Petunias: work in Progress

 

 

Work in Progress-2 (c) Jeanne Guerin-Daley

My Petunias watercolor is coming along.

I added a little more color to it last night, mostly greens.

My Tax "Vacation"

Work in Progress: Petunias-(C) Jeanne Guerin-Daley

Here's a pic of a work-in-progress. I have been so busy working on my annual [always huge] tax-paper-gathering job. After spending most of the day and evening on that, I was starting to go stir-crazy. I decided it was time for a change of activity in order to stay sane!

So last night, even though it was already quite late, I got out a quarter sheet of some "Artistico Fabriano" watercolor paper. Then I chose a reference photo from my collection of images that I had photographed of my summer garden flowers, grabbed a brush and attacked the paper! This image is about two petunia blossoms (the mostly undone areas of yellowish white right now) next to a fence.

I tend to waver back and forth between loose and tight techniques, depending on my mood and the application. The acrylic paintings painted for the Michaels workshops lean toward the tight/realistic... which is as it should be, for the purposes of teaching the basics.

But when I paint for me, I try to let out whatever needs to come out. Being loose is often a way I might start out. But this one, I actually started with a quasi-realistic light pencil drawing. Not too much details, but I did spend time on erasing and redrawing to place the objects where and how I wanted them. When I started laying down those beautiful colors though, I let the brush and my muse take over and had such fun!

One way you can tell that painting is your passion:
Your son tells you that it's getting close to two AM and you thought it was just past midnight. . . And, you don't care! You just want to keep painting!  Sometimes I wish we didn't have to go to sleep at night to recharge. I would have so much more painting time!

Stay tuned to see the petunias emerge...

Note Cards

Fine Art Note cards

Rocky Crashers at Sunset-Mini

I am an avid user of note cards. I have discovered that often, taking a few minutes out of a busy day to write a short thank–you note to someone can bring a smile to the faces of both the sender and the recipient. I usually print my own note cards, which is convenient when I finish a brand new piece of art that I am in a hurry to share with someone. All I have to do is scan it (if it is small enough) or photograph it with my digital camera, maybe do a little cropping/editing, copy and paste the image and new title, etc... into my card template, and print! I buy envelopes in bulk so I always have them on hand.

BTW, Alyson B Stanfield shares some very practical ideas for artists regarding cards. I was just reading some tips in her latest e-newsletter. If you are an artist, interested in improving your art business, I highly recommend signing up for her free email newsletter. (aff link) She has taught me some very valuable lessons over the years, between her blog, book, and newsletters.

Shown here is the latest addition to my card collection. 

(If you would like to order some cards, send me an email.)

Banana and Apple

I've been working on a new Still Life tonight; an image to use for teaching my Still Life Workshop. Banana and an apple. Simple. Nice bright colors.

What do you think?

Learn to Paint/ Help a Child

 Always wanted to give painting a try? Now's the time!

So, here's the deal:

 Register for two consecutive workshops at one of my Michaels stores, and I will personally donate $5 in your honor to St Jude's Childrens Research hospital.


I spelled it out here.

To Make It Easier...

 To help my students know what paints to bring to what class, I created a chart showing all four categories of classes and the supplies needed for each. You can scroll down to see the previous post.

Or, it can easily be accessed by clicking the link you will see above, the link called "Supply List: Workshops"

(If you don't see it, here's a direct link to the page: )
http://jeanneguerin-daley.blogspot.com/p/supply-list-workshops.html

Enjoy the color! 
              --Jeanne

Supply List-Workshop

For students intending to attend Michaels Fine Arts (Acrylic Painting) class:

Below is a chart which I created in the hope that it will make it easy to see at a glance what is needed for what class.

(If you have a suggestion on how to improve it, please let me know!)

SUPPLIES Needed for Michaels Fine Arts Workshops

# IN KIT	SUPPLIES USED Colors: Acrylic paint tubes	LAND SCAPE	FLORAL	SEA SCAPE	STILL LIFE
1	TITANIUM WHITE	X	X	X	X
1	CADMIUIM RED LIGHT	X	X	X	X
1	CADMIUM YELLOW MEDIUM	X	X	X	X
1	ULTRMARINE BLUE	X	X	X	X
	ALIZARIN CRIMSON	X	X	X
	THALO BLUE	X
	CADMIUM YELLOW LIGHT		X	X
	CERULEAN BLUE			X
	HOOKER'S GREEN		X
	RAW UMBER				X
	BURNT SIENNA				X
2	CANVAS PANEL - 1 per class	X	X	X	X
1	PALETTE KNIFE	X	X	X	X
1	#8 FILBERT BRISTLETTE BRUSH	X	X	X	X
1	#2 ROUND BRISTLETTE BRUSH	X	X	X	X
1 or2	PALETTE SURFACE *	X	X	X	X
	OPTIONAL: RAGS, PENCIL, NOTE PAPER, SPRAY BOTTLE OF WATER, EXTRA (different-sized/shaped) BRUSHES

OPTIONAL: RAGS, PENCIL, NOTE PAPER, SPRAY BOTTLE OF WATER, EXTRA BRUSHES (different-sizes/shapes)

* PALETTE SURFACES CAN BE WHITE STYROFOAM PLATES, PALETTE PAPER PAD, OR SCRAP BOARD COVERED WITH FREEZER PAPER, SHINY SIDE OUT.)

INSTRUCTOR WILL SUPPLY WATER CUPS, PAPER TOWELS

Questions? Call the Instructor, Jeanne 610-804-2888

Do You Use Google Docs?

Some time ago, when my desktop computer was down, awaiting my computer expert son to fix the spyware or whatever was on it, I bought a relatively inexpensive little netbook, because I needed to stay connected to the Internet, email,... (geez, it's amazing how much a part of my life computers have become just in the last couple years!)

Anyway, MS Word software was installed on my desktop. It wasn't on my Netbook. I was not about to go out and buy another expensive license for a temporary situation, so I started to make use of Google Docs when I needed to create a word processor document.*

I already had a Google account (this blog is based on Google's Blogger.com), so all I had to do was sign in and look for "docs" among their choices. If you haven't yet used it you may want to try. One nice thing about using Google Docs is that you can access them from whichever computer on which you are working: not just from your home computer. For some people that can be a helpful feature.

Anyway, I say all this because I just read a little article about how Google Docs is getting a facelift.
Here is a link to it if you care to read it.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200119&cid=nl_IW_smb_2011-02-01_html

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 *Actually I did have another choice that my son told me about, but it took me a long time to finally get around to acting upon: it's an open source (read: free) software called Openoffice. I now have begun using it and I really like it; it's very similar to MS Word, so it was easy to just dive in and start working with it without dealing with a big learning curve.

Anyone can download open office for free from this site:
http://download.openoffice.org/