Shared Expressions

I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted. I took a long trip to Colorado to visit the grandbabies right after the reception for the Mama Lisa show (in last posting), and when I got back I immediately began working on putting together two shows for the Watercolor & Graphic Arts Society (WGAS) - one was the Shared Expressions exhibit at the Mobile Museum of Art - a community show of the several of the local arts organizations in the Mobile area; and the other was a juried exhibition at the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope. And then my Mom fell and broke her hip and had hip replacement surgery abut 1 month ago. I've been helping her recover from the surgery in addition to keeping on top of the art goings on. Anyway, we had the opening reception for the Shared Expressions show on Sunday, July 24. Here is the watercolor painting I entered into the Shared Expressions show. I called this "Grandaddy Goat Takes His Nap". I did this painting pretty quickly (within a week), and tried very hard to keep it loose - at least it is looser than most of my recent watercolors.

Here is a link to the newspaper article about the Shared Expressions show.

http://blog.al.com/entertainment-press-register/2011/08/shared_expressions_exhibit_rev.html

Other arts organizations represented are the Mobile Art Association, the Sumi-e Society, Camera South, Azalea City Quilters, and the Coastal Clay Collective. Also three artists are honored with retrospective exhibits: Lee Hoffman and Jack Sanders, who both recently passed away, and Frances Mutchnick - all previous members of WGAS. This show will hang at the Museum until September 25th. It is a really nice exhibit - lots of diversity and some beautiful work - so be sure to check it out if you haven't alrady been there to see it.

Here is a photo of me and my Dad at the opening reception. We both made a quick run from the hospital to attend the reception. It is really amazing what they can do nowadays with hip replacement surgery. My 81-year-old mother had surgery on a Friday and went home walking on a walker the next Monday! She's come along way in the month since the surgery, and has graduated to use of a cane at times, and should eventually be able to walk without any assistance. I'm proud of how well she's doing.

My next posts will cover other activities associated with the Shared Expressions exhibit, and also the WGAS juried show at the Eastern Shore Art Center. Also, more about the Art of Reading show coming up!

Persephone and Calf, Poplarville, Mississippi

I promised I would post a sequential progress series for my latest large cow portrait, which I just finished in time for The Mama Lisas show. This is a portrait of a cow and calf, taken from a photo provided by my friend and former co-worker Katie, who grew up on a farm in Poplarville, Mississippi. Katie raised cows for show as she was growing up. She says that the mother cow in this portrait is named "Persephone" - as she puts it: ". . . as in the Queen of the Underworld in Greek mythology; this calf was hell on wheels, just like her momma!" I was tickled by this story and I tried to capture their personalities in my painting. I am hoping that I was able to capture the mischievousness in the young calf - the third generation of "hell on wheels"! So here is my progress series for this portrait.

1. Free-hand drawing onto toned canvas.

There seems to be alot of controversy nowadays about free-hand drawing versus projections and tracings of images. I am of the "old school", I guess, because I really love to draw and somehow think that tracing a projected image would result in a stilted drawing. However, I actually do often use a crude grid system to help with placement and proportions in my initial drawing. In this case I gridded the 36" x 48" canvas into one-foot squares, used that for working out the relative proportions, and then free-hand sketched in the cow and calf, making appropriate adjustments based on my "aesthetic" eye. The sketch is using a one-inch flat brush with a thinned combination of burnt sienna and burnt umber acrylic paint.

2. Block out background and begin to wash in blocks of color in acrylic.

I washed in the light blue background (cerulean blue + cadmium yellow light + titanium white); and blocked in the green grassy areas (cerulean blue + cadmium yellow light + yellow ochre + naples yellow), adding a touch of cadmium red to the green mixture to hint at shadow under the cow. Blocked in some white areas on face, neck and horns, adding some cool shades of blue and violet to establish some forms and contours.

3. Build up color and mass in the mother cow figure.

I began building up layers of color to establish the mass of the cow - my palette here is primarily burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, burnt umber, ultramarine blue and cerulean blue. I like using a relatively limited palette with lots of the earth pigments included. I apply glazes and swatches of color in a painterly and almost abstract fashion, hoping that the shapes will eventually emerge. The beauty of acrylic paint for me is that I can paint in glazes, and if it doesn't suit me, I can build over it with more glazes. The challenge is to make any "paint overs" still look fresh.

4. More layers and begin to define the face and ears of the mamma cow.

5. Further refinement of cow's face. Block in masses of color and shapes to define the calf. At this point I also tried to make sure I captured the expressions and personalities of both subjects.

6. Further refinements. I made some adjustments to the cow's rear legs to weight them more evenly to the ground, and deepened the shadow under the cow. Also filled out the calf's legs. At this point there was something not quite right about the cow's right front leg.

7. Final adjustments to front legs and hooves, addition of highlights, and worked up layers of texture and suggestion of vegetation in the grassy area.

8. Final adjustments and highlights and a coat of varnish - and it is done! Come see "Persephone and Calf" (acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48") at the Mobile Arts Council this month, during The Mama Lisas - Young at Art exhibition.

The Mama Lisas - Young at Art

Somehow I missed the entire month of April! I know I have been to several Figure Group sessions in the interim, and will post some of those experimental drawings here soon. But the major thing I've been working on is to complete a large painting for a show during the month of May. My painting group, the Mama Lisas, is having a group show at the downtown Mobile Arts Council this month. We call it The Mama Lisas - Young at Art; which is a pun on us being eight "older" women who are emerging artists in the local art community. Well, some of us are emerging, anyway.

The show will hang at Mobile Arts Council, in the Green Room, from May 9 through May 27. The opening reception is this Friday, May 13th, 6-9 PM. Please come on out to see us and our art! Here is a photo of our group.Gail Bramer, Joanne Brandt, Janie Brown, Kathy Friedline, Karen McGahagin, Claire Noojin, and Jane Sawyer.


Front: Carolyn Greene, Gail Bramer, Karen McGahagin
Back: Joanne Brandt (me), Jane Sawyer, Kathy Friedline, Claire Noojin, & Janie Brown

We've been painting together for several years, and providing inspiration and moral support to each other along the way. I like to think there is a certain synergy to having other artist friends to encourage you to keep working, following your dreams, and to progress and grow in your art. And thanks also to the Mobile Arts Council for giving us this opportunity to share our art!

Entering my new decade . . .

I reached a new decade birthday this week. No sense in trying to hide from it - I turned 60 this past week! I'm trying to approach it in as upbeat a manner as I can muster, and hoping that it will be a good year ahead. My dear husband took me to New Orleans for my birthday present, in order to ease the transition, I think. We spent 2 days and nights and never even entered the French Quarter - I think that demonstrates that we've been there enough times to learn about several other neighborhoods and many other treasures you can find in the New Orleans area. We ate at two restaurants on Magazine Street, and 2 on Esplanade; and visited the Audubon Riverview Park; City Park; the New Orleans Museum of Art; and Bayou Savage National Wildlife Refuge. It was a beautiful 2 days of spring-like weather. Spending time in the parks, I was missing having something to paint with. I had just recently read an article in Watercolor Artist magazine about using watercolor pencils, and we detoured to an art supply shop on Magazine and I purchased my emergency art kit: a handful of watercolor pencils and a small art journal tablet. I was then able to complete a couple of little plein air sketches - mostly learning how to use the pencil media, but hopefully I was also able to catch the spring spirit as well. Here are my 2 sketches:

There were several groups of sunbathers at the Audubon Riverview Park (located on the Mississippi River levee behind the Audubon Zoo), and I caught a couple here. The article I had read demonstrated how you could scribble the pencil pigment on the paper to create a little paper palette, and then lift pigment off the paper palette with a wet brush to apply to your painting. I tried that with limited success. I did better shading layers of dry pencil to fill in color in the painting, and then using my wet brush to mix and blend the colors on the paper. Very much a learning experience! I did not have a green pencil, so was mixing my yellows and blues to achieve the greens of the grass and tree leaves.

Here is my second sketch, of the scene in City Park behind the Museum of Art. I had a little more success this time in blending different shades of green, and also getting a little stronger pignmentation. Still need some more darks for contrast, but it is a learning experiment here. Note the ibis in the foreground. It was amazing that there were flocks of ibises in the park that were begging to be fed along with the ducks, geese and seagulls. Also several coots in the ponds. Such a beautiful day and a good feeling that the park has recovered so much since Hurricane Katrina.

We also spent some time at Bayou Savage National Wildlife Area, which is located along Highway 90 east of New Orleans. This swamp was also heavily impacted by Hurricane Katrina, with alot of salt water being trapped behind levees and killing the freshwater vegetation. I took lots of photos of the swamp with dead trees rising up to the crystal blue skies. But, there were also observable indications of recovery here as well, with new plantings of cypress, hackberries and other shrubs in the swamp. Here are a couple of photos from Bayou Savage.

Me in front of the spartina marses on the south side of Hwy 90.

One of those haunting scenes of the dead trees rising out of the impacted marshes on the north side of Hwy 90.

And before I close I just have to include a photo I took at the New Orleans Museum of Art. NOMA is celebrating their 100th birthday this year. There were several paintings from the permanent collections on display, and I really enjoyed the Modern Art gallery. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this wonderful painting by Richard Diebenkorn! My artist friend Conroy Hudlow had recently loaned me his book on Diebenkorn, an abstract expressionist painter from the mid-century who also dabbled in figurative art. I fell in love with his use of color, and was pleasantly surprised to see that NOMA had one of his figurative masterpieces in their collection. Here is the woman on the porch!

Mini Award and Sunday at the Redeemer

We held the opening reception for the Spanish Moss Miniature Art Show last Friday evening. The show is being held this year at the Mobile Arts Council and is sponsored by our small local group, the Alabama Miniature Art Society. We had 111 entries from 31 different artists, including artists representing 15 different states, one artist from England, another from Israel, and 6 local artists. So this is truly an international show on miniature art. I am happy to report I won one of the local merit awards sponsored by Alabama Art Supply, for my 4" x 4" acrylic painting "Feeding Time". My Alabama Art Supply gift certificate is the perfect gift for any artist, since I love to shop there for art supplies! The show will hang at the Mobile Arts Council through the end of the month - so be sure to go by and take in the show - you will be surprised at the variety and the quality of the artwork.

On Sunday, there was another art reception at The Artist's Place, hosted by The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer. My friend Claire Noojin and fellow artist Karen Spaulding are showing their work there for the month of March. I only took a couple of photos there, but here is a nice one of Claire standing in front of some of her artwork. If you haven't been to one of the receptions at The Artist's Place, you are missing an excellent opportunity to commune with local artists and art supporters. The Church of the Redeemer considers this a part of their art mission and they usually have a showing of a local artist's work on the second Sunday of each month, 2 - 4 PM.

Weather is starting to seem like spring, so will have to get out again soon for some more plein air painting. Hope to post some photos from outdoors painting here soon.

LoDa Art Walk - Featured Art

Tomorrow (Friday) is the monthly LoDa Art Walk in downtown Mobile. The weather should be great, and spring is in the air, so we are hoping for a good crowd of art lovers and shoppers. I will be one of 3 featured artists at the Cathedral Square Gallery, along with Nancy Hanrath and Conroy Hudlow. This afternoon I took my mother down to the gallery (since she is unlikely to come downtown for the evening artwalk), and I was able to take a couple of photos of our featured art. (Yes - the cows are here!) The gallery is really looking good and we hope you can come check us out.

I also have a couple of miniature paintings in the Spanish Moss Miniature Art Show at the Mobile Arts Council. And several other galleries will also be open for the artwalk festivities. So come on down for some fine art, food and music, and to co-mingle with fellow art lovers downtown.


Cathedral Square Gallery: 5:30 - 8:30 PM
Spanish Moss Miniature Art Show Awards Reception: 5:00 - 6:00 PM
LoDa Art Walk: 6:00 - 9:00 PM

Spring Plein Air Session - Spanish Plaza

Last week my friend Jami Buck and I made an initial plein air excursion downtown to Spanish Plaza on a beautiful spring day. There was alot of activity downtown getting ready for Mardi Gras parades (Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday is tomorrow!), and some of the plantings were fenced in chicken wire to protect them from the parade crowds. But Spanish Plaza is a little off the beaten path and was very peaceful that morning. Here is my quick watercolor sketch I made (with only a little touching up back in the studio). I was able to catch one of our homeless residents sitting on a park bench, with the park statuary and vegetation framing him, and the busy Government Boulevard street scene faded in the background. Since that day it has been rainy and now coolish weather, but more beautiful spring weather is just around the corner and beckoning us to start back into plein air painting on a regular basis.

Last week I finished an oil painting class I've been taking at Space 301 - we spent 4 sessions on a still life and 4 sessions on a figure painting, focusing on capturing warm and cool light and shadow. And last weekend our Mama Lisas group met to paint together and plan for our upcoming show at the Mobile Arts Council in May. There is much other art activity coming this week. This month I am one of the featured artists at Cathedral Square Gallery, along with fellow artists Nancy Hanrath and Conroy Hudlow. Our artwalk reception is this Friday, 5:30 - 8:30 PM. We featured artists are responsible for providing the food for the reception, so if you can make it out this Friday come join us for some wine, refreshment and fun while observing the art. Also during LoDa artwalk is the reception for the Spanish Moss Miniature Art Show at the Mobile Arts Council. We'll be presenting the awards for the show between 5 and 6 PM before the artwalk begins. There are 111 miniature art pieces, submitted from over 30 artists from all over the country, as well as one artist from England and one other from Israel - and it is all amazingly diverse and beautiful art. You have to come see it to believe it. More to come . . .