October 13, 2018

It's cool, crisp and sunny—a quintessential autumn day! Those of us who weren't on vacation were having a great time creating paintings full of color and fun. Take Elaine T., for example. Her painting had a serious goal (painting transparently), a serious color palette (browns, greens and ochres) and even a serious subject (ecology!). Yet she couldn't stop the fun. Taken from a newspaper article about snapping turtles being released, these Turtle Twins are beautifully painted, fun, and just a little scary—but mostly cool!

From there, we move into joyful, happy color. Elaine T. bought some new paints for her upcoming series and is testing and mixing them here. It looks cool and retro and fun because the new series will revisit Kiddieland. If you grew up in Chicago, you know Kiddieland. So relax and wait for the fun memories to flood in.

Elaine T. uses sunny aureolin yellow to start painting the rocket ship ride. Ah, memories!

Just as happy, colorful and fun is Marva's abstraction. It too brings back great memories, but these are of Pepperland, not Kiddieland.

Ken's next cat in his series also uses fantastic colors. Yes, it's a cat's eye (hence the series name, Not That Damn Cat Again) and not a tree. But it's more colorful and magical than any cat we've seen.

Sara's painting of her mother uses unreal color and shape to set a warmly nostalgic mood.

With a few moments to spare, Sara experimented with her flat brush to paint this lovely floral still life. The expressive brushwork made us all take another look at the flat brushes in our kits!

Elaine O.'s portrait also ranks high on the fun factor. Even if you don't know her brother Bob (left), you can't help but laugh at these sharp-dressed lookalikes checking each other out.

Like Sara, Elaine O. moved from a family portrait to a floral. These purple petunias are growing outside her window, silhouetted against a softly colorful background.

More nature... more color. Gabby celebrates fall with these beautifully colorful leaves. She's made good use of her wet-in-wet exercise from last week. And she's cleverly added salt for texture.

In another extracurricular nature painting, Gabby uses dry brush to paint Brazilian pine trees. The needle pattern is different from our northern pines and these yield delicious pine nuts.

From the exuberant colors of the above paintings, Gabby's egg exercise is a study in subtlety. Yet even here, she still sees the color in the white and grey.

Today's exercise has Gabby painting two fruits/vegetables. The color and texture on the clementine are perfect and the apple glistens, even at this early stage.

Kevin is painting small but fast today, trying to complete half a term in a single class. Look closely at this postcard-sized page to see his exploration of complementary colors. Then, along the sides, he quickly color matched the infamous paper towel, his skin and eight other colors in the room...

...before moving on to the "three-way fruit." This is the "dry" version as you can see from the brushstrokes. The color is spot on, so we know Kevin mastered the color-matching exercises.

There's still time to see Ken's paintings at the Ten Cat. Stroll by and see them in the windows—or go inside for beer and good company. Don't delay! These are the last tomatoes of summer.

Mosaic Tomatoes.  Ken's exhibition at Ten Cat Tavern features his popular mosaic tomatoes series. Drop by to see the art.

      Where:
      Ten Cat Tavern

      3931 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL

     When:
     August 22–October 15, 2018