March Meeting

Members showed interest in the upcoming shows this summer:

(1) Civil War Reenactment on Father's Day
(2) Art displaying on the square in Baraboo on Sundays, organized through the Raven House
(3) ICF's "Internatonal Cranes of the World Festival" on August 11th

Reminder that the workshop by Joseph Fettingis will be June 20th, 21st and 22nd.

Sue Johnson will be participating in the Fall Art Tour at her studio in Spring Green.

Char Olson reminded us of the “Secret Life, Secret Death performance at the Al Ringling Theater, April 20 and 22.  This will also be presented the next weekend in Spring Green.

Char will be organizing the July 19th meeting at Durwood Glen.  There are many opportunities to paint on site.  Bring your camera and brown bag lunch.  Donations are appreciated to help support and keep the facilities open for the public.

Mavis presented her lesson of "Painting Rocks Under Water". 

Here is one of her completed paintings:

It's always fun to learn new approaches to painting a subject. We all had a good time with this lesson.


Joan Konyn brought in her finished painting using fibers from last months lesson using arches #140 coldpress:

Lynda Barganz did the same fiber lesson only using yupo for her surface:

  
The paper you use can sure make a difference in the outcome of the painting.

Here is another one of Joan's done from Lynda's lesson on yupo from last month, only using tissue instead of fibers.

February Meeting

I shared information about artist Maggie Latham. On her blog maggielathamfineart.blogspot.com she is posting two or three free tutorials a month over a four month period on exploring color. She started this Feb. 8th, I would begin there if you are just joining and interested in following along.

I demonstrated a fiber texture technique for creating trees in watercolor.

Here is a crop of a painting that I was working on using Arches #140 cold press paper. You can see the texture I was able to create using fibers.

 

Lynda Barganz showed how some of the same fiber texture techniques could be applied to Yupo paper. She also  demonstrated other techniques so the the members could experiment with the Yupo paper.

Next meeting will be March 15th.  Mavis will be demonstrating "Rocks  Under Water".

January Meeting

At our January meeting Sharon Rork showed the group how to create refrigerator magnets using small paintings or prints reduced in size of previous paintings. Here are Pat, Bonnie and Joan applying several coats of sealer to their prints.

Great project for creating gifts or to decorate your own refrigerator.

Lynda Barganz introduced the Artist of the Month. Lynda shared memories and a great variety of artwork of her mother, Erma Teelin.

November / December Meetings

At our November meeting, Marjorie Cutting introduced the  her father, Henry Thomas Gleson as the artist of the month. Marjorie had many examples of his beautiful work. 
We will continue our “Artist of the Month” in January.

During our December meeting we painted a “Quilt Painting” for Sue Conner which we will send to her along with a copy of the directory. Hopefully this will help her to remember her many painting friends as she continues in her recovery. It was a fun lesson in painting what you see such as shape, color and value because you only saw the small portion of the flower photo that you were to paint. The painting turned out beautiful. I’m sure Sue will love it.

 

We also enjoyed our “Trading Card Exchange”. It’s always fun to try to guess the artist of  paintings.

 

  

Finally the members were asked to bring in simple Christmas card ideas that they might have to share with the other members . We enjoyed working on their many creative ideas throughout the afternoon.

October Meeting

Once again members will be making trading cards for the Dec.15 meeting. Original designed cards should be 2 ¼ by 3 ½ .  Do not sign them as they will be displayed to determine the artist and then distributed to others and can be signed at that time.

Pat Scofield introduced the artist of the month. Pedro E Guerrero is a renown, contemporary photographer.


Char Olson presented ideas for a form of abstract art working with shapes and colors.  This will be the technique for the November 17th meeting.  Bring your regular painting supplies.  Also bring some magazines, calendar  pictures, or other visuals for ideas.  The process involves taking small areas of a picture which can be enlarged to find shapes, and developed with color.

I demonstrated ideas for developing  grape/leaf designs enhanced with color and texturing. We used a variety of leaves brought in by Lynda Barganz and myself. Members continued this exercise after lunch.

Sharon Rork will be doing a portrait drawing/painting class in Reedsburg, Jan 5, 2012. Contact her if interested.

August / September Meetings

Artist of the month in August was presented by Janice Matol who was drawn to the Impressionists. She read us a story describing the life of Pierre Auguste Renoir.
 
For our Sept. meeting we met at Char Olson’s home in Merrimac. She lives on  Lake Wisconsin which gave us an opportunity to get some nice photographs for future paintings.

Char shared information about Artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).


Some of our members stayed and enjoyed an afternoon of plein air painting.

This month we welcome new members---Pat Scofeld, Yvonne Notbohm, Jill Miluinas, Mary Lien and Joan Konyn.

June/July Meetings

In June a group of us made a trip to Art Fair on the Square where we enjoyed viewing the artwork from artist across the country. We stopped by to visit Luci Shirek who had her paintings on display. It was an great and inspiring time.
The Art Fair on the Square is in Baraboo on August 12^th , 13^th and 14^th where some of our members will be showing at the Al Ringling Theater. Please come visit the show even if you are not displaying.

At our June meeting I shared thoughts about Ann Blockley, an artist who has influenced some of my painting techniques. Ann paints in watercolor with an emphasis on texturing backgrounds. She creates this texture in the backgrounds by using a variety of techniques such as sanding water color pencils, granulating mediums, scratching out when using a gesso base, masking fluid, feathers, lamb’s wool, etc.
I had the group prepare gesso based pieces for our July meeting so the could try some a few of the techniques. You can use almost any object to create texture.

To create grass here, I used the side of a drinking straw.

Color settles in the marks on  the gesso.

Spruce branches will create spruce trees.

These flowers are from pressing into the surface with a pen.

Working on this surfaces give you the freedom to try different ideas knowing you can wipe it off if you don’t like it and try something else.

At our July meeting Eileen Mathis brought in paintings done by an artist who has inspired her. She obtained them when family items were being sorted and given away. Although they are very old, they have found a treasured place in Eileen’s home.
When the family genealogy was being researched, she was to learn that these paintings were done by an aunt. Edith Louise Nufer (1891-1910). In her young years, her talent and mature painting ability was readily seen in her watercolor landscapes. Soft colors, perspective, and innate talent is evident, likely without formal training.