“INCOGNITO” An Original Watercolor on handmade paper (deckled edges) by Shanti Marie 11 by 14 inches $120.00 Plus $5.50 for S & H.

Wild Acres workshop retreat October 1-3rd 2010

Sunrise from my room the first morning at the  2009 workshop.

Wild acres is a great place to be and to be there with a group of like minded artists is even better!

Plan to join us as The Charlotte Art league and Wild Acres joins up to provide you with a one of a kind experience.

Prominent NC Artist, Diana Arvanites and me, Shanti Marie  will be there to provide  instruction, tips,  & techniques  to create a piece of art that looks and feels like encaustic without the hot wax.

Are you a creative type who would like the opportunity to experiment with various mediums? If you are then give yourself a special gift this year and spend the weekend at Wild Acres with Prominent NC Artist, Diana Arvanites. She will assist you in a learning experience that will be both fun and relaxing. You will learn how to use various mediums to achieve a look of ancient encaustic without the use of Hot wax and blow torches. Feel free to allow yourself the time and in this environment the space to experiment with some new techniques that you can take back to your studio and incorporate into your own work. With experimentation and guidance you will you be able to create something unique and truly your own. This event is sponsored by the Charlotte Art league. And in cooperation with Wild Acres Mountain learning Center in Little Switzerland, North Carolina. Wild Acres is a true retreat undisturbed by traffic and the noises of the city. Located on Pompey’s Knob, near the Blue Ridge Parkway, it is situated on 1600 acres at an elevation of 3,300.00 feet. Inspiration exists behind every tree rock and sunset Acrylic wax? Yes, you can achieve encaustic wax effects with acrylics. It can be mixed up to look just like encaustic, creating beautiful transparent and translucent layers that simulate the qualities of wax. It is a viable alternative to the hazardous process involving solvents and heat. In this workshop you will learn how to create wax-like surfaces that resemble unrefined, yellow, and pourable bleached beeswax. All without the wax! Explore your style using collage and embedded images with acrylic gels and poring mediums.

These are two examples of the surface created using mediums.  You can also use paint, transfers, collage and many other techniques you already incorporate in your work.  Its endless really.  Your only limited by your imagination!

The price  for food lodging and instruction is $285.00 double occupancy or $50.00 extra for single or private rooms.   This is  from 3:00 pm Friday October 1st to Sunday at noon.

come joins us!!!  the class size is limited so email me asap if you want us to hold your place.    email :shantmarie@aol.com  we take pay pal and checks…

Painting surfaces for watercolor

The first example is 300 lb watercolor paper. You can see by the first and the second photo that this paper is rather thick. Most folks frame watercolor on paper under glass to protect the painting and the paper.

This example is watercolor on wood panel, the wood is painted in gesso and the finished painting is varnished or sprayed with a fixative.

Here the watercolor is applied to gessoed masonite ( ampersand and clay board are brand names) this looks a lot like the wood panel but the masonite is much thinner. Folks usually frame this type of painting without glass since they are varnished.

This example is a gallery wrap canvas, the sides are painted so that the painting does not need a frame.

These are just a few of the supports used for watercolor and I’ll post others as I complete the paintings.
Illustration board, rice paper, bristol, cloth, and many other supports are used but the most common is watercolor paper.

ACEO Moon boy

This little 3 .5 by 2.5 card is painted in watercolor on paper. Its a collectable card and its only $15.00 plus 1.5 postage in USA.

I wish it was in focus, I will try to get a better photo tomorrow. These little paintings can be a great way to work on your design skills. They are so small you learn to fill the space without putting too many things in the painting. You think about shapes a bit more and it seems to help you if like me, you tend to put lots of stuff in every square inch of your canvas or paper.

Valentine Koi

8 by 10 inch acrylic on canvas panel  $95.00

 

The Daily painter’s group is doing a valentine theme this week so I thought I would put up a Koi valentine, something I have thought of many times   but didn’t do because it is a bit too much to fit into a regular composition.  Since I was under a deadline, I had to put this painting up quickly, but now I’ll go back and put in a bit more value on the underside.

lilly pad 8

This Watercolor is 4 by 4, (inches ) A watercolor on gessoboard & is for sale for $30.00 Plus S& H.
I painted this in the deductive manner. That means: I painted it and before it dried I used a wet brush to pulled out the objects from the still damp paint. Then, I allowed it to dry and later filled in the objects with another light glaze of paint. In this case the lighter color of yellow green.

Morning breeze

This is a small landscape painted in watercolor on paper $40.00.
This is a good example of negative painting… the little house was basically a swatch of the paper not pated. I then went in and painted the trees all around the little white space to form a house.

Winter’s Chill

Winter SALE….15 by 22 watercolor on paper $90.00

December Snow

Watercolor on paper  $100.0 7.25 by 9 inches. I’ve been trying out some different palettes for snow.     This one is painted with  Burnt sienna, Manganese blue, antwerp blue, raw sienna, cobalt lavender, ultramarine blue.  You could also use Sepia instead of ultramarine blue and  and burnt sienna.  You could skip the cobalt lavender as not much is used…   The raw sienna is barely used also..   I had more  raw sienna in the background and it looked very good but I ended up glazing over it because I decided not to place as much emphasis  in the back.

Clayboard verses paper, a watercolorist’s dilemma.

People write to me often and ask me why I paint on surfaces other than paper. Some folks have always challenged my methods because they are not traditional in nature. The use of heavy pigment at times almost straight from the tube, the use of spray fixative and of course the use of non traditional painting surfaces. First, I would mention that this is nothing new, people have been painting on gessoed masonite for over 40 years. I’m sure canvas, wood and other supports have always been available to watercolorists and have been used as well. I started painting on other surfaces for several reasons. I’ve painted on paper for more than 20 years and feeling like i was missing something, wanted to branch out. I’ve always like experimentation & now that I’m confident of my painting skills, wanted to see what else is out there for the watercolorist. There is a lot of work in the area of water media, which is exciting and fresh and not limited by the traditional restrictions of watercolor on paper. Even our state (SC) watercolor society changed their name to watermedia society and this made me realize that things were changing. The South Carolina watercolor society has always been at the forefront of new artistic avenues and being a part of it was important to me. I also found that sales of my paintings on clay board, canvas or gessoed masonite were selling for a higher price than the works on paper. These surfaces are actually easier to paint on once you learn their limitations and yet give the artist many ways to express an idea. Without having to plan ahead, and the ability to correct mistakes easily it helps the artist be more in the moment. It also allows the artist (especially the new artist) a certain amount of freedom that watercolor on paper can only do after many years of experience. I still love watercolor on paper and probably always will. It not that one is better than another but they offer the artist variety and a challenge. Also… why is it that we watercolor  artists feel we must restrict ourselves for traditional methods. Some of these methods aren’t even traditional but have just recently ( within the last 40 years) become rules. For instance the forbidden use of white paint, Turner, Homer, & Sargent all used white paint. I love the look of white paper but don’t see anything wrong with using white if the painting calls for it.

Here are three examples of very similar paintings on three different surfaces. Fom a distance they look very much the same but up close they have a slight variation in texture.  The one on the right is traditional 140 lb paper. The one in the middle is gessoed masonite and the last is illustration
(#100 )board.

Gessoed masonite illustration board

watercolor paper

Little bit Koi painted in watercolor on textured clayboard

http://www.dailypainters.com for pay pal button

Textured clayboard. 6 by 6 watercolor sealed with spray fixative.  No need to frame under glass.  $40.00

Yesterday I was ready to start tackling the yard and cleaning up my deck, today when I woke up it was raining and 49 degrees. It will have to wait.

It isn’t everyday you get to visit with friends and so I should be happy because I see friends for a few hours each Thursday. The tega Cay Art League was started by me and two good friends, Nance Presson and Martha Mannco. There are 15 local artists in the group and we meet down by the marina in Tega Cay. We get together each Thursday to go over all the current events, share news of awards and shows, exchange books, new ideas, mediums or paints. If any of us hears of an opportunity we share it so all of us can take advantage of it. I was so proud of our little group when I learned that three of us have paintings in the Charlotte Art League show. ( its tonight) It can be difficult to get into the show and it gives me a certain amount of pride to know our group is such a power house. Although I thought at least one more person should have at least gotten into the show who’s work was declined, I feel its based on prejudice. That’s the way these shows work. Quality of work or level of difficulty seems to run a distant third behind creativity, and the judges personal preferences. Of course I can’t say I don’t agree with that. Expertise in technique is important, I just can’t say its should be the most important in judging shows. Otherwise your shows would be filled with excellent draftsmen and very few abstracts. Its true everyone has prejudices and preferences. I know that I have preferences when it comes to art and when I see certain combinations of colors or textures I’m more apt to like the work. How can a judge not choose what he or she personally likes. This can be difficult for the artist because they don’t know what to enter, should I choose figures, or still life, abstract or realistic work. People say pick you best work. Its like picking your best child, they all have their strengths, which will be appreciated for their strengths?

I know that I have discussed this many times because this judging thing is hard for us artists who wear our hearts on our sleeves and allow ourselves to be judged.

My Husband who is a master shooters says its not like his shooting competitions where you hit the bulls-eye or you don’t, there the judging is simple, no one can deny if your the best or the worst.

Koi blu

Acrylic on wood sealed with a spray fixative for UV protection.
6″ by 8″ by.3/4  45.00

This is the the finished painting I started earlier this week. Its painted in acrylic on wood. I didn’t gesso the wood but just gave it a light sanding. I painted the background and allowed it to dry, then I painted the fish. When the fish was dry I sprayed light green and blue from squirt bottles to set the fish back a bit. Last I used white ink and spattered and painted the white specks. I like it. It has a fantasy type look to it. I may give the underside of the Koi a glaze of blue but I’m not sure just yet. we’ll see.

Work in progress… opps this was posted on the wrong blog

This was supposed to go to my painting a week blog go there to see the rest of the project as I finish the painting http://h20color.wordpress.com

I’ve put the first day’s work (painting) up again because I didn’t realize I had put up a thumbnail. this should be easier to see.

This piece is on stretched ( WN) canvas. The canvas was coated with several goats of Acrylic gesso and allowed to dry. I actually painted the gesso on leaving it with a rough texture that is more or less going across the canvas as the water is. I think if you click on the picture it will enlarge. Perhaps you can see some of the texture. If you have never done this, it can be fun. You can use just about anything from a spatula, sponge, fingers, bristle brushes and drag these things thru the moist gesso to leave marks. Then allow it to dry.

Koi Carnival … watercolor on gessoed masonite

this is an eight by eight watercolor on gessoed masonite. $50.00

I just found out both of my entries into the “spring into art” juried show got into the show. I’ll take photos of the pieces so you can see them. I’m happy my work is in the show but it would be even better if one of the pieces won an award. They said there were over 150 pieces of art work entered, so I was really surprised and happy to have both of my paintings get in.

I think 50 to 60 pieces were accepted. The show is this Friday nite, cross your fingers for me!

Poppy … ACEO SOLD

4 inches by four inches A watercolor on clayboardthis flower was painted with yellow, quin gold, orange red, and green.

Each of the petals was painted with the lightest paint first then the darks were laid over the lights while wet. Last was the leaves and stem, they were painted with the light yellow green first then the darker green. I use a flat brush which makes it easys to do the leaves and petals.