Tag Archives: landscape

Teaching and Being Taught in Lafayette

Last week I taught a one day iPad art workshop to a number of local artists in Lafayette LA and then attended a three-day workshop in watercolor journaling held by Don Getz and organized by my sister Ceci. Another sister, Mercedes, participated in much of the fun, including the iPad session. Since I was so close to home, Ceci and I swung over to Biloxi afterward to visit our dad and his wife and more brothers and sisters.

As for making art while out-of-town, I didn’t paint while teaching. And it was so cold and windy during the plein air workshop that I didn’t do anything of note then either. In fact, after a couple of watercolor/ink drawings, I resorted to my iPad to get something — anything — down before my hands went numb. Though everything is unfinished, I’ll show you the state of play (along with a few photos of what we were memorializing) so you can get a flavor for the beauty of Cajun country. Teaser: we painted the St. John Cathedral Oak, the third largest live oak in the country.

Thanksgiving in Santa Fe

With our two sons and their families, Pat and I spent a peaceful, beautiful and family-ful Thanksgiving in an 100 yr old adobe casa in Santa Fe. Max enjoyed sitting on the casa’s retro-fitted baseboard heating strips and charming everyone in sight. The rest of us enjoyed strolling around the lovely downtown area, hiking in the Bandelier National Monument, eating Southwestern cuisine and soaking up the art and culture.

While we were there, I painted an iPad image of the kiva fireplace in the casa. And since returning, have roughed out an image of the cliffs, fronted by trees, at Bandelier.

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the kiva in the casa

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Bandelier vista

More iPad/ArtRage Art – Practicing with the Watercolor Brush

I feel much less comfortable using the ArtRage watercolor brush (and oil painting tools) than I do with chalk, pen, pencil & paint roller. So I’ve been trying to trudge up the learning curve in watercolor. Here are my two most recent efforts:

A flamenco dancer I photographed during our trip to Cuba last Spring:

Dancing in Havana

Dancing in Havana

And a scene from Glen Echo Park, based on a photograph I took a couple of years ago:

Cuddle Up at Glen Echo Park

Cuddle Up at Glen Echo Park during a Cloudy Sunset

Latest iPad/ArtRage Images

Yesterday, my husband and I got a bit lost in the wilds of Virginia after taking my cousin to the airport. (We’re Marylanders — Virginia is terra incognito to us!) While we meandered toward home, I doodled an imaginary Fall landscape, using the ArtRage chalk tool to capture the beautiful colors we saw.

the colors of Fall in Virginia

Fall Fantasy

Here are some other doodles, made last week while trying to dip a toe into the watercolor tool. As you can tell, I’m not ‘swimming’ yet. Ick.

The Belly Dancer - Back View

The Belly Dancer – Back View

The pale pears

The pale pears

Latest Landscape Paintings

Some dear art buddies and I attended a landscape workshop at Deep Creek Lake last weekend, taught by Walt Bartman and managed by his wonderful wife Robyn. The entire group produced some lovely paintings and starts on paintings of the spectacular Fall foliage.

Here are a few of our works:

Another Reason to Use iPad or iPhone Art Apps

I love to use art apps to record color sketches quickly, whether sitting by a lovely scene or whipping by in the passenger seat of a car. Photos just don’t ‘cut it’ for this type of use. The camera does not capture colors accurately — at least without time-consuming gyrations. Hauling out paints and nailing the right color note on the fly is also improbable.

With an art app, all you have to do is select the right color from a comprehensive array at your fingertips. Here are several palettes from which I can dial the desired color, swipe it on the screen, and adjust intensity/opacity as desired. The slideshow also includes a few color notations made to capture relative colors, instead of a specific scene.

The Third Exhibit is Kensington’s ‘Paint the Town’, with Montgomery Art Association

The Kensington Armory/Town Hall is the site of my third show over Labor Day weekend. The hours are noon to 4 pm Saturday and Sunday, and 9:30 am to 4:30 pm on Labor Day. There will be a public reception Saturday evening from 6:00-7:30 pm.

For this exhibit, I plan to hang four framed paintings and show 10-12 matted originals and possibly prints of recent iPad images in a nearby rack. The slide show below gives a sense of these works — but they look much better ‘in person’. Come see them!

I’ve Got Three Exhibits over the Labor Day Weekend

First up will be the 42nd Annual Labor Day Art Show at Glen Echo Park, to be held in the historic Spanish Ballroom from September 1 through September 3. The exhibition and sale includes a wide range of media, such as sculpture, painting and drawing, ceramics, glass, jewelry, and photography. It is open daily from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. There is also a public reception on Friday, August 31, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free.

Here are the two pieces I’ll be showing.

Atop the Arcade

Atop the Arcade on a crisp October day. oil on canvas.

Long afternoons of modeling can make a girl sleepy.

Dreaming in red and orange. Gouache on paper.

Black Caves, Serene Orchids, and a Cuban Gaudi-Wannabe

Here’s a blitz through of some other interesting things between Vinales and our downtown Havana Hotel (the Parque Centrale):

— trekking and boating through tunnels underneath the magotes . . .

black cave surrounding small opening with blue sky & magote in distance

View from cave mouth toward a nearby magote.

— lovely orchids and landscapes at an orchid conservatory:

white and lavender orchids

Lovely orchids, not rare, as far as I know.

— and a riot of colorful mosaics, inspired by the Spanish artist Antoni Gaudi, and created by and under the supervision of Jose Fuster (often described as ‘the Picasso of the Caribbean’).

many statues and structures covered with colorful mosaics

Looking down into Fuster’s front yard.

If you want to see more of Fuster’s fanciful creations (now a cottage industry, as they bring so many tourists to his neighborhood), click here.

I made only one painting while sightseeing our way to central Havana. My knees couldn’t take the climb to the top of the orchid preserve, so I sat at the entrance and made this little watercolor of a rusting red wheelbarrow overhung by bright orange flowers.

Red wheelbarrow ‘color-coordinates’ with nearby hanging flowers.