It's Showtime

Saturday, October 1, 2016

October 1, 2016

It was a grey and rainy day today—autumn is officially here. But grey doesn't have to be oppressive. A lot of us painted in greys today and they were beautifully colorful. Let's start with Greeta's graystone houses. There's a lot of grey in the picture but look closely to see all the lovely colors.

Besides architecture, we love painting people. Greeta is right on trend with our second theme as she begins this painting of a painter, painting. You'll see this develop further, but the light spill from the still life onto the subject's face is incredible.

Greeta also brought in a sheet of "people studies." They are drawn straight away with paint—no preliminary sketching—and we love the spontaneity and life in these sketches.

More people! Here Susan paints a summer outing to remember at Navy Pier. Entitled A Wild Ride, you can just feel the movement and sense the excitement

Elaine is also painting people. In this case, it's a dual portrait of children at the ice cream shop—another last look at summer.

Bill is right on theme today. He's working to paint stone successfully. In this scene from Ireland, we think he's succeeded. We love the texture and the way the pops of color guide our eye through the space.

Here's another Irish scene featuring stone. It's an Irish post office. And while Bill doesn't feel it's totally successful (the paper started to pill and he couldn't work it any further), we like the shadow and the window tracery.

Another success! Here, Bill revisited a painting of a Dublin street where he felt the balance was less than satisfactory. It's perfect now.

Here's a beautiful use of complementary colors to create focus. Bill paints reddish-brown Irish cows in a lush green field. Especially well done is the depth of field here. This just goes on for miles, doesn't it?

When you think of Ireland, you think of cups of tea, don't you? Well this isn't exactly Irish tea, but Isaac's still life is coming along beautifully. The addition of the window makes for great composition and the sepia background has all the drama of black, but is warmer and cosier.

Speaking of Ireland and grey stone, Madeleine has gone back to add some finishing touches to the St. Bridget shrine. Darkening the background slightly really emphasizes St. Bridget, doesn't it?

Ireland and architecture.... what fits today's theme better? Madeleine's captured the feel of Dublin in this painting of their rowhouses.

Just look at the foreground of Madeleine's painting of Cork harbor! The beautiful undulations add both energy and a sense of serenity.

Marva is also painting a beach scene; it's wilder, less populated, but just as peaceful. These dunes are on the east coast of the US. Look at the foliage!

Glen is also painting foliage, but with a distinctly autumnal feel. These leaves and background are perfect for the wet-in-wet technique he's used to begin.

Steve is also using wet-in-wet technique to begin his background—but his is lush and tropical. The toucan is going to be as colorful as the autumn leaves. It's interesting that the same color plan and style can succeed for such totally different subjects.

Ken's corn foliage is far more stylized and far less "wet." We love the leaves, although Ken isn't enamored of the blue background.

We've agreed that this corn painting would make wonderful fabric. We love the abstract pattern, the colors and the mirror imaging. We can't wait to see Ken's finished painting.

Alan's next painting in his series of onions is below. This is painted on Yupo and we stand in awe of Alan's mastery of this ground. Like Ken's corn painting above, this is an example of a painting format called a "field" painting. You'll notice that there is no single area of focus, but the entire surface is covered by the subject as pattern.

Here, Alan is painting more onions, but he's experimenting with Illustration Board. He thought it would have the same characteristics as Yupo or hot press paper, but it takes paint very differently. Still, we think he's managing this difficult surface well.

Speaking of experimentation, Alan is also doing a series of cloud paintings, using different grounds. Look and see what a difference it makes to paint similar scenes on hot press watercolor paper....

... on Masa paper, crinkled and mounted to watercolor paper....

... on rough watercolor paper....

...on Yupo....

...and on Yupo, but with texture medium in the clouds. Same subject, but what a difference the paper makes!

Back to basics, our newest students are at one of our favorite exercises. Here is their first actual painting—the three way fruit or vegetable. Erika does a banana, very dry....

...wet-in-wet....

... and a combination. Notice the use of complementary colors.

Luciana does some color testing prior to painting her three-way leaf. Aren't the colors rich and luscious?

Here she's playing with using the paint as wet as possible.

And here are Luciana's very dry and combination leaves. More complementary colors and lovely calligraphic marks.

Pia's also testing colors for her apple.

Here are the drybrush and combination apples on one sheet of paper. Doesn't the drybrush sparkle?

And here is Pia's "wet" apple. You can still see the color puddling on the paper. Now that's wet!

Mark your calendars! You're invited to.....

Group Art Exhibit at Ten Cat

As you know, October is Artists Month in Chicago and our very own Bill and Madeleine Settles are having an exhibition at Ten Cat. You can see the art throughout October, but you are also cordially invited to the opening reception. Mark your calendar—this is a great venue and we always have fun. Details below:

Madeleine Settles and William Settles
Recent Watercolor Paintings

Exhibition: October 3–29, 2016
Opening Reception:

Saturday, October 15, 2016, 4–7pm

3931 N. Ashland Avenue, Chicago

Sunday, September 25, 2016

September 24, 2016

Today, the star of the show was our book table, pictured below. We each brought in a book, magazine or printed screenshot of a watercolorist whose style we admire. Then, in lieu of Showtime, we went around the circle claiming "our" painter and explaining what attracted us.

As a result, we are missing some photos and unsure about some muses (we were all so engrossed in the art and artists that our note-taking and picture-taking both suffered!). We'll correct mistakes and omissions next week, but meanwhile, we'll begin with Greeta. Here she's painting a neighborhood graystone. Look closely to see all the lovely colors in the stone.

Greeta's also finished up her painting of a cow. We love the tag (it looks like jewelry) and the soft background which draws our eye right to the face of the cow.

Ken's corn painting is progressing nicely, from the striped leaves to the gridded background. Oh, and Pat has a correction—Ken's nickname is NOT Ken Ten, but Ken Cat (or maybe Ken Kat). We stand corrected. Ken's favorite watercolorist is Peggy McNamara, artist-in-residence at the Field Museum and noted nature painter. When you click on the artists' names, you'll go (we hope) to their Google image page. This will give you a good sense of the "vibe" of the artist. You can switch back to the "all" tab if you want to learn more about the artist.

Steve is also into nature, drawing this colorful toucan...

... having finished this serenely beautiful winter scene. See if you can spot the cardinal. It's a tiny bit of red in the trees. What a lovely touch! Steve was one of the few of us who espoused a photorealistic artist, Linda Stevens Moyer. He's fascinated by her way of seeing and layering. But he's especially drawn to Nelson Boren. Steve loves his mastery of texture.

Susan revisits an old sketch of her father and grandfather. She's painting a watercolor of them based on a colored pencil sketch (below) from years ago. Susan says she was influenced by Gustav Klimt early in her watercolor career.

Elaine is moving from architecture to portraiture with this beginning painting. Her absolute favorite watercolorist is John Singer Sargent. She is enamored of his ability to say so much with just a few lively brushstrokes. She's also amazed at how many subjects he's mastered. Another favorite is Edward Hopper. She loves the sharp value contrasts and the sense of story he brings to everything he paints.

Sara began drawing a Hopper-esque scene today from a recent vacation. It's a lovely composition, as you'll see next week. Meanwhile, Sara's watercolor muse is Walter Anderson. An American painter with a fascinating life story, he's admired for his energy and lively brushwork, as well as his use of color.

Bill was painting a stone archway (see the picture next week!). He looked for an artist whose style he was trying to achieve and found Iain Stewart. Stewart is an American painter with a lovely, fluid style that is quintessentially watercolor.

Madeleine chose to showcase a genre rather than an individual artist. She brought in an article featuring several artists who painted scenes from their travels. The styles were different, the skies were different, but the urge to document new experiences visually was what spoke to Madeleine. No wonder her current painting (again, you'll see it next week!) is from her recent trip to Ireland.

And Alan is adding finishing touches to the latest in his Onions series on Yupo. His favorite artist is Errol Barron, whose work bears no resemblance to Alan's color-drenched Yupo masterpieces. Still his line and wash style is beautifully elegant... and very architectural!

Our new students are zipping through the exercises. They are matching colors (including skin and the dreaded paper towel) and exploring complementaries, with plenty of time for extra-curricular painting. We are so impressed. Here's Erika....

... and here are Luciana and Pia's. Unfortunately, because we didn't do an official showtime, and none of the photographs had any identifying names, not to mention that both Pia and Lucy sat on the same side of the table, so there were no clues there... in short, we can't identify whose are whose with absolute certainty. We apologize profusely and we'll correct ourselves next week, but we think these are Luciana's experiments in complementary colors and color matching....

...and these are Pia's. Of course, we can be wrong and we'll correct that next week. Regardless of whose is whose, these are both lovely and bold. And both Pia and Lucy have mastered the art of the bloom and soft watery effects. Come back and see more!