March 24, 2018

We're back, having dodged a snowstorm. And some of us were marching instead of painting, but despite the sparse turnout, we have some fine paintings to show. We begin with Elaine's painting of the medieval room at the Art Institute. She was happy with the subject and nervous about adding the background, even though that was a large part of the attraction. Finally, she boldly added the red... which changed the entire balance of the painting. After some back and forth, fine-tuning the armor and deepening the background shadows, we think this is close to finished.

And if you have a knight in shining armor, it goes without saying you need a castle.  Bill revisited an old painting of an Irish castle from a year or so ago. First, he did a monotone value study....

... before moving on to the painting. We love the sophisticated colors, the ducks and rocks, and the addition of people to give scale to the scene.
 

Susan is back from vacation and painting memories, too. Here she paints a trip to Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It's a temple carved out of limestone mountains, guarded by a huge gold statue. And after that, you still have to climb some 270+ steep stairs before you get to the temple entrance.

 

Madeleine is also painting warm weather vacation memories. This beautifully abstracted beach is in Costa Rica.

Then, Madeleine began this sunny beach scene from Mexico. Can you tell she's ready for summer... or a vacation... or both?

Steve is on the same wavelength as he paints a study for his merman series. If you look closely, you can see the merman diving into the water, silhouetted against a wave. Notice the yellow? That's masking fluid, used to save the white of the paper in the areas of the foam and splash. Keep watching to see what happens.

Tony is also sketching and experimenting—and very successfully at that! He begins by sketching a portrait with a water soluble Itoya calligraphy pen. Then, he wet the paper purposefully to pull out the color. Look closely at the results. The black ink bleeds out into lovely, subtle pinks, blues and purples. This looks like a marble sculpture, doesn't it?

Moving along, Tony used the same pen and the same technique on a paper towel. Because of the absorbency of the paper, the separating colors are even more noticeable, as is the movement of the ink. I know you can't see it here, but even the backside of the towel looks wonderful.

Sara was one of the people marching instead of painting, and we're grateful. We're also glad she sent us this sketch. Yep, we need our baby Nora fix. Maybe it's just us, but isn't she growing so quickly? Look at that adorable expression—she looks so alert!

Yi is painting one of our favorite flowers, the sunflower. Her petals have so much movement and the leaves are beautifully drawn. We're eager to see how this comes out.

Ken's been busy painting flowers, too. These are tomato flowers, done in his mosaic style. Here's the painting from last time, finished. It shows the sepals and petals as seen from behind.

And here's another. This one may be very close to finished. Ken likes the flower, particularly the petals, but wonders if the background is distracting.

While he's pondering, he's moving on to the next stage—both in the tomato life-cycle and in his mosaic style. The petals are gone, having given way to small green tomatoes. And the rigid mosaic lines have become squiggly and organic.

We have two new students, too! And they got a lot done in their very first class. Mae tested her paints with some color swatches....

...before moving on to the popular plaid. You'll notice Mae's colors are slightly different than the typical, but the learning is the same. She's just using the paints she has. This is lovely.

Tal started with the plaid (on the left) and immediately began to experiment with transparency, blending and even dry brush. Here's another example of an exercise or sacrifice sheet that's worthy of a frame. These newbies are going to fit in just fine!

We'll be off next week for Easter, Spring Break, Spring Cleaning Week... whatever you want to call it...and we'll be back the week after that. By then, it'll be April and we're hoping we will have definitively turned the corner into spring all across the country. But in the meantime, you can drop by the Ten Cat and see our exhibition. It's still up!

The Ten Cat Group Watercolor Show.  We are having a group show at Ten Cat! The paintings are on display in the windows and you can stroll by and see them. See the postcard below for details.

      Where:
      Ten Cat Tavern

      3931 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL

     When:
     Exhibition: February 18–April 15, 2018