Surprising Faces

This Spring I saw a few Instagram Art Challenges focused on the face. Not everyone, but many artists find drawing and painting faces quite challenging. I include myself in this group.

I decided to spend some time on the dreaded face. I signed up for an online class called Wandering Muse by Jeanne Oliver. There is a section of this class devoted to experimenting with faces. Jeanne emphasizes that these are just studies. Just play and see what happens. And so I did.

Using charcoal, stabilo pencil, ink, gesso and watercolor pencils I took Jeanne's ideas as a starting place. Some were definitely better than others. With more practice I began to actually enjoy drawing faces. 

I put the more successful ones up up on the wall. Seeing them altogether added another dimension. 

The last two were my personal favorites. Since they were the same size, I experimented with putting half of one face over half of the other. 

I posted a few of my faces on Instagram and Facebook. The response was truly surprising. I received several Private Messages of friends telling me how much they loved them. One friend drove from Dallas to see them in my home art studio. Another friend who owns a shop on the McKinney Square asked me to bring them up to her Shop. 

I sold several originals including the two large faces to the Shop Owner. She may use a couple in her clothing designs.

My friend from Dallas loved the two half faces. I took them up to a local printer who professionally photographed them to make customized prints.

My big takeaway from this experience is the energy with which I approached these faces. I was experimenting and playing rather than trying to create a masterpiece. The result was something fresh and new.

Unique By Nature Juried Art Show

So happy to announce that Farmers Market was selected for the Unique by Nature Juried Art Show in McKinney, Texas.

Farmers Market on View at the McKinney Performing Arts Center

Submissions were juried by Karl Buchberg, retired Senior Curator, The Modern Museum of Art and J Patrick Cooney Fine Arts.

Paintings in this wonderful Art Exhibition will be on display and available for purchase through April 28 at the charming courthouse in Historic Downtown McKinney.

Own Your Colors

Last month I took one of the best online class ever from Melinda Cootsana. She is an excellent teacher who gives detailed feedback. The class I took was Own Your Colors Part 2. Nope, I didn't take Part 1 which she said wasn't required.

I'll share a few of my assignments. So many of these ideas were brand new to me.

I wasn't that familiar with the phenomenon of color relativity. It extraordinary how the same color can look completely different given the colors that surround it. Here is my attempt at giving this a try. 

The top two photos are the same turquoise green. The bottom two are the same yellow green. 

Cool light with warm shadows and its counterpart, warm light with cool shadows was a brand new exercise for me. 

I also learned about bringing reflective color into the shadow.

Painting a self portrait with a Zorn color palette was a quite challenging! The Zorn color palette ( Cadmium Red Light, Payne's Grey and Yellow Ochre) are colors I usually wouldn't gravitate toward. That is precisely why this assignment was so good for me to try. This is my very first self portrait!

Yep, this looks like a first attempt at a self portrait. 

Using mostly neutrals with thimbleful of a primary color opened my eyes to how the brighter colors pop when contrasted against muted colors. I knew this idea theoretically, but this exercise brought it home for me.

Painting of Birth of Venus by Caz Love. A site specific art installation at Elephant Butte Lake.

I highly recommend this class. I'm in love with Melinda's figurative art so I'll be taking her Abstracting the Figure online class coming right up in September!