November 2, 2019

Welcome to our salute to fall! We begin with a view from Sara's window of trees changing color and the bright clear light typical of the season. Sara only used three colors in this painting, concentrating on the values. And herein lies our major lesson of the day: While color gets all the credit, value does all the work. And it's true! Even if the colors weren't spot on, we'd know exactly what we're seeing. Keep watching to see if that isn't true for all of our art (we won't hit you on the head with it, but...).

Ken finished his alley scene, adding to the shadows on the alley ground. Alan calls this "a symphony of texture" and we heartily agree! By the way, doesn't this look like a reminder to turn your clocks back? Don't forget!

Having finished that, Ken began this study of the next quadrant of his series of paintings from a single photo. This is another sky view. While he's still laying the groundwork before adding the nighttime elements, we already like this. And we're interested to see how he handles the tracery of utility wires.

Susan is also bidding autumn a fond adieu as she paints these leaves and berry sprigs from life. She gathered some of the colorful leaves and berries that were downed in the Halloween snowstorm and painted them. We love fall!

Alan's fall activities included apple-picking—and then painting them! These are just a few of the harvest and we love the way the deep shadows describe the forms.

While he was waiting for the washes to dry, Alan continued to add to his New Orleans street scene. He's deepening the darker values and adding depth and volume to this little beauty.

Alan also finished his painting on canvas, below. He's added to the ledge and deepened the shadows so his reader nestles into the cushion. Isn't this one of your favorite fall activities, curling up with a good book?

Greeta is  also working on her sketchbook of people. The sketchy style with which she captures the runner below is a perfect gesture painting. It captures all the movement and body position she's interested in, without any unnecessary details.

Here's another study from Greeta's sketchbook of people. The fellow in the foreground is casually sitting on a giant tire and the background people, while distinctive, are definitely background figures.

Elaine T., on the other hand, is trying to capture a particular person in this wedding painting of her mother. We are blown away by the richness of texture in all the textiles and the way her posture shows the regally elegant bride.

Elaine T. (finally) began a portrait of her grandson. This baby is adorable! Yes, he has those killer eyelashes and those wonderful expressions. This makes us happy. 

Elaine O. did this portrait to test out an old tube of paint she found rattling around her paintbox. She only used two colors—jaune brilliant and cobalt violet, both colors she doesn't use often. Despite the unnatural colors, we recognize this as a face because of the values.

Here's a glimpse into Elaine O's sketchbook as she familiarizes herself with a face she plans to paint. There is very little color here and it's done without any preliminary sketching, but it's a valuable practice nonetheless.

We have a host of newbies with most impressive paintings. Habti did this color wheel using only the three primaries. And the beautifully textured brown at top? That's all the colors together!

Here, he started his collage of colors that attracted him. Looking at the color wheel above, there's no doubt that these are from the same hand.

As for the rest of our newbies, they've moved on to the "advanced" color wheel. They explore primaries, secondaries, along with tints, shades and tones. Anna's is deep and highly saturated.

Donna's is delicate and "watercolor-y". Notice how the colors are set off by the thin white lines.

Paula's color wheel is vibrant and alive; it seems to move. Wouldn't you like one of these as an umbrella?

Sarah used a different starting triad and produced an equally lovely color wheel. She used some of the space on the outer edges to fine tune her lively colors.

Victoria hasn't quite finished, but you can see where she's going. Her colors are highly saturated, vivid and bright.

Anand's soft watery swatches are rimmed with wide borders of white. This looks like a palette!

But he doesn't stop there! From the subtle colors above, he's gone to this colorful extra-credit landscape. Notice the use of complementary colors? Anand is really advanced!

Upcoming Events

 

Open Sketch date. You're invited to join us next Saturday afternoon at St. Gregory the Great Church for an open sketching/photography session. This is a great opportunity to see, sketch or photograph a truly magnificent architectural treasure. A docent will also be on hand to answer questions. This site was featured in the Chicago Open architecture tour and recommended by the Tribune as one of the top ten sites, so this is a great opportunity if you missed it then.

     Where:
     St. Gregory the Great Church
     5545 N. Paulina
     Church entrance is on the corner of Gregory and Paulina;
     one block west of Ashland and one block south of Bryn Mawr

     When:
     Saturday, November 9
     12:00–3:00pm