Wichita

The last couple of week's have been tough, and without my incredible family I don't know how I would have survived!

Thank you, Mom for coming out and taking care of Paul so I could go to the SDP convention. Thank you Barbara and Kent for taking care of Mom and Brandy while I was away. And thank you, Annette for flying out and helping Mom drive home.

My SDP chapter has about 35 member, 15 active (sounds like church) and of those 15 six of us  went to the convention. My roommate, Elissa, was so kind and thoughtful. She was the best roommate ever!

 I took two watercolor classes, two oil classes and one theory class. I was introduce to a lot of new concepts. By the time I got home my head was spinning. None the less,  there are so many interactive lessons online I would like to take, but Wichita was pretty expensive so I will have to cool my jets for a while.  Anyway, here are my paintings.

This one is my favorite. The instructor, Mark Polomchak, told us that with the decorative painters there was no such thing as to much glitter. After we painted our skies, he took an air brush (cobalt blue) and where ever the colors looked kinda muddy he made corrections ( for 45 students). The last thing we did was the wave. He showed us how it was done with a toothbrush, then if we didn't like our wave he helped us make corrections. I would say he made corrections to also every student wave. I am not sure I could paint this one by myself.  But the class was a lot of fun and it is nice to have at least one painting that looks good.

This one is a mess, but nothing that can't be fixed. We really didn't get much in the way instruction, but it is my understanding that the seventy one year old instructor (Louise Jackson) had just spent three days of 12 hour days of intense judging, so I need not be so harsh. I had a hard time with the class because a lot of techniques she used were not watercolor techniques but techniques we use back in the 70's with acrylics (floating, blending double loading) I haven't used those techniques in thirty years, but I suppose it is just like riding a bike, and I knew those techniques once I should be able to learn them again.

This one was taught by Linda Coulter. I wanted to buy her products so bad, but right now I just can't justify the expense. Anyway we under painted every thing in differ shades of gray and brown acrylics and then glazed over with  transparent colored oils.

This last painting was done on the last day and the teacher (Marie Merritt) that was in a hurry to get out of town, none the less, I learn a lot from her and she gave us a packet that has all kinds of information. She uses a limit palette.  Just white, burnt sienna, raw umber, cad red, cad yellow and ultramarine blue. Then she mixed these colors for all the other colors.

 I also took a theory class from Ann Kingslan who is one of the Decorative painters founding mothers.  It seem like the class and the teacher were tired before the class started and it's hard to teach theory, but she gave us a packet of all kinds of information. I didn't even realize how great it was until after the class. I am getting emails from her (and her daughter who is also a decorative painter) concerning products she has available. Her online class do not seem to be too expensive. So I might give it a try.  But then again, I am not sure I should because she said pick one specialty and learn it, don't try to learn too much at once and she work in oils.  Here is a link to her web site:  http://kingslan.com/index.php

Mean while back at the ranch, this is the last acrylic painting we did in Denver. I miss acrylics. I still have one more painting I will have to finish outside of class of some purple prickly pears. I will post it when it is finished. I really liked acrylics. I also really liked working with oils. But I know I need to pick one medium and master it.

This painting was what we were working on in class before I left, I missed two weeks so now I will have to finish on my own, but I kinda like the way it looks now and I am not sure it will look better after I work on it by myself so I am posting it now.

 I also took a water color class from a local fine artist, Charles Danford, right before Wichita, it is not quite done.. but I may never finish it so this is what it looks like for far.

When I went to my watercolor class on Wednesday, my teacher decided she wanted us to focus on drawing. I must have drawn at least 15 pictures since Wednesday. She said if we were taking drawing at a University we would have to produce several drawing a week (Kent Evans told me when he took a watercolor class at the Y he was suppose to paint five paintings a week). So, my goal was to draw a drawing a day. Since Wednesday I have produced 15 drawings (it helps me coop with stress). Speaking of stress, Paul left this morning for Oregon. I guess, we need to take a break for each other of a while. He did call me this evening to let me know he made it safely to Pendleton.