2009 Cave Creek Film and Arts Festival

For the second year in a row I was juried into the Cave Creek Film and Arts Festival. The piece juried in is "Boot Scootin' Wannabes". The juried entries will be exhibited at the Desert Foothills Library in Cave Creek from June 19th through the end of July. Although there will be a reception on July 10th from 6 to 8 pm, the actual awards will be announced on July 19th at the Film and Arts Festival awards ceremony (for all divisions) from 6 to 0 pm at the Fine Arts Center at Cactus Shadows High School in Cave Creek. If you happen to be in the area on either date please stop in and join the festivities!

IAPS Video

Last weekend I attended the International Association of Pastel Societies Eighth Biennial Convention in Albuquerque, NM. I took along a new toy.....a Flip Video Camcorder. I took a few video clips which I put together into a movie called "Scenes from IAPS 2009 and posted it on You Tube. I thought you might enjoy it:

IAPS Biennial Convention 2009

I just returned from a wonderful weekend in Albuquerque attending the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) Biennial Convention. Bob and I flew to Albuquerque Thursday morning arriving at 11:30 in the morning. This allowed us to get to the convention hotel in time for me to attend the first session of the conference. This convention draws people from all over the world, although the majority are from the United States. Yet, the convention is just small enough that you get to meet people easily at sessions and other convention activities. You also have the opportunity to attend sessions to learn from a large number of the artists one reads about in the art journals. I was able to attend sessions with Liz Haywood-Sullivan, Michael Chesley Johnson, Richard McKinley, Sean Dye, and Kim Lordier. I learned a lot!!! Some of the things I learned were new to me, but then some of the things I have heard or seen before......but they really jelled for me hearing them this last weekend. One of the concepts that really jelled for me was the fact that the artist is painting a concept....not specifically a scene. All the tools and techniques I have been learning are to be used to design a painting to communicate the concept that drew me to the painting to begin with. An artist is not a camera....faithfully recording a scene. An artist "designs" a painting, modifying and interpreting the scene to share the reason the scene first attracted them. I knew this...but never connected all the ramifications of "knowing this". After this last weekend I think I am going to be approaching my painting in a whole different way!!!

Lake Pleasant Shoreline

As promised, I am sharing the finished painting, "Lake Pleasant Shoreline" You will note that I changed the name from "Lake Pleasant Cliffs". I am pleased with the finished piece. I worked quite awhile to get the reflections to look right. The reflections have movement from side to side...but there are also reflections that move from top to bottom. I would love to get to a point where I could complete a painting while still on site. This finished product reflects about three additional hours of actual work and several hours of thinking and reflecting on each step.

Let me know what you think of the piece.....I would love to read your comments!

Productive Day

Today I was able to spend a good part of the day in my studio. As a result I found that I accomplished a lot!

First of all I finished another work in my shoes series. This painting is a take off on the "Party Flats" piece. The shoes which are the subject of both pieces are actually black with a black patent toe and heel. In "Party Flats" I chose to use vibrant colors for the shoes as opposed to the native color of black. This time I went back to the shoes' true colors and added a gold necklace. Here you see the result...."Black Patent Flats".

The second accomplishment was the underpainting for a piece I am going to call "Sunflowers". My good friends Barb and Charlie brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers upon my return home from my surgery. In the bouquet were three beautiful sunflowers. I decided they had to be painted. So I pulled them out along with some vibrant purple flowers and began taking pictures out in the sun on the patio. Today I selected the composition I wanted to paint, created the drawing and painted the watercolor underpainting. I really like the results.....hope I don't mess it up when I start with the pastels!!!

Finally.....I had some time to work some on the painting I started Wednesday plein air painting in the Castle Hot Springs area. I ended up brushing off some of the work I had done on site and began reworking some of the areas. It is a rough half done piece here.....but I think it has potential!

Yes....a good day in the studio while the clouds roil around outside and light rain continues to show up every now and then.

On The Road Again!!

Yesterday was a great day!!! It wasn't particularly sunny...but it was a fabulous day because I was back with my friends plein air painting. I have been out of the loop for a few weeks due to health issues which resulted in surgery. I was doing some painting....but hadn't been able to be out plein air painting. Well....today was my first day back and it was so great!! We had a rare cloudy day in Arizona so the contrasts were minimal.......but I really didn't even care!!! Here is a picture of the group getting setup on an overlook of Lake Pleasant in the Castle Hot Springs area in the north valley. Phil is standing next to his jeep and painting setup. My jeep is behind his. Bud is in the chair on the right getting setup. You can just see my setup in the lower left. I got a good start on a painting that I hope to finish today and will shortly share with you.

Did I mention that I love being outside painting????

Notan

As noted in a previous post, I participated in a plein air workshop with Richard McKinley in Tucson in March of this year. During the workshop Richard brought up a term that was new to me....notan. During his instruction Richard encouraged participants to create thumbnail sketches using notan prior to painting a piece. The sketches were 3 value sketches. To me it seemed that notan sketches were the same thing as value sketches....but I was assured by Richard that they were not really the same thing. He also recommended that we read a book by Arthur
Wesley Dow titled "Composition: Line, Notan and Color" from Dover Publications. I just finished reading the book.....and I think I have a better understanding of notan. Notan is a Japanese term for dark and light. My understanding after reading the book is that notan is the broad concept of light and dark, while values are a further refinement. This makes sense to me....but I want to further discuss notan and how artists use notan to help me confirm or disprove this understanding. I will be seeing Richard at the International Association of Pastel Societies Convention (IAPS) in Albuquerque next week and plan to bounce my understanding off of him. I am also attending sessions with CA pastel artist Kim Fancher Lordier. Kim refers to notan in regards to her work. I hope to learn more in her sessions.

If anyone has a different understanding or a clarification of notan I would love to hear from you!! I will let you know what I learn at IAPS!