Welcome back to the new year of blogging. We have had a nice winter of Tuesday Painters, and our first meeting of 2019 is under our belts. Lots of news to tell, so lets get started.
Our April 9 meeting was held at Arts Center East. It was called to order at 6:58 p.m. Ronnie Klukas, our president and treasurer, updated us on our current balance. The current balance is available if you are interested. Contact Ronnie via email if you are interested - cyanronnie@aol.com
We added a new member on Tuesday night. Laura Kinlock of Quiet Corner Musings is our newest member. She is from Stafford Springs, and is currently working with pastels. You may like her page on Facebook to view her work at Laura Kinlock Art. Welcome, Laura. We are glad you have joined us.
We are gearing up for our members show in June at Hall Memorial Library in Ellington. Each paid member can enter 3 pieces. The applications were given out to members at the meeting, and the rest will be sent out via snail mail. Drop off will be May 31 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Ronnie will be sending out all the information in future emails. Just a heads up so you can get ready for our favorite time of year, our annual members show. All media is accepted, including photography.
Susan Bosworth is looking for help on procuring guest artists for future meetings. Please keep your eyes and ears open for possibilities. You can email Susan if you stumble upon a guest artist that you would like to hear more about. Her email is bosworths@gmail.com
Our next meeting will be May 14 from 7 to 9 p.m. This is our annual critique meeting. You may bring 2 pieces for critique. I believe it will also be held at Arts Center East.
ARTIST OF THE MONTH
We have lost our place at Stafford Library temporarily so there are now only three locations to display our art. This month, the three artists chosen will display their work at their choice of locations, Monet's Table, Hall Memorial Library and Tolland library. Here are the winners for April.
1st place Emilie Beckwith, South Windsor Barn. Monet's Table
2nd place Jane Burr, Toucan, Tolland Library
3rd place Cathy Worcester, Milk Can, Hall Memorial Library.
Congrats to all our winners. If I messed up with spellings, please let me know and I will correct.
MEMBERS CORNER
Arts of Tolland is running its annual juried art show at the Arts of Tolland building on the green in Tolland. The show runs until April 28, and the center will be open on weekends. Refer to their calendar for times the gallery will be open.
We are pleased that several of our members were accepted into the show. Susan Bosworth won the Pat Scholz Memorial Award for her pastel entitled Migs Ride. She also has one other pastel in the show.Other members who had accepted works included
Emilie Beckwith, watercolor Hubble Light.
Bonnie Massey, pastel, Down East Sunset
Dee Volkert, acrylic , Carnival Dahlias
Jeff Blazejovsky (did not write down)
If I missed anyone I am sorry. I did not have an updated members list. Please support our members by stopping in to the gallery to view their wonderful work, as well as all the other pieces on display. As usual, the gallery is filled with some of our best local artists work, and is well worth a visit.
New member Kathy Bagioni, a fiber artist, has created a show of 14 pieces called Celebrating Women in the Arts. She has created pieces representing Georgia O'Keefe and many others. Her show will be at the Windham Textile and History Museum for May, June and July. Stop in to view these wonderful textile paintings.
TUESDAY PAINTERS
way to stay in touch with the group, and to chase away the winter blues. We will continue meeting Tuesdays from 10 to 12:30 p.m at Hall Memorial Library in Ellington, CT. We usually meet in the children's program room on the second floor.
GUEST ARTIST
We were in for quite a treat at our meeting. Our guest artist was multi-talented Audrey Carroll Prucnal. She focused on her watercolor work, and introduced us to her method of creating watercolor paintings.Audrey began by showing us the different affects you can get with the same piece. There is the traditional watercolor painting, and she also does them with lots of color. These pieces are more bold and defined. The difference is quite noticeable in these two painting of a barn.
Audrey begins by first sketching her subject, then traces it with tracing paper. She then transfers it to another paper which she used for a value study. Once she has her values she then transfers the lines to her watercolor paper. Her preferred paper is Arches 140 pound cold press.
Some tips when using your water. Audrey keeps her brush over to the edge when she dips it in, so the paint will drop to the bottom. She also likes to use something called a dot bottle, which sprays a few dots onto the paper for blending and softening. You can also feather your edges where you spray the dot bottle.
Her wash is very light initially and she uses a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 color combination, dark, medium and light on as much of the painting as she can. She avoids doing details or separating the parts. In order to bleed the paints together she uses a small brush and taps the area with water. Her first wash uses color sparingly, but she still tries to use her three colors even in the wash.
Using a hair dryer to quickly dry the wash is an absolute no no. Audrey has
found that the hair dryer destroys the natural luminosity of the watercolor, so take a break after the first wash, have some tea, do a few loads of laundry, take a walk. Let the paint dry naturally.
With the second wash, she begins to add much more saturated color, focusing much more dramatically on the 1/3 ratio of your colors. This is where you can get creative. Perhaps you want to add some contrasting and complimentary colors with each section. This is also when you separate your colors by darkening colors over the first wash.
To transition within each section, take a fine brush, fill with water, and let it do the work of mixing. Smoosh over any ridges to soften the lines. Another technique Audrey demonstrated was what she called rocking the baby to remove puddles. This is just holding the painting flat, then moving it in a wave, up and down, left to right, to let the watercolor flow from one section to another and flatten and level.
Once again you need to let the second wash dry, and then you can add your details and darker darks. First, remove your masking fluid by rubbing with your hand. You can lightly work in some color so that the masked areas are not as white. A rigger brush is very useful to add fine lines and a filbert is great to soften edges. For areas that are too dark, you can use a stiff angle brush to scrub some of the paint out and also to soften where the masking was removed.
Audrey did not get to finish the painting, but her explanation made things very clear. She also demonstrated the techniques on a second piece, a fish, which seemed to show more or her technique, especially the 1/3 ratio. The process of the fish follows at the end of the blog.
It was a great demonstration. Many of our members are avid watercolor painters, so interest was high, and I am sure everybody got something out of the discussion on Tuesday.
Now get out there and try some new watercolor techniques. We might see some of our watercolorists utilizing some of Audrey's techniques at our Tuesday painting group.
Next evening meeting is the critique of May 14. Hope to see you there.
Update April 28. Audrey has finished her sunflower and sent us a photo of it. She says she needs to examine it a bit more to add more details, but here is the almost finished painting. Personally, I think it came out beautifully, and really shows how color can be used to add drama to a watercolor. Thanks Audrey for the finished art. It was a great demo.
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| Photo courtesy of Audrey Carroll Prucnal |
AUDREY'S FISH
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| Ronnie Klukas |
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| Ronnie Klukas |
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| Ronnie Klukas |
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| Ronnie Klukas |
