The Northtsar Watercolor Society also has a library of DVD’s available to members. The lending library is usually available at each regular monthly meeting of the society. If you wish to take a DVD from the library, make sure that you have a check with you–you will need to leave a check for $50 as a deposit on the DVD you take out…the check is not cashed, however, unless you do not return the DVD. (Updated 12/09 All DVD art the property of NorthStar Watercolor Society) HERE IS A LIST OF THE SOCIETIES CURRENT DVD LIBRARY OFFERINGS. Description of materials provided by Darlene Veiman:
Edie Abnet: WATERCOLOR IRISES–Edie works in other mediums but prefers watercolor because of its immediateness and the hands-on aspect of it. She likes to paint a series of same subject. In the demo, Edie works quickly on two separate tall, narrow panels with drawings of irises. She lays color down, then softens and moves it around with a wide flat brush. She outlines the irises, because she likes the line aspect of design. Edie then demonstrates painting horses on a large square sheet. She again paints quickly with a wide brush, after wetting the paper. She lays in various un-horse-like colors, then outlines horse shapes over the colors. She then further defines horse shapes through negative painting.
Alvaro Castagnet: “CITYSCAPE with Buildings, street, signs, cars, people” –Castagnet begins by painting in the sky and building in bold colors with broad strokes, using a large squirrel brush. He paints the street red “from my passion for the painting. He says that he paints what he feels (“warmth and love”) not what he sees. With a small brush, he paints in the faces of the people in the painting. Otherwise, he paints boldly and loosely. As he paints, he jokes about being a rough watercolorist. He says that he paints with four values, light to dark. After painting loose, light colors, he adds shadows on the building, loosely, boldly, dramatically. He suggests that viewer should paint “boldly and juicy, not timid and shy.” He adds “the painting should move your soul when you see it”, and advises “free self from fear don’t be too careful, don’t be too concerned about the rules.” Castagnet’s final comment is that “what makes a painting is your insight,” and that technique without insight is nothing.
Andy Evanson: “CITYSCAPE with buildings, trees, people.” The DVD begins with a scan of a wide variety of Evansen’s landscapes and cityscapes. Evansen prefers to paint from life rather than photo references. Evansen suggests that since the sky is not the focus of the painting, he does not attempt to make it perfect. He paints it with a Black Velvet Silver Squirrel mop. The only green he uses is sap green, mixed with other colors to make a variety of greens. He does not use masking fluid, but cuts around the figures in the painting with his brush. In the early stages of the painting, Evansen does not worry about detail, but lays in washes of color to get the impression of shapes. While doing the background wash, Evansen puts some of the background color into the figures, more color to be added later. He gradates, making darker tone in the foreground. He goes back into the damp washes he has done with thicker pigment. The paint does not create blossoms, but fuzzes a little as desired. He uses colors a little darker, knowing they will be lighter when dry. He forces himself to ignore details in his painting. Evansen paints in background buildings as simple shapes. He stands as he paints, so he can step back to evaluate the paining in progress. He also squints, for the same reason. Lastly Evansen puts detail on the figures with dark colors. Broken strokes on the legs to make the figures look as if they are walking. John Yardley is Evansen’s inspiration for his loose, impressionistic painting style.
Arne Westermen: Demonstrates painting of man sitting hunched down in a doorway: The DVD starts out with several shots of Westerman paintings. Westerman entertains with a great sense of humor while he paints. He paints on “washable” papers such as Yupo and Fabriano. He was inspired to use Fabriano paper while taking a class from Charles Reid. He says that he always prepares to paint by doing a thumbnail sketch first, and then does a color sketch. He believes that these steps give him a better chance of success with his final painting.
Bob Straube: WINTER SCENE. The DVD starts showing several of Bob’s landscape paintings. In this winter landscape Bob uses masking fluid liberally in areas of snow, and birch trees. Without a drawing on the paper, Bob starts by wetting the paper, then he paints loosely, deciding what to paint as he goes. After completing the painting, Bob does a second, similar painting, very quickly. To achieve a loose effect, Bob drops in very wet color and then tilts his work, tapping the edges on the table to get the paint to spread and flow in the desired direction.
Calvin deRuyter: DVD opens with shots of several of deRuyter’s paintings. Calvin uses photos as guidelines for paintings. He puts gridlines on the photo, which correspond to gridlines on his paper, as aid to drawing his subject. Calvin does not use a lot of water, but what he uses is hot water. Color is laid in boldly with paint directly from the tube, on wide flat brushes. Cal likes to pick up three to five colors on the brush to bring to the paper where he mixes the colors. He does not like to leave any whites in the painting from the paper. If he wants any whites, he adds them later, with paint. In this demonstration, Calving did an underpainting of RED for the background and blue for the shadow areas of the tomatoes. He painted over the red of the background with blue. He painted over the tomatoes with red and yellow. Cal is able to paint on many layers of color without ending up with muddy colors. This may be due to the color coming directly from the tube with little water in his brush.
Dan Wimer: RED WING LAND AND WATER SCENE. The DVD opens with a scan of Dan’s paintings. Dan is influenced by Skip Lawrence’s “Painting Light and Shadow”, and by John Singer Sergent. Dan paints on 300# hot press paper and uses a one inch flat brush for most of his paintings. He creates the look of a wood cut through the use of frisket. Dan paints shapes and interlocks them to create the painting. He paints quickly, boldly, and expressively, with his paper at a 20 degree angle. He says that he does the sky first, because if it is not good, he does not finish the painting. Dan likes action lines in his paintings, in both the sky, and the foreground. Before he begins painting, Dan wets the paper. He mixes colors on the paper. Using the same colors in his shapes as in the sky, Dan creates harmony in his painting. He saves whites, and punches with bright colors. He feels he can tone down, if necessary.
Deborah Voyda Rogers: EGG TEMPERA. Deborah learned the egg tempera process by copying a Leonardo DaVinci portrait of a woman, and demonstrated the process by continuing to work on that painting in this demo. She describes the preparation of the board to be painted on. Then she explains the way the Italian artists made Egg Tempera and demonstrates the process by mixing powdered color pigment into egg yolk to make paint. She shows how she applies that paint by continuing to work on the portrait. The remainder of the DVD pertains to the poster that Deborah painted for the Minnesota State Fair. She shows her value studies, drawings, and pastels. In her demo, she begins the poster by painting with watercolors. After painting the dark shapes, she “toned” the remainder of the poster with pastels.
Dick Graves: BRIGHTLY COLORED CARIBBEAN STREET SCENE.Please note: a portion of this DVD is repeated. The DVD starts out with views of several of Dick’s paintings. Dick’s background is in architecture. His goal is to demonstrate balance and dominance. He begins on paper which has been wet on both sides, saying that this buys time, and allows for softening edges, and making changes.Dick says that balance is about individual items in the painting. Dominance considers principles of design. Center of interest, for Dick, is getting the viewer’s eye into the painting.Dick begins with an underpainting to establish his pallet, leaving some whites. He approaches the painting as an abstract, and paints intuitively. He achieves balance by repeating colors in a variety of sizes and values. His goal is to experiment with color and have fun doing it. He uses bright unrealistic colors, “because they’re there”.Dick’s goal is to have the viewer of his painting react by saying “This looks like a place I’d like to be”. Though there is dominance, Dick has hard edges, soft edges, and contrasting colors balanced throughout the painting, even though there is dominance.
Don Andrews: FIGURES ON A BEACH – The DVD begins with a display of several of Don’s very colorful, juicy paintings. Don says that the first thing to do is to capture the light and focus lights on the main characters. With a wide flat brush Don starts with a multiple colored wash over the page, carving around the figures. He likes the figures together. He stresses that he puts strong color in the wash so that the whites at the top of the figures will show. His paper is tilted so he can make the colors run in the direction he wants. Don mixes color on the page, calling the process granulation. He wets the area below the figures and paints in sand colors. To paint the figures Don changes to a Robert Simmons synthetic round brush. He lets the colors he puts on one figure appear in the adjacent figures, to accomplish linkage. He drops colors into the wet of the sand to serve as reflections of the people, not necessarily in the same colors as those on the people. He lets the colors mingle by turning painting on its’ side. Deciding that he has too much white, Don drops in colors, letting them mix on the paper. The colors in the reflection dry lighter than he likes, so he darkens them.The sound is lost at this point, but does not detract terribly from the overall value of this DVD. Don intensifies the background color behind the figures. The legs of the figures are just suggested – no feet. Clothes are put in in soft edged colors. There is very little calligraphy in the painting. The finished painting is very brightly colored, juicy, with very simplified figures, without much detail but very identifiable.
Dick Green: LANDSCAPE. The DVD starts with Dick passing a sketch book of his paintings. He shows a painting of his which appeared on the cover of “Skier” magazine. He said that he does very little drawing. He sees too much in nature and simplifies what he sees. Dick paints without a reference photo or sketch and does no drawing on the paper before he begins to paint. Dick wets, stretches, and dries his paper before starting to paint. Starting with the sky, using a wide Hake brush, Dick applies red between the blue at the top and the lower yellow so he doesn’t end up with green. After the initial wash is a little drier Dick switches to an Isaby brush to put in tree-like shapes which have soft edges because of the dampness still in the paper. On a little drier area Dick paints in trees with harder edges in a color that contrasts with the first trees. He adds accents to trees with a striper brush (intended for painting stripes on automobiles). He paints sharper edged trees in front of the softer trees he initially painted. The soft trees appear to be more distant. He scratches in some fine grasses in the foreground. Dick’s painting has hard edges, soft edges, warm and cool shades. He says that greens can be overwhelming and he stays away from them if possible. His painting is in shades of golds and browns. In darker colors, Dick paints in a reflection of the trees in the water at the lower part of the painting. By wetting the area, the colors have softer edges. He creates some movement in the water with horizontal strokes and lifting with a fine brush.
Doug Lew: MOTION – SPEED SKATER. Doug starts out by showing several of his paintings which show motion. He states that it is necessary for a painting to have direction. Development ofthe painting: From the web, Doug got pictures of ice skaters. He made drawings of the pictures, then chose one that appealed to him. He then chose a direction possibility: he then simplified the figure and the lines that create the direction. He decided what to do with color and where to leave whites in order to create motion. After wetting the paper with a sponge, Doug applies glycerin to the paper so that the paint will not dry too quickly. His goal is to have the paper stay wet for about 20 minutes. The ratio he uses to accomplish that goal is 1 part glycerin to 10-12 parts water. Using his value study as a reference, Doug paints, saving whites where figure will be located. The direction of his brush strokes aid in showing motion.
Ellen Diederich: Warmly colored painting of building with vine/flowers covered walkway adjacent to the building. The DVD starts with shots of several of Ellen’s paintings – landscapes, florals, animals, buildings. Ellen is very upbeat and humorous in her presentation. She suggests that painters do 100 paintings before deciding that they are not artists. She begins her demonstration by showing paintings of hers that were in national publications: cows lost in flowers, called “Party Animal”, sunflowers and horses called “Rendezvous”. When ready to paint, Ellen starts with “warm-up” paintings. She urges painters to take their time and persevere. She recommends doing careful sketching on watercolor paper. She likes to combine man-made shapes with organic shapes. She starts by painting the loose organic shapes (flowers, etc) first, then paints the man-made shapes (building). In the demonstration painting, Ellen uses a one-inch flat brush. She exaggerates the colors she sees in her reference photo. She gets a very nice effect by putting a color down, then dropping in other colors. She says that knowing that she can scrub out anything she does not like, gives her a sense of freedom. Ellen is very conscious of color harmony. She recommends placing colors, mixed with a common color, adjacent to one another. Her finished painting is very vibrant with colors that glow.
Eric Wirgardt: ABSTRACT IMPRESSIONIST WATERCOLOR of boat: Loose, wet into wet look: Eric paints big shapes and he likes to organize his thinking by doing value studies. He sees abstract shapes and patterns and tries to capture them on paper. Eric in not concerned about light sources, but interesting patterns. Eric draws his value sketches with a 6B broad pencil. The wide lead of this pencil is helpful in shading. Eric does not like to paint on location a lot because he thinks “the eye is too greedy.” Rather he likes to step back and simplify with big shapes. For exciting color, Eric uses fresh paints. He gets several colors on the brush at once. To begin, Eric squirts water on the back and the front of 140# Arches rough paper. He then picks up some of the water on the front of the paper by rolling a diaper over the surface. With a wide ox hair flat brush, Eric likes to pick up three to five colors on the brush at one time. After laying down the big shapes, Eric puts in detail with a squirrel hair mop brush. Eric is very experimental with color – he follows his instincts, thinking that strong value is more important than color. He does not see detail, so he suggests small shapes imperfectly, just to get the flow.
4 Artists – 1 Scene (No description available)
Frank Francese: A very enjoyable demonstration, done with humor. Frank Francese paints quickly with broad strokes. The DVD begins with a display of Francese’s brightly colored paintings of city scapes done in various places he has been. His subject matter is what he believes is important to society. Frank says that he likes “juicy” colored, strong valued painting. His goal is to direct the eye in the painting by use of the light source. He does not draw on the watercolor paper before starting to paint. Frank uses fresh from the tube paints so that he does not need to use large amounts of water to get the values he wants. He also says that he likes to break rules and think out of the box, painting from the heart rather than the brain. Because Frank likes his paint to run, his board is on an angle. Rather than mixing colors on the pallet he mixes them on the paper. Frank shows his value sketches, done with different valued markers. At the end of the sketching he determines where his light source is coming from and then puts in the shadow values. In this demonstration Frank paints almost the whole painting with a two inch flat brush in broad strokes. He makes his narrow strokes with the side edge of the brush. Lastly he establishes the light source by painting in all of the shadows. He then uses a smaller brush to add a few finishing accents.
Frank Webb (No description available)
Frank Wetzel: WATERCOLOR LANDSCAPES AND CITYSCAPES – Frank uses Yarka (?) Russian made panned paints. He paints on Waterford 140# cold pressed paper because he considers it very scrubbable and it enables him to lift paints easily. His brushes are Isaby, Stradivarius, and Windsor and Newton, and he paints mostly with rounds. Frank has done corporate paintings in both watercolor and oil. His influences are Homer, Turner, and Seargent. Frank usually paints on quarter sheets or less, and says it usually takes him an hour to 1/12 hours to do a small painting. At the beginning of the demo Frank shows several paintings he has done of scenes from his gravels in various parts of the world – France, Brittany, Burgundy, Gloucester, Mass., and Toledo, Spain. Frank paints to create a memory. To illustrate he gives a wonderful explanation of a complicated side-walk cafe painting he has done. Next Frank shows how he plans his compositions and sketches. He says you find out the reason for painting a scene by doing several sketches, moving parts of the scene from place to place, adding and subtracting. He demos a value study on one of his sketches, starting with a light value, then middle value, then darks, using watercolors. Frank describes his paintings as poster-like, where he is not fussy about values, but may get fussy about details. His technique for darkening cool colors is to add black. To darken warm colors he adds sepia. Frank ends his demonstration by painting a scene of a barn in the distance, with a winding road leading up to it. His center of interest helps to organize what he is trying to present in his painting (in this case, the breadth of the Minnesota countryside.
Frank Zeller: ALABAMA BOATS – Frank’s experience as a teacher is very evident, as he does a great job of explaining every thing he does in his painting. The DVD starts with Frank explaining his objectives for the demonstration. He shows how, using Adobe Elements, he can simplify his reference photo and come up with creative expression of the scene he plans to paint. Frank says that watercolor painting is capturing something on the paper which has just evolved. He says he values a painting because of its expression. Frank believes that you need to paint with fresh pigment in order to get nice juicy paintings. He starts the painting by wetting the paper on the back and the front with a wet sponge. He then picks up some of the access water by rolling over it with a rolled towel. Starting with the sky, he lays in orange on one side, changing over to blue on the other. Then he blocks in the large, bold shapes of the boats. He paints the shadow sides of the boats with bold colors. Some of the paint is applied with dry brush,..some is the consistency of cream. He varies the colors in the boat windows to give interest. When an area was too predictable he changes it. Well into the painting, the paper was still wet, creating a softness. Frank said that color is not as important as value. As the paper gets more dry, Frank mixes the paints in a thicker, more creamy manner. Frank says that if you don’t have a solid design base your painting won’t be exciting. He finishes a very exciting painting.
Gary Spetz: PAINTING WILD SPACES–Learn to Paint Lake MacDonald. The scene Gary has drawn on watercolor paper, is one of a mountain reflected in Lake MacDonald on an early, calm, morning. The demonstration is long and very detailed. He applies mask thickly to paper (with plastic toothpick, in small areas). For larger areas he uses cheap children’s brushes, which he throws away when finished. Gary uses various sized flat brushes for the whole painting. For the sky, he wets the paper and paints with paper tilted so it can run where he wants it. He picks up some of the color with a “Thirsty” brush. Spetz then paints the mountains. After drying the paper he paints in the nearer mountains in darker shades than the distant mountains. He then paints in a mass of trees in dark blues and greens. He adds salt to tilted paper and brushes over salted area in vertical strokes. Then, in lighter colors, he paints in the midground trees. Spetz removes mask from the paper, then paints in the foreground trees and tree reflections in the water. Gary draws outlines of individual trees in painted mass of trees. Then he defines the individual trees by adding strokes of color. In steps involving re-masking, painting, removing masking, and painting unmasked areas, Gary adds rocks at shoreline, reflections in the water, trunks of trees, etc. He finishes the painting by shielding all above he lake, while he sprays the lake surface with water, then adds very wet color, tilting the paper sideways. In the end he uses a scrubber to life surface lines from the lake.
Jan Fabian Wallake: Jan begins her demo by spraying the paper with water. She then pours glazes onto the pre-wet areas of the paper, drying between pours. Then, using brushes, she develops the painting. She strives to keep contact with the paper to a minimum in order to retain the reflective properties (tooth) of the paper. Using a spray bottle to wet the paper, she drops paint into beads of water.
Janet Rogers: PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN – The DVD starts with a scan of Janet’s portraits. Janet says that she likes Ebony pencils for drawing and sketching. Arches 140# cold press is her choice for paper. She uses American Journey, DaVinchi, and Holbein paints. Her inspiration is Charles Reid’s work. Janet uses three pallets and says that all the thinking goes into the pallets. She likes to use warm and cool colors. She makes puddles of flesh tones, blues, and greens from fresh pigments before she starts painting. The brushes she uses are inexpensive Lowell Cornell, synthetic. Janet paints the shadow shapes of the face in colors of the same value, drawing circles where she wants to save whites of the paper. She uses colors in the face that may be surprising to some. The effect is wonderful. She said she starts with the subject’s face because if she is not happy with what it is looking like, she will not go on with the painting. Janet seems tentative and chooses and corrects colors as she goes. To get subtle color changes, Janet throws paint into already very wet painted areas. She likes to go from big shapes to little shapes. When colors are too bright, she drops in analagous colors. She says that her theory is “the more you say, the more you have to say”. A painting that looks unfinished and accidental is what Janet strives for. If brush strokes are too predictable, she “squishes” them. Janet says that there is an eraser called “Oops”, which is supposed to work for erasing pencil lines after the painting has dried.
Jean Grastorf: POURING MIXED MEDIA painting: Jean draws, masks, pours onto stretched Arches 140# cold press paper. Students must do value studies so they know where to mask out. In this demo, Jean pours three transparent, staining colors. Jean then discusses mixing pigments. Though it has a limited shelf life, Jean uses Invisible White Mask. She applies it with Cheap Joe’s #8 Ugly Brush, or a round, white Taklon brush. She wets the paper before pouring. As she works, Jean uses water sprays and daubs with Kleenex to control the color. Jean demos the steps in pouring color, saving colors and further pours and layering. She describes the techniques she has used in various paintings that she shows in the demo. Jean also describes the differences in pours done with water color and liquid acrylic.
Jean Ranstrom (No description available)
Jeanne Larson (No description available)
John Salminen: ABSTRACTION – John begins with a discussion on the importance of design elements and recommends reading Robert Wood book on design. He says that after laying in shape and color, calligraphy pulls the painting together. The DVD starts by showing a very advanced abstract watercolor painting that John has worked on. John adds lines to enhance the painting. By using collage shapes which can be moved, he determines what might be added to the painting to create visual tie-ins, and correlate with images in the painting so far. John arranges pre-selected pieces till they seem to fit, then sticks them on with masking tape to see if he likes the placements. Using acrylic matte medium, John paints the surface of the painting in the area where he wants to place the collage pieces. Applying the matte medium to the back of the collage pieces, he glues them to the painting. These shapes are meant to be accents on the painting. John says there should be no recognizable shapes in the design. The collage materials can be used to reintroduce liner effects. John uses a permanent black marker to add some lines. Lastly, he adds acrylic paint for completely different surface and value to contrast with the transparency of the water color. It also defines where the center of interest is to be.
Joyce Gow (No description available)
Judy Blain: LANDSCAPE – BARN, TREES, FLOWERS – Judy paints primarily with flat brushes as did Elliot O’Hare, the first person she painted with. In this painting Judy paints without a line drawing. She uses a lot of pigment – bold and bright. She draws with paints, negative painting around shapes. Flowers are done by putting centers here and there in a large shape of color that is already down, then Judy negative paints around the flower shapes. By placement of lights and darks Judy leads the eye into the painting. The whites she saves lead the eye into the painting, as well. She also gives direction with her paint strokes. Paint spatters give added texture. Judy creates an abstract pattern of lights and darks with no attention to light source. She repeats shapes and colors in the painting. Karen Knutson: DESIGNING ABSTRACT PAINTINGS. Karen has drawn inspiration for her abstract painting from the works of John Salminen and Karlyn Holman. She gets ideas from small sections of pictures in magazines to simplify her design and demonstrates how she does so. Her rules for designing from pictures in magazines are as follows: 1. Don’t cross any lines; 2. Don’t life the pencil; and 3. Work in a clockwise manner. She incorporates repetition, variance and dominance in her designs. After establishing a design in two values, she begins to paint. Connection of values is important in her work.
Karen Knutson: ABSTRACT SEA GULL PAINTING. Karen lays down light primary colors, leaving white pathways. She then sprinkles the damp paper with salt. After drying the under-painting, she draws, placing the center of interest in a light area. Then she does negative painting so that the subject stands out. After putting color down, she goes over some of the hard edges with water in her brush, to soften them. Karen says that she can go over her background colors with most other colors, but not with the color’s opposite. As Karen paints she creates pathways for the eye to travel.
Karlyn Holmann (No description available)
Kate Worm: STILLIFE – watercolor and quash. Kate paints on heavy weight paper that has more sizing than watercolor paper. The paper is gray to begin with. She uses one inch skipper (Cheap Joe’s) brushes. The water color paints are right out of the tube. Kate mixes them with quash. With an abstract design as her goal, Kate rolls color on the paper with a brayer, creating an under-painting. She then draws and paints a still life over the brayed on area of the paper. The under-painting affects the colors painted over it.
Lana Grow (No description available)
Marie Hammond: Marie’s presentation is very entertaining as well as informative, as she is a great story-teller. Most of her presentation is an overview of her sketches. Marie stresses the importance of sketching. She believes that a sketch is superior to a photo for a reference, because when sketching, she really sees what she is looking at. Marie has lived in several countries and has sketched scenes from each of them while there. In this presentation, she shows many, many sketches, (some of them published) that she has done in the various places she has lived – Morocco, France, Norway, Italy, China, the Carolinas, Northern Minnesota. Her sketches of Northern Minnesota show her love of trees and rocks. In addition to her sketches, Marie shows silk screen prints of her work. Her sketches are in a 300# Kilimanjaro sketch book, and are done with a pen and/or watercolor. Because so much time is given to showing her sketches the actual painting portion of Marie’s demo is not very long. She uses American Journey and Holbein Paints. In the beginning of a painting, of a Northern Minnesota scene, she lays in colors top to bottom of the sheet, then lifts and draws with her brush. Early on she starts negative painting. Then she paints in trees over the wash. The painting is in the early stages at the end of the demo, due to time limits.
Michael Schlicting: Growing up on the Oregon coast and headlands, has influenced his attraction to shapes. He began with a slide show of many of his transparent watercolor paintings and abstract paintings. He shows photographs he has taken, and his painted abstract and surreal interpretations of those photographs. In the demonstration, Schlicting starts out with random color surface, and then paints over it loosely in contrasting bold color. He masks off arbitrarily with tape, and then glazes over the painting.
Marianne Schultze: Watercolor Abstracts: Marianne gets ideas for designs by doodling or combining cut out pieces of magazine pictures. She says that other than that, she does not plan; the painting just evolves. She paints with flat brushes. In the beginning Marianne paints with a lot of water. She likes to work in cruciform. Leaving white spaces, at first, Marianne then lays in color which is pure in the white space, and then extends in a layer over a color which is already down. In her floral paintings, which have an abstract quality, Marianne starts with pale colors. She uses an angle shader for negative painting.
Michaelin Otis: PAINTING PEOPLE.In this DVD, Michaelin demonstrates painting a black man. She begins by coating watercolor board with gesso, so that the finished painting will have texture. For her reference, Michaelin uses an enlarged photograph. She stresses the importance of using a photo which was taken out of doors in sunshine, in order to capture highlights. From the photo, she does a value study to determine her darks and lights. Michaelin explains her measuring technique, in which she uses the width of the subject’s eye as a gauge. Her choice of paints is Holbein, because she believes that the colors are easier to reconstitute and they do not end up in crumbles on the pallet. She starts the painting with freshly squeezed paints. The paint is not absorbed, but lays on top of the gesso. It can be painted over lightly, and can easily be removed, and Michaelin says that painting on gesso helps her to loosen up. The finished painting is very painterly.
Miles Batt (No description available)
Nels Femrite: Watercolor on Fabriano Paper: Nels accompanies his painting with very humorous commentary. He starts out by giving an example of how he modifies the composition through the use of several value sketches to explore possibilities to improve on his photo. He then lays an underpainting, then finishes in a very gestural painterly manner.
Ostad & Zeller (No description available)
Pat Deadman (No description available)
Robert Burridge: ABSTRACT Painter, paints from his “magic” studio! Burridge recommends painting in series. He shows examples of the twelve basic composition designs: Cruciform; Cantilever (off-center – asymmetrical); Horizontal; Vertical; Overlapping frames; Curves; Diagonal; Constellation; Meandering; Spiritual (trinity, triangle, Mandela); and Uneasiness (off balance). Burridge paints a series of three paintings, two minutes each. He paints rapidly, moves all around the painting energetically. He attaches brushes to long twigs so that he can stand back from the canvas while he works. His Philosophy: “It’s important to know the rules so you can break them.” Burridge emphasizes his desire to paint something he has never seen on canvas before. “The weirder it is, the more I like it.”
Shirley Blake (No description available)
Skip Lawrence (No description available)
Susan Voigt: MIXED MEDIA ABSTRACT: Susan shared influences from a Betsy Dillard Stroud workshop that she participated in. Since Susan says she has no patience, she finds pastels and acrylics are the best mediums to offer immediate results. In this demo Susan uses Acquacryl acrylic paints, which can be lifted and changed even after it has dried. She uses a “staywet” palate, so that the paints stay wet and “juicy” for weeks. Susan very quickly did three paintings: 1: Painting on watercolor paper, Susan wants the color to be absorbed by the paper. She dampens the paper first. She squirts Matte Medium on randomly, and then squirts color on. Then she brushes over all with a very broad brush. Following that she scrapes through the paint with decorating comb to create texture and then scrapes color off in some areas. 2: Beginning with dried under painting…then proceeds as in number one. 3: Susan pours paint onto the under painted paper. She then tilts the paper to cause the paint to flow. Using a painted over linoleum block cutting, she then stamps on the painting in various places. Using a ruling pen dipped in fluid acrylic, she puts detail onto the painting. Interference color showed the different colors through.
Tom Francsoni (No description available)
Tony Van Hasselt: SOUTHERN STREET SCENE – Poor audio. The DVD starts with Tony showing sketches. His work is of old Southern homes with much dark/light contrast, and large areas of saved whites. He demos creating trees by negative painting over an underpainting in which he has warm and cool colors and saved whites. In another brief demo Tony shows an absract underpainting and then paints over it, as he says, what the paper tells him to paint. The main portion of this DVD starts with an underpainting. Then Tony, with a sketch as his reference, uses flat brushes to paint a scene with old buildings, and palm trees. The under colors show through the transparent colors he applies. There is no pencil drawing; Tony draws with his brush. He does a side demo showing how he paints people using an upside down U, a W, and an O. He then adds two people to his painting. Tony work in bold shapes without much detail, though he does add calligraphy at the end. The finished painting is warm, sunny, tropical.
Wendy Westlake: LANDSCAPE: Wendy starts with an underpainting. When the underpainting is dry, she paints over it in large shapes. She adds gnarly tree branches, and then paints foliage in layers. She adds texture by blowing watercolor paint through a screen which gives a lot more subtle foliage to the trees.