November 23, 2019

We take one last look at autumn... through Sara's window! Sara has finished her painting from last week, tweaking colors to give us a clearer look at the spectacular colors of the season. It really looks like we are looking through an open window.

Autumn still life scenes are so colorful and fun to paint. Sara did this lovely painting before eating the squash (and drinking the wine).

Ken is close to finishing his view of  Chicago alley on a crisp fall night. It's complete with perspective and shadows and light falling on the garages, houses and dumpsters. Come back to see it reunited with the other three quadrants of this scene.

Alan finished and sealed his painting of a tomato still life. This is on canvas and features the last of the ripe tomatoes in a beautiful bowl, set against a tablecloth background.

Back to Yupo and back to his "birdhouse" series, Alan paints the background to this painting of the Montrose Harbor Bird Sanctuary. The vertical lines aren't gridlines.... they will become a hedge of purple martin birdhouses.

As if that weren't enough, Alan paints these colorful dancers. It's on Yupo, so it looks very liquid and abstract, but watch it progress. 

Another quintessentially autumnal scene... Greeta finishes her painting of Chicago Henge, as the golden light spills through the downtown canyons, illuminating the El and the city beyond.

Back to her "people" sketchbook, Greeta paints retro scenes of folks waiting for busses at Six Corners, Chicago. Especially nattily-attired is the gentleman in the suit, vest, tie and panama hat.

Elaine T. finished her iconic painting of her son, introducing his son to the magnificence of the elements.

And here's Elaine T.'s grandson, surrounded by the colorful autumn leaves. This one is going to be good!

Susan's Sonata of the Moon and Sun uses elements of prior paintings (the musicians), and positions them against the angel wings from the church sanctuary where the concert happened. The musical notes look like a stained glass window and you can see the moon and sun lending color and shadow to the notes.

Here, Susan paints women making Parols (Philippine Christmas Stars). This is a sketch, preparatory to a full painting.

Elaine O. masked out her subject so she could lay in the background on this painting of a little trick-or-treater spotlighted against a dark street. Come back to see what happens—this could be cool...or a total disaster!

Here's a look into Elaine O.'s sketchbook as she sketches an upcoming Buddha painting. She's mainly testing colors here.

Speaking of color, our newbies have done some serious color learning and they have moved on to actual paintings! Notice the grapes, Donna's model, as she paints them three ways—wet-in-wet, very dry, and a combination.

Donna must like those colors, as she painted these lovely flowers in the same palette.

Habte is painting the "giant fruit" exercise, in which a fruit is painted so large as to expand off the page. The main objective is to capture the essence of the fruit. We're including the model along with the painting, so you can see how well everyone managed to complete the exercise.

 Habti also painted these two landscapes.

They're both watercolor, possibly with a touch of body color.

We included Anand's color swatches as well as the pear and the painting. Even the swatches are beautiful!

Notice how our  newbies chose fruits with soft color gradations? Paula's mango painting is a beautiful example of one color smoothly grading into another.

Anna also chose an apple with color striations and, like the rest of our artists, she's captured her model's essence.

Sarah's model is on the paper. It's camouflaged against her color swatches.

More color explorations by Sarah:

Thanks to Ken and Elaine T., our paints will be wetter and our paintbrushes resting high and dry. Elaine T. gave us all pipettes and Ken provided an assortment of Ken-crafted ceramic "brush cosies". Here's one artist's haul. Cool, huh?

We'll be off next week, so we'll see you the week after that. Happy Thanksgiving!

November 16, 2019

It's another week chock-full of great art, so settle in and enjoy. We begin with the letter A—which stands for Alan and Apple and much more. Alan finished his painting of his apple harvest. It's on Yupo, which explains the way the paint pools and flows. The shiny finish is gloss sealant. It's necessary to seal a finished painting on Yupo...or risk having it wash away the next time the painting meets water!

Another surface, another fruit for Alan. Here he's painting tomatoes on gessoed canvas. There are more layers of color coming, so keep watching. We already like the way he's handling the tablecloth background. What do you think of the texture of the canvas showing through? We had several fans... and several who weren't so keen. No right answer here, just wondering.

Lots of us are finishing up prior masterpieces. Elaine T. adjusted the background to better focus on her grandson, the star of this painting. We love the impressionist background and the way she's truly captured the subject's personality.

Yes, that sweet baby makes another appearance in this painting. Elaine T. paints her grandson in the arms of his loving father (Elaine's son). We can't rave about this enough—the mythic quality, the composition, the colors, the textures of the rocks and clouds. Seriously, doesn't this feel like the scene from the lion king where Mufasa shows little Simba his future kingdom?

Elaine O. also finished her portrait of her great niece. Notice how she simplifies the background into blocks of color and focuses on the face and gesture of the girl? Also, the decision to include the Frozen shirt details really adds a lot about her personality.

Elaine O. moved to her sketchbook to work out details on her next painting. This little firefighter is spotlighted at the end of a successful trick-or-treat outing. Zoom in to see how how Elaine uses her sketchbook to play with the texture of the street and her color scheme (it's yellow and violet complementary colors; not typical for her).

Greeta is hard at work in her "people" sketchbook. We're thrilled to see that she's back at the Art Institute. This time, she's documenting the Andy Warhol exhibit. While she's not sure if any of these will make it to full paintings, we love the way sketchbooks record our lives and memories for us.

Greeta continues her work on the Chicago scene. This features a train silhouetted against magnificent "henge" lighting. The glorious light happens twice a year and is the real subject of this painting. Come back—it's going to be great!

Ken finished this quadrant of his Chicago alley scene. And this may not be sunset with Chicago-henge lighting, but still, Ken catches the twilight stillness and mood. He's not quite satisfied with the way the wires fill the sky space, but he resisted suggestions to add birds, squirrels and cats sitting on the wires. Imagine!

Ken began this final quadrant of his photo. Not much to see yet, but rest assured you'll see plenty when you come back next week.

Sara finished her last painting of the view from her window. This one emphasizes the inside/outside  division and gives us a real sense of the light on the autumn foliage. Sara says she's finished with this series, being a little tired of this tree.... for now.

So, Sara returned to portraits. She's using complementary colors to define this face, taken from a small mosaic-like painting. She's definitely got the sense of volume.

Did you notice the invitation to St. Gregory's Open Sketch last week? Sara was there and shared this sketch. Thanks, Sara! (Ken and Elaine were also there, but didn't share their sketchbooks.) If you've ever been there, you know these arches. They seem deceptively simple, but they are a real challenge in perspective. Sara caught the feel of the place, especially after she added the color wash.

Susan is using the same church's stained glass for inspiration. She's adding this window and the altar angel wings as background. Then, she'll add the musicians from the concert painting she did a few weeks ago. Should be interesting!

Those exuberant colors bring us to our newbies and their color explorations. Here's Anand with the fabled "three-way fruit" exercise. Our artists find a fruit, vegetable, leaf or branch and paint it three different ways—very wet, very dry, and in a combination. Look closely at Anand's: the subject is in the center. Then, he's painted dry at top, wet to the right, and very dry to the left.

Anand also finished his color matching exercise where artists match the colors in the collages they created. Anand made things especially difficult for himself by having some of his elements be 3D. Still, he succeeded, especially with the fiery colors at lower right. (The collage is at bottom, his color match at top).

Here is Victoria's mystery fruit. (It truly is a mystery... to all of us.) It's some plastic object and we can tell you it looks very like the object, even if we can't name it! We are keeping all of the versions together so you can see the differences at a glance. At top is the dry version with its scumbly texture; at center is wet-in-wet with soft edges; finally is the combination of techniques.

And here is Victoria's color matching exercise. Just so you know, the collage is on the left; the painted color match swatches to the right. Great job!

Here is Habti's three-way fruit. You have to look closely to see the subtle color blends, but it's worth it. To the right are the combination (top) and wet (bottom) versions. At bottom left is the dry version. We love the rain and clouds Habti's added to the top left. After all, it's watercolor!

Habti did some extra credit paintings. We love the skillful brushwork and the horizontal bands he's employed.

Here are Paula's three fruits. From left to right are: wet, dry, and combination. Notice the sparkle in the center dry-brush highlight.

Paula's color matching exercise is of her swatches only. We don't have the collage, but we can assure you that it's very accurate indeed!

Don't you love Paula's extra credit? She has a real understanding of how watercolor flows and mingles.

Anna's three-way fruits may be small, but they are mighty! We had to get up close and personal to see them, but it's rewarding. Look at the lovely granulation she's achieved, even in the wet version. We're sure you can tell, but these grapes are, left to right, dry, combo and wet.

Anna's hockey portrait of her brothers was such a success that she was asked to do another. She's omitted the soft blue vignette on this one, resulting in a more graphic version.

Donna's been hard at work doing homework and extra credit. While the photos are a little fuzzy, we know you want to see her explorations in complementary colors....

... color matching swatches...

... and extra credit flowers. The brushwork on these are lovely.

See you next week!