September 16, 2017

A few of us were catching up on end-of-summer vacations, but the rest of us had a wonderful time. We had a few appearances of Sara's garden, but mostly, we painted people, places.... and cats. We start with Sara's triple portrait (and no, they aren't in Sara's garden). The guys are slowly taking shape and looking very true to themselves. We also love the poses, the color choices and what an all-round "guy" painting this is.

Steve is also painting people. These life studies use only two colors (so far), yet yield a range of realistic skin colors. These are designed to fit in a pair of small matching frames.

Susan is back to vacation landscape paintings. Here, she commemorates a two-day trip on the Rocky Mountaineer train and surrounds it with portraits of some traveling companions. These are college sorority sisters and they travel together every other year. What fun!

Elaine is back to portraiture. She strongly suspects this is Clifton Chenier but hasn't checked to be sure yet. Even so, he fits in her People I Don't Know series—and she's particularly enamored of the accordion, having taken lessons herself for a very short time. She still regrets missing out on a future in zydeco.

Greeta has entitled her painting Alan Looking at Rocks. Actually, he's looking at a koi pond, but we love the title and we love the way she's painted a recognizable portrait in a landscape. 

Greeta finished her third house portrait for her book of houses in her neighborhood. Notice the small touches of ink she's used to add fine details. Just enough to describe the skilled workmanship without overworking the painting.

As you may recall, we mentioned Sara's garden. Here's a small jewel by Greeta, featuring a bit of that garden. The gazing ball sparkles in the cool shade as a shaft of light creates lovely shadows.

Alan has painted a different corner of Sara's garden. The use of line and wash really suits the whimsical nature of the scene.

Doesn't this just feel like summer? Alan commemorates the old pier at his cottage. Contributing to the lazy, relaxed feel is the beautiful blending achieved by wet-in-wet washes.

We can't even think about painting gardens without thinking of Marva. Here, she's painting an elegant, lush garden with stonework, iron lattices and richly colored flowers.

Isa has finished up her garden painting, too. The shadows on the fence from the foliage are the perfect touch.  And zoom in to see Isa's masterful handling of color in the fence gaps and the shadows. 

Isa is beginning another painting of a garden. She's started with a sketch and we already like the stylized foliage.

Ken's cat.When last we saw this, there was a small white unpainted bit. It's finished now and not a bit of white remains in this beautiful masterpiece.  Keep reading for a chance to see this in person. It will be featured in Ken's Cats and Corn show. It will be at the Ten Cat at the end of September and you're invited!

Where do you go from the painting above? Why, another glitter cat, of course! Look closely and you'll see the beginnings of whiskers on this one. 

Emily is off to a great start with her plaid. Her colors are rich and intense and she seems to have a handle on dry-brush as well.

  

Not to mention that Emily is fast! She's painted the next two exercises in the course of a single class. Here are the color wheels.  To the left, she uses just three colors to populate the entire color wheel. We especially like the way she's added tadpole tails, showing the color at full strength and washed out. On the right, she does the tint/tone/shade color wheel. In both of these, the small dots of color look like candy and make us very happy.

 

Upcoming events

Corn and Cats.  Ken will be having a show at Ten Cat Tavern (how appropriate!). Come to the opening reception or just drop by to see the paintings.

      Where:
      Ten Cat Tavern

      3931 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL

     When:
     Exhibition: September 30–November 15
     Reception: September 30, 3pm-ish

September 9, 2017

After a month away, we are back and rarin' to go. Did you miss us? We've got a lot to share today—from paintings we've done while we were away, to upcoming events and a new challenge from Pat—so let's get started! While most of us were painting buildings or portraits (or both), there's always the rebel. Although, for Ken, this isn't rebelling at all. Cats are a return to his roots. Scroll back through the years and you'll see. Here, he's painting cat eyes in a mosaic technique...

 ... before moving on to this masterpiece. It's taken him over a month, but it's worth it. We couldn't decide how to describe this sparkling painting—glittery, Byzantine, Mardi Gras, jewel-like. No matter how we describe it, we love it!

We are excited to welcome Isa back to "fun" school, now that she's finished "serious" school. She's patiently painting leaves over a fence. We love the variety of colors and the layers. It has a sparkly mosaic feel and looks positively Klimt-ian (if that's a word).

Greeta painted during the break and did both people and architecture. Her grandson is concentrating in the back seat of the car. We're glad to see the seat belt in place; safety first and all!

Then, Greeta moves on to buildings—three of them, in fact. She's starting a book dedicated solely to the buildings of her neighborhood, similar to her previous booklet of faces. What a great idea! And what a lovely neighborhood!

Madeleine, too is painting grandsons and buildings.  She's captured her grandsons in a great pose, standing in a large verdant park... which just happens to be their back yard.

 Her buildings are part of a line and wash cityscape in Ireland.

Below, Madeleine uses acrylics to paint a super moon on a dark Chicago night as it lights up a nearby skyscraper. Go back to February to see that Bill painted the same moon in watercolor and the difference in the feel of the media.

Bill painted two cityscapes to test his new Mission paints. We agree that they are very rich and pigmented. This is the Vanilla cafe in Turkey.

Below, Bill uses the Mission paints to paint buildings, adding backlit people in the foreground. The new paints work well here.

Moving to Bruges, Bill does a sketch using muted primaries...

...before beginning the intricate painting, which is more precisely drawn.

We love this atmospheric landscape by Bill, especially the boats and the reflections.

People! Titled When the Saints Go Marching In, Bill's painting prefigures our new painting challenge. Read on to find out more.

Susan has finished her food series and is painting a vacation to the Canadian Rockies. Notice how she's added people to all her landscapes? They add scale and tell a story. And notice that she's labelled the Banff gondolas, Peyto Lake and Spirit Island.

Steve is doing people and he's at the drawing stage. Notice how he's doing four different drawings on the same page and that he's using grids of different sizes as a drawing aid.

Elaine finished her architectural study of the chapel at Rosehill cemetery. She hasn't added people to this.... and doesn't plan to!

Pat's Challenge. What's this about, you ask? Pat has challenged us to do something artistic every day and she's added some structure to the challenge. Each day, we think of a song and, inspired by the song, do a sketch, painting or some other artwork. It can be as little as a five minute sketch or a full-blown painting, but if we follow through, we'll have 49 small works of art by the time the class is over.

Save the date! Ken will definitely be having a show opening at Ten Cat, probably at the end of September. The exhibit will feature (what else?) corn and cats.  There will be an opening reception and you'll all be invited.Watch this space for details!

July 22, 2017

It's our last session and we painted up a storm...probably to hold us over for the summer break. Grab a tall cold drink and follow along. If you do, you'll be rewarded with several invitations—an exhibition, sketch club and more. We begin with Susan's newest series of food paintings (you may want to grab a snack, too. This will make you hungry). She's added a border to the platter of the sweet and sour fish.

Here she paints bitter melon. Notice how she uses a complementary color for the plate? And look at the backgrounds. This features bitter melon leaves and tendrils to complement the food.

Susan does love her complementary colors, doesn't she? Notice the purple shadows and background around the mango, banana fritters and pastry.

Here's the noodle dish from last week. Susan's added a suitably ethnic background... the Great Wall of China.  If that isn't the name of the dish, it should be.

Can you tell that Tony's been to the Art Institute? Like many of us, he's seen the Gauguin exhibit and painted this homage to Gauguin.

Greeta painted these tropical-looking lantana blooms....

... using her new set of Mission paints. Here's  a swatch card of the nine colors in the set. They are as vibrant as they appear here. But Greeta feels they dry paler and less saturated, although she wants to experiment a little more.

More experimentation. Greeta is using a home-made easel to paint this at a slight angle. This is a scene from Graceland cemetery, reflected in a pond.

This is Greeta's lovely garden at night. The strings of lights, lush foliage and rich colors make this scene magical.

Alan finished his landscape from last week. This is definitely a daytime scene as you can see by the sunshine on the trees and the shadows in the foreground. Still, Alan isn't quite satisfied...

...so he made another attempt. This one uses less realistic colors and textures. He's also made the cabin smaller to draw more attention to the trees.

Sara has added more color to her portrait below, slowly modeling the people. While she's concerned that there is a lot of beige, we're not seeing the problem.

Elaine added the final touches to her painting below, part of her People I Don't Know series. She also successfully fought off critics who wanted her to add a background.

And then, Elaine moved on to architecture. We're not sure if this is an end to the portraiture or if she's merely taking a summer break. Interestingly, like Greeta, this is from a Chicago cemetery, Rosehill.

Madeleine has also finished her painting which hits all our favorite subjects.... stone, brick, texture, portraits and perspective. Here's how to do Ireland without much green paint.

 And then, Madeleine goes right back to Dublin to begin a pen and ink cityscape.

Remember how we mentioned using sketches before painting? Here's one from Bill where he explores the shapes of a cityscape as seen from above.

And here is the watercolor painting. Notice that he's changed from portrait orientation in the sketch to landscape in the painting? He's definitely achieved his goal of simplification.

Bill's also done this exploration of line and color.

Bill does another B&W sketch to color painting below.

And remember these sketches. Bill is planning to add color to these, but not by filling in the spaces. 

Watch and see what he plans to do.

Maybe he'll even add a layer of mosaic, like Ken has done to his cat's eye. Yes, those are tiny little mosaics, but join us in Fall. Ken assures us the entire painting will be done by then.

Upcoming events and important announcements

Sketch Club. Our sketch club is back—and you are invited to join us! Our first sketch club will feature Sara's amazing garden. But mark your calendar—we'll be meeting on Sunday afternoon, not Saturday morning. Here are the details:

• Who: You! This casual meetup is open to anyone with a pencil and paper and an urge to sketch. And this one is even open to non-sketching partners.
• When: Sunday, July 30, 4:00–7:00 pm
• Where: Sara's back yard. 2553 W. Fargo, Chicago (near Touhy and Western)

It's fun, relaxing and casual—join us if you can.

Save the date! We know it's early, but we also know how quickly your calendar fills up. In September, Ken will have a show opening at Ten Cat. The exhibit will probably open mid-September and will feature (what else?) corn and cats.  There will be an opening reception and you'll all be invited.Watch this space for details!

Our class schedule. For those of you who wondered when the next classes begin (perhaps you want to join us?), here's our schedule.

• September 9 — October 21, 2017
• October 28 — December 16, 2017
• January 20 — March 3, 2018
• March 24 — May 12, 2018 (off March 31)

And with that, we say goodbye until our next class begins on September 9. See you then!