Getting Wild and Wicked With Watercolor . . .

I was back at Sitka this past weekend for my final Sitka workshop of 2011.



The title of the class I took was Watercolor With a Tweak: Unraveling Your Painter's Personality. It was my understanding that this was not a traditional watercolor class -- but boy, that's where things got haywire on my end! I've played with watercolors before in my journals -- nothing traditional, nothing formal, just blotches of color and splatters of paint. I went into the three-day workshop thinking there would be some guided exercises playing with watercolors. Well, there were some exercises all right, but also a lot of traditional type water coloring going on. I was out of my element quite quickly -- and to top it all off, there were several, I mean many, women in the class who were traditional watercolorists looking to expand their repertoire of techniques.


It was definitely a weekend for learning. I learned I am NOT a watercolorist and I don't like traditional watercolor (well, I already knew that) so I guess the weekend reinforced that. But I did learn a few things.

I learned that I love:

Oil paints
300 pound rag paper
Plein air painting

It was also reinforced that I love:

Judy Vogland as a teacher (probably one of the most generous art teachers I have ever had)
Lami Li Loka handmade papers
Ebony pencils
Oregon Art Beat

Okay, given all that reflection, here's how it all went down.

Judy's space, so vibrant and alive with possibility.


My space. So full of promise.


Our first warm-up exercise was a prompt-driven painting using oil paints. OIL PAINTS! I have never used them before and I fell in love. Deeply in love.






Collage exercise with Judy demonstrating, then what I got started on (I do have plans to finish this).





Tree exercise (my trees are not viewable due to horrible watercolor painting skills, or should I say lack of skills):




Plein air painting:











Post Script: I decided at the end of Saturday that this was not the class for me. I am NOT a watercolorist and the frustration level was just too high. So when the class was done for the day and everyone was out for dinner, I packed up my stuff and left a note for Judy and the class.

A Perfect Summer Week

I'm home from spending a perfect summer week at the Oregon Coast -- a cabin nestled in the woods, warm sunny weather, a husband and then a friend to hang out with, all punctuated by an art class. My week in review.
A hike.


A swim.


A dinner.


A treasure.


And then my class began at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Sand Painting and Mixed Media with Judy Vogland as our instructor.

DAY 1












DAY 2










DAY 3











DAY 4

Judy is such an amazing teacher. She is patient, encouraging, generous with her time, encouraging, willing to push us out of our comfort zone, encouraging, knowledgeable, and did I mention encouraging?


Because it was such a diverse class, I thought it would be fun to show some of the highlights of our final Show and Tell where each of us presented what we had been working on, our challenges, and our successes.











Judy and Bob witnessing the work.


The great people I spent four full days (and sometimes evenings) with:


After four days, I managed to move three pieces along, although none are completed (a rarity for me!).