Earth-Like Planet show at Irvine Fine Arts Center

Intro to Watercolor - Week 2

(I taught this intro to watercolor class twice through Minneapolis Community Education at Lake Harriet school on Vincent Ave. But I never finished making blog posts about all our activities... So there's just the first two weeks here on my blog)

This week: Hue/Color Mixing - Texture - Masks/Frisket - Matisse Cut outs forms - Birch Trees

Tonight the first thing we did was we masked off an area with liquid mask/frisket in the shape of a Matisse cut out sea plant. Before dipping our brush in the frisket we rubbed the bristles with a little dab of liquid soap. We also dabbed on frisket with the end of the brush to make dots. (Then we let the liquid mask dry for about ten minutes while we started the next project – color mixing). After the liquid mask was dry, we painted a wash over it, (we added texture to that wash with Qtips - to remove a bit of paint, and toothpicks, to create a scratch like grass or just abstract texture). We let the watercolor wash completely dry, then we peeled the mask away with a ball of squished up masking tape (or a rubber cement pickup eraser) to reveal the white of the paper.

Then we did some color mixing to get comfortable with the idea of "hue" (Hue is pure color from the tube) and color temperature. For example we made orange with lemon yellow and cadmium red, then we made orange with lemon yellow and alizarin crimson - and so on, making colors with our suggested paints. For color temperature, we can say that lemon yellow is cooler than cadmium yellow. We actually made a grid on our paper, wrote the name of the color combination at the top, then made a mixture of that color. We worked on dry paper. See below for a list of the color combinations we used. We also discussed how "sap green" may be phthalo green yellow-shade... This is a great exercise you can start to see how to make purple, how to make a rich black. How cool yellow and warm yellow change your mixtures/ how cool tones can muddy warm tones. Cadmium yellow (warm yellow) mixed with Ultramarine blue (cool blue) make an earthy/muddy green.

Colors we mixed:

Make a grid on paper and in each square, mix these colors. Write the color combination at the top.

Lemon Yellow + Cadmium Red

Lem Ylw + Alizarin Crimson

Cadmium Ylw + Cadmium Red

Cad Ylw + Cad Red

Lem Ylw + Ultramarine Blue

Cad Ylw + U Blue

Lem Ylw + Phthalocyanine Green

Cad Ylw + Phthalo Green

Phthalo Green + Ultramarine Blue

Ultramarine Blue + Cad Red

U. Blue + Aliz Crimson

Dynamic Duo Neutral:

U Blue + Burnt Sienna

More Interesting Black:

Aliz Crimson + Phthalo Green

There was some discussion about watercolor in Western art history, feminism, the more "elevated" role of oil painting, frescoes, and tempera. Watercolor was a popular pursuit for educated American and European ladies with the advent of cake watercolors sets in the mid-1800s. Watercolor was a way for "serious" oil painters to make quick studies and sketches, prior to working on more expensive canvas support. Winslow Homer embraced watercolor, made some nice big "serious" ones, and with his being already famous for his innovative work as an illustrator for Harper's Weekly and he had exhibited some oils in Paris, so he asked an unusually high amount $100 for his early watercolors, (according to my research at the National Museum of Art website) and that was a lot of money in the late 1800s. He was using his name recognition to brand or market his watercolors as high art. Today, watercolors can be considered very important artworks and are seen in contemporary museum settings.

We next used masking tape to make birch trees in snow. Keeping the birch trees masked off, we applied a sky wash with texture for the background (using sponge and paper towel to lift off some of the sky wash) right over the tape. We left the bottom third of our work white for the snow.

We removed the tape and used the interesting neutral: ultramarine blue and burnt sienna to make the warm grey for the dark parts of the bark. We got the tree area wet, made the sides of the tree dark, and kept the middle light. We saw how to use a plastic credit card to scrape the dark paint into the tree, getting texture. We blotted color off with paper towel to lighten the center of the tree. We did a warm yellow/grey wash -kind of stripe - over the tree at the end. We discussed using a thin brush (round #2, or even a rigger which has longer bristles) and quick flicking motions to get the dark branches and twigs, holding the brush lightly at the end to get more flicking action.

Below are a couple images (screen shots) of the birch tree painting idea, and a nice use of masking fluid to show highlights on a boat and water.

Next week, we'll be learning more about paper and sizing, thoroughly immersing and wetting a sheet and taping it down on our boards for wet into wet painting... And also we will do some practice with painterly brush strokes. We'll be in the art room on the first floor next week.

Intro to Watercolor - Week 1

I started teaching Intro to Watercolor at Lake Harriet Community Education, 4912 Vincent Avenue South. Here are my notes and some images I wanted to share with the class from week 1.

--

To review, tonight we talked about value. The lightness or darkness of a color. We made four squares on our paper and practiced flat wash, gradient wash, dry brush, and wet into wet. We made five squares further down on that piece of paper and made the first one pure hue then each next square gradually lighter in value. We did this by dipping our brush into paint for the first square, then once into water for next square, dip it twice for 3^rd square, dip it three times… and so on, each square lighter in value due to less of the original pigment remaining on the brush.

Then we did a painting based on Georgia O'Keefe's abstract sunset using wet into wet for the bottom third - and two colors in the rainbow arc of the sunset. We planned our copy of her painting to leave some white paper. Leaving white of the paper is a very important watercolor technique.

Okeefe image here: http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2009/07/09/1247187476_3472/539w.jpg

We also talked about making a grid of your colors and seeing how they look as gradient washes. For each color from your set of tubes or pans, make a square on a grid on paper to refer to in your studio.

Here is that list of materials...

Materials

Pencil

Kneaded eraser

Masking tape

2 wide mouth water containers (12 oz or so)

Large board for mounting wet paper 16x20 inches

Masking tape

Watercolor paper 140# Strathmore cold press 11x14 (or Arches, Lana Aquarelle, or Fabriano Artistico)

Watercolor brushes #8 round, #2 round, 1 inch flat

White plastic palette with lid

Tube watercolors (Winsor Newton, M. Graham & Co., Utrecht)

Permanent Alizarine Crimson

Cadmium Red or Scarlet Lake or Napthol Red

Ultramarine Blue (or French Ultramarine Blue)

Thalo Green or Winsor Green

Lemon Yellow or Hansa Yellow

Cadmium Yellow Medium

Burnt Sienna

Burnt Umber

why tweet

Connecting With Twitter
Visual artist Krystyna81's story of success as a result of her presence on Twitter. Read Kristina's story and her tips on using this cool (and quick) networking tool on the Etsy Blog. http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/etsy-success-connecting-with-twitter-7322/

I'm making this blog entry so I'll remember it, myself! It's her story of how one of her twitter followers got her a contract to do a book cover for an Italian book of poetry.

Garden helper robot

Kelly Newcomer, originally uploaded by collegeofvisualarts.

Illo Minn Munny Auction
Thursday, February 18


Twenty-eight illustrated one of a kind Munny dolls
will be sold in a silent auction during this Thursday's
Illo Minn opening reception. Doors open at 6:00
p.m. and the bidding closes at 7:30 p.m. Auction
proceeds benefit the CVA Scholarship Fund.

Illo Minn: Volume Two is a biennial exhibition. The
2010 exhibition features the work of commercially
active Minnesota illustrators. Each illustrator will
exhibit a printed illustration with original artwork in
addition to their Munny doll.

View Munny Image Gallery on Fickr

01 KN watercolor set up

01 KN watercolor set up, originally uploaded by kellynewcomer.

My dining room table and a 20 minute art making event. I can bring this palette plus a paper towel and water and pretty much paint anywhere. In fact, this is my modus operandi now that I'm a mom. I haven't used acrylics or oils for years. I love watercolor! -- You can also see the mug I ordered from an uploaded file to costco.com photo services.

New watercolor "Don't Touch"

Art inspired by Everett's fascinations: Transformers, Skulls, Snakes...
He told me what to paint. He is five years old. It was inspired also by Roberto Palazzo's skull and racing flags painting. See it in my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29109451

Driftwood and Cardboard

Earlier today a friend said that the best toys are sticks, cardboard boxes and rocks. I didn't think to put a rock on this little Earth Robot, but the other two mediums are covered. There is also a lump of matted green twine affixed to his top (which you can't see here). I made this while the kids were out and gave it to Jeff Newcomer, my brother, who took this photo. The picture makes me think that I'd like to see a skyscraper with eyes and arms.

Smiling Rainbow

I got out the paints the other day and painted with the kids! I made a rainbow with the traditional rainbow arch. Everett inspired me to be looser and scribble a little with the water-soluble colored pencils. I scanned in the art and the image wasn't rotated yet in Photoshop. My husband Jamie said, oh, Smiling Rainbow! So, I decided to turn it upsidedown as Jamie suggested and here it is.

Ellen Shulman's school fundraiser

Ellen Shulman and Scott Elofson's kids go to New City School. They are having a big fundraiser and silent auction, so I put some pieces in.

Two small bowls and one mixed media painting.

technology for good

Here's a jpg I just made ( I was working on an ad for myself for a Human Rights Lawyer's Program that I'm laying out).

Happy Holidays from APAK

Happy Holidays from APAK, originally uploaded by apak.

APAK is an artist duo -- these are the cutest little christmas cookies! This was from their holiday email greeting and I see it on their flickr page. I love their art.

Bakken Craft Fair

Bakken Museum, Tuesday Dec. 9th, Special Event with Craft Fair

I will be there with some ceramic robots, Peace Machine magnets, some art prints, and some original robot art works, priced to sell baby.

This was conceived as an event with artists and crafters who have sort of an electrical connection or theme to their work.

Join us for a highly charged holiday party at The Bakken Museum! Enjoy complimentary wine and appetizers from Let’s Dish while you explore The Bakken’s galleries and browse a unique selection of eco-friendly gifts including jewelry, clothing, accessories, toys, art and more from local “green” businesses like Artistic Edition, Barefoot Books, Cozy Corset Cuff, Danger Kitty Designs, Etta Mae, Ex Libris Purses, Fuzfrenzy, Kelly Newcomer, My Green Closet, Reincarnation Designs, Tea Tree Designs and XO Handworks. Commemorate the evening with a FREE snapshot in the Hair-Raising Photo Booth.

Bakken Evening Out takes place the second Tuesday of each month. Admission $7.
Click here for one FREE admission with one paid admission.
FREE admission for members and a guest. FREE parking.

Museum Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10am to 5pm,
Thursdays 10 am to 8pm
Closed Major Holidays
(Museum Exhibits are Closed to the Public on Mondays)
Admission: $7 Adults; $5 Students & Seniors; Children 3 and under are FREE!

Located on beautiful Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis

E-Newsletter
Click here to receive The Bakken Electric e-Newsletter

Lynda Barry

I love Lynda Barry. She is a comic artist, creator of Marlys, and her new book is on my wish list (at the library, where I will be content to borrow it; we have too many books in this house as it is!) Check out her book "What It Is" It's about the creative process, specifically writing.

Facebook

I'm now on facebook.
Facebook Me! http://www.facebook.com/people/Kelly-Newcomer/582096825

Selling Art

I'm showing my art at Dunn Brothers Coffee shop at Lake and Bryant in Minneapolis til the end of July. Then, I'll be exhibiting at the Dunn Brothers at Lake and Humboldt (next to Brueggers) for August. There are also some works at the Walker Library.

Kelly's Prints at SooVac

SooVac is a great gallery down the street from my house. I've exhibited there before in a drawing exhibit. They have a great boutique featuring affordable handmade art by local artists. I now have some prints available there. They are all 8x10 and just like what I'm selling at http://kellynewcomer.etsy.com - $30 each.

Soo Visual Arts Center | 2640 Lyndale Ave S Mineapolis, MN 55408 | 612.871.2263 | info@soovac.org |

Open Wed 12-6, Thurs 12-8, Fri 12-6 & Sat 12-4 or by appointment.

Buy Local, Buy Art

Did You Know? Proceeds from every piece of art sold until May 10, 2008 support both the individual artists and the annual Minneapolis 55408 exhibition, which gives every artist living or working in the 55408 zip code the chance to show their work along with Intermedia Arts members, donors, staff and volunteers. To purchase artwork, please visit the information desk at Intermedia Arts or call 612-871-4444 to find out more.

I have 3 artworks in this exhibit -- Minneapolis 55408, March 13—May 10, 2008. 2822 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55408 | 612.871.4444.

1. Magnets available on etsy -- 2. Illustration Exhibit in Northfield

Two items:

1. The Illo.Minn exhibit is on the move and now will be on exhibit in Northfield, Minnesota. 

Here's the info:

Thursday, 3/13/08 opening reception, see http://artorg.info for more details. 

This is in conjunction with an event at St. Olaf College, 50 minutes south of the Twin Cities.

Organized by Dave Machacek.

2. Robot Magnets:

I've been selling the little magnets on etsy and need to make more.

One went to a buyer in Louisiana and I sold another yesterday to someone in California. It is so great to make sales to people who just found my work on the internet and I have never met them. 

These are the little magnets - ceramic robots - I just sold this week. I have a bunch more, but I just bought some clay and some black slip. Thankfully, I have access to a kiln across the street at the recreation center for our neighborhood park (Bryant Square Park) -- they have a craft room there.

Illo.Minn Minnesota Illustration

Illo.Minn Exhibition
January 24 to February 9, 2008

Please join me for the opening reception of Minnesota Illustration featuring some of my commercial work and original art along with 25 other featured illustrators. I'll be showing some of my paintings featuring machines, robots and satellites along with the rest of mother earth's lifeforms in harmony.

Reception: Thurs. Jan. 24th, 6-8pm
I'll be there with the kids, Everett and Baby Rocket, and there's a good chance that my husband Jamie will make it too.

Illo.Minn
Minnesota Illustration
January 24 to February 9, 2008
Opening Reception
Thursday, January 24, 6:00 to 8:00 P.M.
Moderated Discussion
Thursday, January 31, 6:00 to 7:00 P.M.

Illo.Minn will feature the work of over 25 commercially active Minnesota illustrators. This inaugural illustration exhibition will explore an evolving profession through the work of the participating artists. Illo.Minn is being curated by long-term CVA adjunct faculty member Andy Powell. Visit http://www.cva.edu for a complete list of participants.

College of Visual Arts Gallery, 173 Western Avenue at Selby, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102
651.290.9379 or 651.224.3416
gallery@cva.edu
www.cva.edu
Gallery Hours: Wednesday and Friday 12:00 – 6:00 P.M.
Thursday 12:00 – 8:00 P.M.
Saturday 12:00 – 4:00 P.M.