something to talk about

I was inspired by Bonnie Raitt's, 'something to talk about" but I really do have a lot to talk about.  I just returned from a wonderful working vacation in Atlanta.  I woke up both mornings before the workshop feeling like a kid on Christmas morning. I was going to get to watch Nancy Franke paint and have her help me.( And give me wine at lunch.)The biggest issue I wanted to improve on was making the area around the  subject matter flow and compliment the whole piece. aka..the  background. The painting above is a 20 x 24" piece I did Saturday morning. Nancy's goal for us was to have fun, paint some free, loose studies and focus on capturing the essence of the things we were painting with out getting wrapped up in the details of the objects. 

  Nancy is one of my favorite artists and I have always admired the freshness in her work.  I think one of the things that leads to this is her limited palette.  She uses cad red medium, cad lemon, cad yellow light, ultramarine blue, titanium white and cerulean blue hue on occasion. I had gotten used to using this palette after working with her in a "painting children" workshop.  I keep my palette fairly close to this most of the time.  I use burnt sienna and a couple of other colors when I am painting animals. 

   I will take the next few posts to share some of her insights with you.  Lots of things are whirling around in my head right now.  I am trying to latch on to some key points that will help me go forward and improve. I really need to go celebrate Mom's day by lying  on the couch but I wanted to get some painting done and thoughts written down. Sold

Nancy painting her first demo.

My compadres Beth and Lisa trying to soak up some Nancy juice. I have no idea why this changed to blue ink??? 

A redo of a BORING background.  You may like the first rendition but not me.

Lastly.....Happy mom's day!  I am fortunate to have my Mom very much in my life and also to have three wonderful sons.