Catching up on watercolor and collage

The Monday watercolor class continues to improve. One student who had been on vacation for several weeks brought in ten pieces she had done while relaxing in Florida. Several are good enough for shows. She's working hard and it shows in her work.

On Tuesday collage artist Jonathan Talbot stopped by for a studio visit and lunch with me and Virginia Lee Williams, my co-author of Creative Collage Techniques . Jonathan has pioneered a method of adhering collages without liquid adhesives, described in his book, Collage: A New Approach. He's very personable and entertaining, not to mention a fantastic collage artist. Jonathan Talbot's web site.

Today the color class learned how compatible triads work. Typically, they were a little confused after the lecture, but once they got into mixing the color wheels, light bulbs began popping on. By the end of class most of them understood what it was all about and were enjoying getting the unique mixtures of the triads. There are still a couple of people resisting the new concepts, saying, "I would rather use my own colors." That isn't very productive. When you have the opportunity to learn something new that might add to your mastery of color, isn't it better to try it while you have the chance? You can always go back to "your" colors, although I've found that most artists make a rather dramatic leap into creative color after this workshop.