Here are some highlights from the current classes being offered so you have an idea of what we did this week in class. If you missed class, this may be helpful.

If you are visiting town and want to take one of the classes, contact the studio at (802) 457-2020 to join us for the three hour session.

Individual classes are $45 per class.

This is a start of an abstract painting with several techniques involved: masking with artist's tape, wax resist, wet-on-wet, dry brush and salt. Granulation of sedimentary pigments are critical to the success of some of these techniques.	The intial tea stain came from a pile of freshly brewed oolong leaves drying on the center of a piece of 140 lb. hot press paper. The paint began to be a response to the shape of the stain. The question asked was, "Is it object or is it space?"

Working from a still life, we wet the paper thoroughly and then began to place color on the paper allowing the color to run together. As the paper dried, thicker paint was applied. The question arrises: is this realism or is this abstraction?	Using the same still-life, we chose three saturated color forms: in this case, the two yellow forms and the red form. In placing these first, the space was broken up. As those dried, three neutral forms were placed, relative to the saturated colors. To tie them together, the green forms and the background was completed with a thin white line to separate the abstract shapes.

Breaking Boundaries: Nationalism or Unity?

Blue Spruce Farm, Bridport, Vermont
(in process)

Find out what the other 2010 Fall Classes are doing...

Or review 2010 Spring Classes here!

WATERCOLOR TECHNIQUES FOR ABSTRACTION
10AM to 1 PM starting Thursday, October 21, 2010

Course objective: —To explore watercolor techniques for your own vocabulary for abstract images. To explore and understand the depth and range of art since 1945 and how watercolor can be influenced by it.

October 21, 2010 WHAT IS TECHNIQUE?

Let’s explore what it means to abstract something. How does watercolor technique affect our experience of non-objective work? Can technique become a “subject” for a painting? We’ll experiment with brushwork. Secondarily we’ll explore the integration of line and form on a biomorphic under-painting made from tea leaves.

We jumped right in this week to try a vareity of techniques on a masked sheet of watercolor paper. Cheap Joe's White Artist's Tape is terrific to use to segregate shapes or areas of a painting. In each of the shapes we isolated we tried wet-on-wet, salt, spatter and wax just to get an idea of the range of techniques that can be used with watercolor.

We also had some tea-stained papers made with piles of brewed tea leaves. The brown dye from the leaves arranges a biomorphic shape that can appear to be a "hole" through the white paper OR an object on its surface. Through using watercolor, we tried to play with the space non-objectively.

Techniques in watercolor influence abstraction by offering ways of creating an illusion of surface and depth, a play of light and texture and the extraordinary possibility that paint, and only paint is enough of a subject to be interesting!

HOMEWORK: Using one of the techniques explored in class, create a non-objective painting and consider a limited palette of five colors to provide a sense of mood. Click here to see some of the results!

October 28, 2010 SHAPE PAINTING AS A TOOL FOR ABSTRACTION

Painters like Georgia O’Keefe, John Marin, Arthur Dove and Mardsen Hartley give us a strong sense of simplified form that can produce abstract shapes that move between patter, realistic objects and a mix of shapes playing on a field of color. Watercolor can fill shapes in a unique way that provides an interesting play of transparency, color and form.

In examining a work from a Luxembourg artist, we saw how simple shapes can produce just enough information for our eyes and minds to read the details of a given city. In class, we took complex, urban images and reduced them to shapes placing them next to eah other to construct something like a city.

Here is a start of a geometric analysis of Venice. Note how the shapes build on the white space? Each shape created (without the aid of a drawn line) provides an individual painting. Concetration is critical in this process. The irony is, that while we focus on the abstract shapes, realism can sometimes be the result. We also have the opportunity to allow color to mix within the shape providing intriguing mixtures to describe surface texture and create distance through value.

HOMEWORK: Find a landscape with buildings or roofs that intrigue you. Use the idea of shape painting to create an expressive abstraction of this subject. Consider a warm or cool palette to describe the mood.

November 3, 2010 WET-ON-WET TECHINQUE  

We’ll explore how this technique can create abstract forms that can become more realistic with the exploration of line and form. The quality of the edge provides subtle nods to realism which allow the viewer to “fill in the gaps” of realism. We will work with floral images to explore the range of realism and abstraction


HOMEWORK: Abstract a floral image. Use a limited palette that sets a colorful flower on a desaturated or neutral background using wet-on-wet technique. Experiment with mixing color on the paper. Click here to see some of the results!

November 10, 2010 GOUACHE LAYERS

Building on the idea of creating meaning through mark-making, we’ll explore automatic paiting and how our own feelings can be translated into color, shape, line and marks. Tension between our marks and gestures create energy.
HOMEWORK: Work from “dark to light” on this watercolor building layers of color with this opaque watercolor medium. If you do not have gouache, feel free to use casein or acrylic if you prefer.

November 17, 2010 GLAZING, SALT, SPATTER, SARAN WRAP

Consider the work of Modernists Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth. Using images of machines, factories and warehouses provide the textural interest that creates powerful abstract images.

.HOMEWORK: Explore Rutland, West Lebanon or White River Junction. Find a local industrial image or abandon set of buildings. Either work on location or from photos to create a “modernist” watercolor using some of the techniques in class.

December 1, 2010 IMAGES WITHIN IMAGES: NEGATIVE PAINTING

In watercolor, can we explore how we will see “through” a painting? The depth is created by transparency within the surface, so we’ll explore the idea of layering images and how that may be built upon.
HOMEWORK: Using the theme of an opening, layer color in a way that creates a message in your painting about light. Is the light approachable or blocked? Perhaps you create light by layering the dark? How is space treated? Is it illusionistic, realistic or without a clearly defined ground plane? Layer colors to provide the depth of color that allows us to

December 8, 2010 DRY BRUSH AND THE DRAWN MARK

Explore the essence of contemporary work by looking at the Bay Area Artists such as David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliviera and Elmer Bischoff. The spontaneous mark of the artist becomes an abstraction in itself. Working with charcoal, conte crayon and dry brush, we’ll explore how line and form interact. Working from figurative images, we’ll abstract them with this raw style.
HOMEWORK: Mix media to produce an abstracted version of people in a location such as a restaurant, bus station, waiting room or beauty parlor. Work from life if you can get comfortable working on location. Showing us the media is as important as the subject itself.

December 15, 2010 CALIFORNIA STYLE

How abstraction can come full circle back to realism. We’ll explore the work of Millard Sheets and Don Kingman. Is this style contemporary or dated now? How can you employ the spontaneous nature of your command of the brush and the use of clear color on a large sheet of watercolor to show off the paint and the subject in a new way?
HOMEWORK: Consider your schedule for another painting class this winter

Materials List for Abstraction in Watercolor
COMPTON ART           
October 21, 2010

Brushes
Wash Brush, preferably sable, at least 1” wide also one that is wider of a week exploring a large painting
1-2 Round Brushes, sable or a combination acrylic sable in sizes 8, 10, 12 or 14 depending on how large you like to work.
Water containers—I use two; one small inside a larger one. We have some at the studio, but bringing your own will allow you get comfortable with your set-up, if you like. I use a larger Tupperware with a smaller one inside.
Board: You can use Gator Board, 1/4” plywood, or Plexiglass in a 13” x 17” size or so.
Paper: A range of paper in 140 lb. We will use mostly Cold Press. Five to eight full sheets of paper should get you through the whole class.
Bring some drawing paper we’ll be doing for warm-up; old copy paper is fine to recycle for this. Or a sketchbook suitable for drawing and notes.

EXTRAS:
Artist’s Tape (available at Cheap Joe’s)
1 roll Bounty Paper Towel (yes, it matters what brand it is!)
Masking fluid, Natural Sponges, single edged razor blade (if you can find one!) or Exacto Knife
Extra palette for your gouache colors, such as a plate or butcher tray.
A Clamp Lamp from your local hardware store to use to set up a structured light on your work at home.
Images from newspapers or magazines to collage.
Onion bags, old credit cards, string, lace: things t use as printmaking materials.
Masking Fluid and paraffin
Rubbing alcohol with an eyedropper.

Watercolors
COLORS: The objective is to have nine primaries (three of yellow, red and blue respectively) in the three values: Light/Medium/Dark. We will discuss the properties of the paints throughout the class so that you can make more educated decisions about your palette. Use ONLY professional grade pigments: I prefer Winsor & Newton, Sennelier, Daniel Smith or M. Graham. Note the word “or” below: you really only need  9 though its always fun to have more!
YELLOWS: Aureolin or Lemon Yellow
New Gamboge
Quinacridrone Gold
REDS: Vermillion or Cadmium Red Light
Rose Madder Genuine or Permanent Rose or Opera
Permanent Alizarin
BLUES: Cinnerous Blue or Cerulean Blue or Peacock Blue
Cobalt Blue or French Ultramarine
Thalo Blue or Prussian Blue or Indanthrone Blue

Additional colors are fun to add but optional. Consider adding:
Burnt Umber
Thalo Green
Burnt Sienna                                   
Indigo
Yellow Ochre                                   
Dioxinine Violet
Naples Yellow                                   
Sap Green
Viridian (Daniel Smith only)           
Chinese White
Cobalt Violet                                   
Metallic Paints you may never have used!

GOUACHE: White in either Titanium or Zinc White and any colors of gouache you want to play with