Confident Color Workshop was a blast!

I had a great time in Ft. Lauderdale last week. This workshop for the Gold Coast Watercolor Society is on my list of all-time favorites! The weather was fantastic--80s and sunny. Thanks to Teresa Kirk for running a great workshop and to Jennifer Kellum who handled the lunch logistics (important job!) to perfection and also to class members who kept the snack table filled to overflowing with caloric goodies.
Here's a link to some of the color sketches the artists did on the second day.
People playing with myriads of color ideas and subjects to paint with their watercolors is so energizing. The workshop (20 people) began with a review of basics (split-primary color mixing)and it was surprising to find many hadn't learned--or didn't remember--this simple, important method of avoiding mud in color mixing. Then we spent one day each on color harmony triads, color contrasts, color schemes, and painting light effects in color. On Tuesday night I gave a PowerPoint presentation for the Gold Coast Watercolor Society. This program shows how 30-plus artists in Confident Color use color creatively in different media, including graphic design, fibers, and mixed media.

GCWS has a fantastic facility for both workshops and demos. March 19-23 they are sponsoring Dave Daniels, a terrific artist and teacher who is a colorist supreme and not to be missed.
Gold Coast Watercolor Society brochure
Dave Daniels Web site

Color Workshop Pix

Last week I received a CD in the mail with 70 photos from the workshop in Cazenovia, NY. It was hard to cut the number down to a dozen or so, but here they are, mostly of the critique on color scheme sketches. I didn't realize these were being taken at the time. This was such an industrious class--28 students worked hard all week. We weren't looking for finished paintings, but for understanding of the concepts I was teaching: contrasts, triads, and color schemes. They "got it." This photo is fun, showing my work space in the overhead mirror.

Color schemes in beadwork

I found a link to Bead Arts by Cindy Lavin that talks about color schemes. She hits the nail on the head. You can use color schemes in any color medium, whether art, crafts, interiors, and even architecture. Cindy had always used the common basic triads, but decided to try something different based on my book, Exploring Color. She got exciting results when she tried something new. Check it out.

Exploring Color talk

Last night I had a good time speaking at the Fairborn Art Association. This is one of the friendliest groups I know. I've been a member for many years--maybe twenty or longer. I don't get to the meetings often. When I first joined I was on the board of a local group that met on the same night. Nevertheless, they always greet me as a friend and neighbor and I love that.

I knew the crowd would be small,just by looking at the weather map. There were storm warnings, tornado watches, and big black clouds in my rear-view mirror as I drove to Fairborn; and as I drove toward town, a humongous horizontal flash of lighting raced from one end of the sky to the other just in front of me. By the time I got there, the wind had kicked up and it was raining hard. My umbrella turned inside out as I walked from my car to the gallery.

About thirty people braved the storm. They were very responsive. I talked about the three color systems in my book, Exploring Color. First I showed them the split-primary color-mixing method. Then I moved to using compatible colors and finally, to the subject of color schemes, which is covered in my book but not yet on my website. This was a lot of material to work into a little over an hour, but in talks like this my objective is to give an overview of the options artists have when they tap into a system instead of using random selection or frustrating trial-and-error over a period of years. You can find a system that works best for you or even move from one to another as the mood strikes you. In either case you'll get consistently better results with your color. And, needless to say, once you understand how these color systems work, you can break the rules to please yourself and still have beautiful color.

Art Book Reviews

Vicky Murry's Mastering Color: The essentials of color illustrated with oils. (North Light, 2006) This book offers solid color theory applicable to all media. The book is beautifully illustrated with swatches and paintings by the author. The section on supplies and equipment is concise with a nice comparison of different ways oil-painting techniques--direct, indirect, plein air and alla prima. The basic palette is limited and very effective. There's a nice little section on color schemes, a subject often neglected in painting books. Murry explores individual colors and introduces a few design concepts, with a variety of helpful hints along the way.

A Painter's Guide to Design and Composition by Margot Schulzke (North Light, 2006)includes the work of twenty-six contemporary masters who describe their process of designing their artwork. This is a beautiful book with lots of demos and color illustrations, but I find it a little confusing. The design-and-composition objective tends to get lost in the plethora of different techniques. I enjoyed reading it, but probably won't include it in my personal art library.

I love Jean Uhl Spicer's book, Bright & Beautiful Flowers in Watercolor (North Light, 2004.) If I were a flower painter, this is how I would want to do it. Spicer's supplies and equipment section is concise and complete. Her basic palette of colors is fairly limited and well balanced. The chapter on color covers the basics in such a way that I think beginners can grasp the concepts quickly. The chapter on composition isn't quite as accessible, but the remainder of the book, which includes various transparent watercolor techniques, tips and demonstrations, is very good. Way to go, Jean.

Art in the fast lane

Last night I went to the opening of the spring juried show of the Western Ohio Watercolor Society and came home with a blue ribbon for my transparent watercolor portrait of my granddaughter. Jenna and her parents attended, so I introduced my "model" to the group at the presentation. She did a couple of twirls in her dress as only a three-year-old can do, then whispered to me, "I got a cookie." Now, that was something to twirl about.

Saturday's workshop for the Art Quilt Network was challenging and fun. Art quilts were exhibited around three walls of the conference room on eight-foot vertical panels, a dazzling display of color and skills. I made short work of some basic principles just to be sure we were all on the same page, then we jumped into color contrasts and color schemes. Questions were asked about color design, so we did that, too, although I hadn't planned it. It was a good group, intensely devoted to the pursuit of excellence in art quilting.

Paints and quilts

Busy week. Started a new watercolor class on Monday with sixteen returning students and one newbie. I love this class. They're like family. Most of them are regulars; a few come several times a year when they're not traveling or otherwise too busy. The best part is that even when I'm not in town, some of them meet and paint together, which is a great way to keep moving forward. Practice, practice, practice. On Wednesday we went into week four of the Exploring Color class: color mixing. Up till now we've covered color theory basics and pigment characteristics. They're beginning to see temperature differences and recognize transparency, as well as other paint qualities.

Between classes I've been completely re-doing tomorrow's art quilt color workshop for a more advanced level. Instead of going through all the color theory basics, we're going to jump right into color design, color contrasts and color schemes. There's so much to do that a one-day workshop is frustrating to plan, especially when you don't know the students. We'll see how it goes. This will more than likely be my last one-day workshop. It takes just as much work to develop as a longer one, but you're in and out so fast that it isn't very satisfying for me. The students seem to feel they've learned a lot, but it's much better when they have a couple of days to absorb it and try it out in the workshop. Sort of like explaining to someone how to drive a car and then letting them go off on their own to drive it. Well, maybe that's an extreme example, but you know what I mean.

Knitters and art quilters

The knitting workshop group was fun and enthusiastic. Around twenty registered but only 15 showed up. What a lack of consideration for the sponsors. It was in a nice location and a delightful, friendly group. They brought in food and had a potluck luncheon. They shared ideas and projects, worked out color schemes, and we critiqued color combinations on finished and new work. My problem with these workshops is that they're only one day. There simply isn't time to get anything done. I'd like to have participants knit swatches of color schemes they want to try and start a collection for future reference.

Some of the knitters needed basic color concepts and the confidence to use creative color. The art quilters next Friday are a more advanced group, so my challenge will be to get them to generate as many new color schemes as possible in the time allotted. We'll start right off the bat and I hope by the end of the day they'll have a collection of color schemes to refer to, as well as the start of a small quilt with a unique color scheme that they'll enjoy completing after the workshop.

All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites. --W. H. Auden

More on fiber arts

Everything is ready for the Dayton Knitting Guild color workshop on Saturday, so I've been working on the Art Quilt Network retreat workshop a week from Friday. I found some fabulous web sites for contemporary art quilts, linked them to my web site under Fiber Arts and added a list to the bibliography and other handouts for the workshop. All this fiber business is making me want to knit and sew again, which I've done very little since I started painting in 1970. Now I hardly have time to paint, so I don't see how I could ever get into knitting and quilting. I'm bedazzled by the color and creativity of fiber artists who do original quilt and knitting designs. JoAnn Fabrics is having a big sale, merging two of their stores, so I bought some pieces called "quarter fats"--18" x 22" pieces of colored quilting fabric. They'll be fun to create color schemes with in the workshop. I have 24 pieces including all the colors of the spectrum and more, some with nifty patterns. I also went to Half-Price Books to look for knitting and quilting books on color, but I guess no one ever gets rid of the good ones.

The art of knitting

Yesterday I gave two lectures on color for the Dayton Knitting Guild. The group meets monthly, with 60-70 gathering in the morning and another 20-30 in the evening. Vendors are available between meetings with yarns, patterns and books on knitting. I soon got used to the fact that nearly everyone knits while the program is going on, because the questions were good ones throughout the talks. I learned before the program that the group has two worthwhile community projects. They knit preemie caps for the neo-natal unit at Miami Valley Hospital and lap blankets for residents of the Veteran's Hospital in Dayton. There was a pile of caps that grew higher and higher as members came into the meeting and a box containing more than thirty blankets for the veterans. Last year guild members knitted more than 130 blankets and who knows how many caps. The hospitals says it needs around fifty per month for their preemies. (Patterns for these and other community projects may be printed from the website.) Following the program there is a show-and-tell. Nearly everyone had an offering, from socks to vests to sweaters and felted purses and baskets. One woman is knitting a lacy valance for her living room window. After spending most of the day with these knitters, I'm convinced that knitting is an art. Even though most of them start with patterns, their adaptations are often ingenious. Their works are luminous with color. The yarns are equally creative, combining many different fibers, ribbons, and such. In leafing through some of the knitting books I found several with good sections on using color theory and color schemes. Check out Kaffe Fassett for the ultimate experience of color in fiber arts. A young woman and her mother from Brazil were knitting the Wong-way, a method that makes knitting easier for arthritic hands and carpal syndrome sufferers.