Gloria J Zucaro's "Workshop and Juried Show"

Tomorrow night I will be at the Art Centre 2015 32nd Annual Juried Art Show at the Elk Grove Village Library from 7-9 PM.

It is at 1001 Wellington Avenue in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.  I have three pastel paintings in the show.  It is a great opening, so come on out.  You can see the show each weekend up until November the eighth.

I am linking this post to Paint Party Friday.  Every week there are new pieces of art from over 100 artists in all media.

The Richard McKinley workshop was fabulous!  We were given so much wonderful information in the 5 days, that our heads were bursting.  It is a good thing I bought his book "100 Pastel Pointers" because much of the information is there to re-read.  I also have a few of his DVD's and I bought my favorite demonstration painting from him.

In the pictures below you see some first steps he suggested for whatever we paint.  Deciding on our composition, doing a line drawing with large shapes, a value sketch using lightest light, medium light, medium dark and darkest dark. and finally to do a Notan(black and white only) that combined the medium dark and dark into black and left the medium light and light all white..  Then he used washes of watercolors to set in the under painting in values and colors. Finally pastel is added on top for a completed painting.  The first picture is of one of his final pastel demos.  It is the one I bought! (:>)

Doing the prep work below

see

A line drawing

First watercolor wash

Second layer wash

Close-up of wash with all the interesting drips

Richard McKinley's Field box of pastels for Plein air painting.  He said because of all the ambient light outside, your darkest dark should never be darker than 6 1/2 on the value scale, so most of his color choices are quite light in value.

Next week I will show you my paintings from the workshop.

Have a good week,

Gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "Try It, You'll Like It"

Here is Number 15 in my series.  This week I tried some new techniques for me.  I have been using a thinner non-sanded paper for my series of tree paintings.  Today I decided to use Wallis sanded paper.

I wanted to use a heavier paper and one with more tooth because I was going to block in with my pastels and then use a large paintbrush and water to create an under-painting.  I used my NuPastel bright orange for the sky area and then a dark teal soft pastel(Unison, I believe) for the tree and main landscape areas.  I also used a light aqua soft pastel for the water.  Then I went to the studio clean-up sink and wet my 2" house painting brush with cold water.  I danced it around the tree and in the land. Rinsed my brush, then I did a smoother straight-line stroke across the water area.   Rinsed and did slanted bottom-side and up to the outer corner, strokes over the sky.  I didn't put too much water and painted with the paper flat.  All the pastel remained quite bright.  I had forgotten to tape the paper down because it is in a tablet form.  That meant as it dried it became quite wavy/undulating at first.  But as it continued to dry it straightened out again...Live & learn! :)  I started adding soft pastels over the top of the now dry but lumpy surface.  It was a little difficult to get a flat broad stroke, but eventually after smoothing some of the scratch marks made by the edges of my Terry Ludwig rectangular pastels, it all pulled together.  As usual I thought by looking at my color wheel and choosing a palette of Blue-Green & Red-Orange that is what I would do.  But also as usual I ended up using all kinds of  pinks, burgundy, violet, blues, some greens!!!  I can't seem to restrain myself and stick to a very limited color palette.

Here is the color wheel I was using and some of the pastels.  The soft pastels are in my Plein air box and are the ones I took with me on Saturday for the Plein air demo and paint-out.  To see that post click here.

This is my post for Paint Party Friday.  Please visit the site hosted by Kristen & Eva and see what about 80 different artists have been doing in all different mediums this week.

Have a wonderful week, Gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "A Great Day for Plein Air"

Yesterday morning we were to arrive at Crabtree Nature Center in Barrington at 8 AM for a demo given by Kathy Clouse. It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the 70's and no wind to knock the easel over. There were about 20 of us all dragging our equipment behind us along a path to the chosen spot for the demo. We were to do our own Plein Air after the demo, if desired. There was no instruction, just the demo. Kathy started by telling how she had chosen that particular spot. Good large shapes, water, pond scum that was a beautiful lime green, flowers on two banks. She said the values of some light and some dark were good, too. She started with a canvas toned in a combination of reds and yellows because it gives a nice glow under the painting and she lets some show through in the final painting. Kathy then began to put in the first thin coats of paint for the large dark shapes. She did not draw any placement marks and used various dark colors under the different areas depending on what the actual final color would be. The treed areas which were dark, came first then a bit of blue for the sky. Afterwards the shapes for the water and berm with hardy hibiscus. She did not finish the painting, because it was only a demo to show us how she starts. She had painted the same area the week before and showed us her finished painting. It was beautiful! I would show you, but she hasn't posted it yet.

After the demo we all picked out spots and began our own paintings. About 6 of us parked our supplies in an area nearby getting various views of the area where the demo had been. Others moved far afield to other areas of the preserve.  I was doing pastel and set up a little down the path from where Kathy had been. This is the actual scene that I chose.

Here is my pastel Plein Air painting. I used Canson Mi-Tientes black paper, the"rough"side because I like the texture. The only area I smoothed with my finger was the sky, but then put some more pastel over that without smoothing it in. I did put some red, yellow and orange under the area I would be doing my painting on to give some warmth underneath. 

I enjoyed the three hours I was there, except for the mosquitoes!  I had put spray on but I got bites on the back of one elbow and on the tops of my fingers!

Gloria J Zucaro's " Some Plein Air"

I have stepped back a little from my daily art and my blog because of shoulder and neck pain that gets worse when working at the computer.  I am now going for acupuncture in hopes of relief.  I had x-rays a couple of months ago and some physical therapy for arthritis in my neck.  The x-rays  also showed a complete loss of all cartilage in my shoulders. So anyway, that is why I have not posted in quite a while. But today I am sharing some of my thumbnails and Plein air paintings done the first week in June. 

On the first day of our Plein Air workshop, I was still doing thumbnails. We were at Ginger Blossoms in Richmond Illinois. There is a main house and a large barn filled with ceramic tiles, furniture, rugs, paintings, tableware, etc. a silo, open fields, and about 6 other little buildings filled with unusual items from Mexico. Around the grounds there are many sculptures.

The front porch of the house.

The side of the ramp going up to the barn, grasses and part of the silo.

A statue, just taking it easy!

A shed and corner of the barn.

Another small building with a latticework entry, and shadows from the trees.

Trees and the aluminum roof shining on a small shed.  Grapevines in front.

A facsimile of a Greek building.

The second day was at an old farmstead on Route 22 not far from the Mainstreet Art Centre.  The wonderful white farmhouse, several out buildings and the main barn, as well as grassy fields and charming fencerows. I did my thumbnail and then my first actual painting. I need to make my large barn darker for more punch. The day was cloudy, so the barn was dark at first, but then the sun would peek out and confusion ensued!

"Two Barns on Route 22"

I did two paintings that day, my second is below.

"The Tree in the Far Field"

The last day we painted along the Fox River in the North Barrington area off Robert's Rd.

I chose an area along the path where you can look through the trees draping down and see a distant shore.  It was sooooo cold.  Cloudy, some wind and a damp 55 degrees!  Only one painting that day. We had a critique first thing in the morning from Frankie Johnson, our fearless leader!  Then off to the latrines, and finally picking a spot to paint. Lunch and then an early stop at 3PM.

"Along the Fox"

Thanks for looking, next I will talk about the convention in Albuquerque, NM.

Gloria