it was church and brunch.  Here is Charlie with the balloon from her Mack-Mack that did not get away or get popped all through breakfast.  I am looking forward to my luxurious pedicure with which they gifted me!

That's it for now.  I went to my quilt bee meeting last week and have a few photos from that meeting.  

Happy Mothers' Day to all of you beautiful mothers out there!

Some Artsy Things

Still down here in southwest Florida, keeping an eye on the storm named Erika to see which track it decides to take.  

I brought my watercolor palette with me and fooled around with a sunset picture recently.  If you haven't painted for awhile, it helps to do some warm ups.  I consider this a warm-up because I recently did a similar painting of a marsh sunset.

Here is a nice surprise inside a ladies' restroom at The Crab and Fin Restaurant on St. Armand's Key, Sarasota.  The stall doors are painted like dresses on hangers or manikins.

Here are two more artsy things from the Ringling mansion.  I love the compass rose made of mosaic tile.   It is outside on the walkway leading to the mansion.

And here is another window facing the marble tile patio.  It looks like patchwork to me!

Every morning we get up at about 5:00AM and leave before 6:00.  On the way to Sarasota we see a sunrise almost every day.  God's own artwork!

Sunset Clouds

Clouds...beautiful to look at, harbingers of rain, symbols of happiness when puffy and white, depression when dark and gray.

I spent some time painting clouds using different techniques yesterday.  Here is one that I liked well enough to finish as a gift for my husband for Fathers' Day on Sunday.

Marsh Sunset, Jeanne Turner McBrayer, 2015

A highlight of our Sunset Beach vacations is always watching the sun set over Madd Inlet from the cottage on 40th Street at the end of the island.  

Here are some of the other cloud studies.

Wet paint blotted with tissue.

Watercolor wash dried, then re-wet with cloth towel, and color lifted with towel.

Wash of colors for sunset clouds.  This one led to the colors used in the Marsh Sunset painting at the top.

It has been extremely hot here in Raleigh, NC, this week.  We are heading for the hills for the weekend.  We have not been to our cabin for almost a month, and we are needing a fix, as well as a respite of cooler temperatures!

Barn Quilt Square

Finally...the finishing touch for our mountain cabin!  Our wooden quilt square, Dutch Dreams, is now installed!  We decided to hang it "on point" under the peak of the cathedral ceiling roof.

It was a very fun Mothers Day weekend in the mountains.  One thing we did was "walk the cows" from the pasture on the big hill behind my sister's house, down the mountain and across the street to Uncle Gary's new grassy pasture.  This involved a person walking each calf on a halter, and a Gator riding behind to help encourage them to proceed.  Here is my niece Melinda trying to get her boy started on the short journey.

I walked one, too.  He enjoyed the walk, and treated the entire trip like he was going to the salad bar, munching all the way.

 It was also my sister's 60th birthday.  I gave her a little painting of the dam over the creek on her property.  I have painted it several times now.

I also did a quick little painting of a tranquil mountain lake for my daughter-in-law for Mothers Day.

This week I have been keeping little Charlotte, my two-year old granddaughter.  What a delight!  Needless to say I have not gotten much done while she has been here, but I managed to finish another journal page.  The prompt for this one was "Feet."

I used the lyrics from a favorite Zac Brown song called Toes, and a photo from last year's family beach trip.  I painted over the black and white copy with watercolor to blend it in with the background.  This year's beach trip is now only 24 days away.  Bring it on!