Village Gallery Art Challenge Show Starts May 6th

The Village Gallery of Arts 2014 Art Challenge Show starts Tuesday, May 6th. I totally redid my four 6x6 pieces for the show. I took floral drawings from my sketchbook and reworked them in acyclic paint. I really like using Golden's modern palette.

This year, I also participated in the jewelry challenge.  It was fun to play with painted paper, collage, a Copperplate calligraphic word- "discover", resin, fiber, beads and wire. The Gallery gave each person in this challenge the pendant in the middle of my necklace. I took off the hanging loop on the top, changed the orientation to landscape and filled it with collage and resin, set it in a larger bezel.  Stop by the Gallery and check out the one-hundred participants' four 6x6 pieces and the jewelry.  The show will be up until the end of May.

Works in Progress for Village Gallery of Arts

In May, I'll be showing four 6x6 canvases in the Village Gallery Of Arts 2014 Art Challenge in Cedar Mills. Here are my works in progress. I started with painted tissue paper strips, modern palette paint colors and floral drawings. Next, I plan to paint organic flower shapes on tissue with permanent inks.

Experimenting with Shapes and Spirng Flowers

Here's another exercise from Nita Leland's book- The New Creative Artist. We outlined a shape and then drew the flowers.  We positioned the flowers differently within each shape.

I like how extending the line outside the shape changes the dynamics of the composition.  This exercise also helps to work with negative space.

I had to draw and paint this beautiful bouquet of tulips in my sketchbook.

Modern Color Palette

Jo Reimer (see her One A Day blog) introduced me to the modern color palette.  I love these colors- how they go together, mix without making mud, their light and clear crispness. Patti Brady wrote a great article about Color Mixing for Golden's Just Paint using this palette. I like to use titan buff vs. the titanium white to tint the paints.

Another article from Will Kemp talks about choosing a paint palette for beginners. He also describes the modern palette.  Jane Davies often paints with this palette in her artwork.  I used the palette to create some postcards with painted papers.

Gestures and Painted Postcards

Here's another gesture exercise that I painted on tissue paper with a folded pen and Sumi ink. I wanted to make organic, free form gestures and play with the pen. I then added the painted gestures to painted watercolor paper and cut into postcards.

Drawing with Two Different Tools

Yesterday, we worked with a Nita Leland exercise from her book- The New Creative Artist

We used two different drawing tools (pencil and pen), one tool in each hand.  I like the organic flow of the lines. Others selected a colored pencil or pen along with a black drawing tool.  The possibilities are endless. One can work with each tool parallel to the other or in different directions. One side of the flowers was drawn with a pencil and the other side with a pen.  Later, I shaded in some of the areas. This exercise helps use the right side of the brain more.

Mixed Media Experimenting

Today, our sketch group started doing different exercises to get away from our usual tools and techniques and explore new ideas.  We sketched on black card stock using a white pen. Then, used different pencils, crayons to add color. Above is a drawing of my favorite jumbo-sized colored pencils:  Farb-Riese color giant Lyra pencils and Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth Triocolor pencils. They're smooth, don't require constant sharpening and the pencil points don't break easily.

The colors from this sketch come from Caran d'Ache Neocolor II water soluble crayons. I like that you can
take a water brush and smooth out the colors or leave the original drawn texture.

I colored the flower with both the colored pencils and water soluble crayons.  We enjoyed playing with this exercise and look forward to exploring more each week.