"Autumn Day in the Vineyards" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

sold

The reference picture was taken near Weinviertel, the region north of Vienna, Austria.  It is the largest wine-growing region in the country.  The middle ground in the painting are vineyards, hence the title.

"French Village" (oil on linen; 12" x 12") sold

"French Village"
sold

French village demo I

French village demo II

French village demo III

French village demo IV

French village demo V

Dreama's finished demo painting

On the second day of Dreama Tolle Perry's workshop, we painted a charming French village scene.  Architecture and landscape are two of my favorite subjects, so I was very happy with Dreama's choice.  My burning question was how she would approach architectural rendering.  As you can see in the first demo photo, she did some line drawing before starting the underpainting.  What a relief!

The third demo photo shows her dark/mid-tone underpainting.  Shockingly dark again! What about the pink sky?  We were in the throes of a French Revolution here!  In the fourth demo photo, you can see squiggly marks Dreama made with a color shaper (it's a rubber-tipped tool with which one can scrape out paints off canvas).  She used it to draw and add her signature.

The primary objective of the second day was bold brushstrokes for which she is famous.  She used ONE brush for the entire painting--Winsor & Newton Monarch flat brush (#14), plus a small palette knife.  With judicious and practiced use of these limited tools, she created her trademark strokes.  How about that!

Her bottom line?  Put down a stroke and leave it alone unless it really needs to be modified.  Please don't "lick" the canvas by going back and forth with your brush.  Don't make strokes in the same direction in a given section.  Don't paint from the same puddle of colors for the entire sky, or wall, or whatever.  Variety is the spice of life! Instead of making hundreds of strokes for leaves and flowers (I am guilty!), make a few suggestive strokes. Be a minimalist.

Yes, Dreama dropped some random colors here and there, especially along the edges, but in general, her choice of colors was based on knowledge.  Most importantly, what made her art so colorful was her beautiful grays as much as her bright colors.

One more thing.  Dreama is not a die-hard, plein-air painter; she is a good photographer.  You have to start with good reference photos.  It is hard to paint a sun-drenched scene with a picture taken on a cloudy day.  I will conclude my "Dreama experience" tomorrow.  Please feel free to leave comments!

"At the Louvre" (watercolor, 14" x 20") sold

sold

I love France.  I love her art, food, language, and way of life.  Many years ago, my husband and I spent two happy weeks in France; on the last day of our trip, we went to the Louvre Museum in Paris as a way of saying "au revoir" to this fabulous country.  It was the middle of March--the college spring break time in America.  We should have guessed.  The museum was mobbed; the long line outside was nothing compared to the crowd in the packed room where "Mona Lisa"--the most famous painting in the world--was housed.  Our eyes were blinded by the hundreds of camera flashes going off simultaneously.

Dazed, we wandered around the huge museum, until we happened upon this artist, busily copying Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's "La Grande Odalisque."  I am not a big fan of the genre of odalisques, which seems to have titillated generations of male painters and their patrons.  However, the concept and design of the reference photo had always intrigued me and, several years later, I got around to painting "At the Louvre."

You could say that I used a minimalist approach in this painting, with just a bare minimum information to get across the message.  I even had the audacity to leave the shape of the odalisque in the copyist's version totally untouched as pure white paper.  By the way, this is a good way of learning to paint--copying Old Masters' works at museums.  The painting was juried into the Art league show in Alexandria, VA in 2005, and received an award in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Watercolor Exhibition by the Baltimore Watercolor Society in 2006.

"Evening Walk in Dublin" (mixed media on paper, 14" x 10") sold

sold

The scene is Dublin in sunset.  The mood is dreamy.  The technique--definitely pointillist.  The painting won the Best in Show in The Art League monthly show in 1996.  When I heard the news, I almost fell off the chair, because I had never been accepted in a juried show, not alone won an award.  The beginner's luck!

This piece is the first decent painting I have ever created.  When I started painting, I chose colored pencil, because it felt least intimidating.  In Pat Barron's class at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA , there were some students who were working on the paper first painted in watercolor.  So I emulated them.  Pat complemented me on the palette I had chosen--orange, green, and violet, saying that it was a classic triad of secondary colors. 

At that time, I didn't know a darned thing about colors.  Now I look at the body of my work, I see a great deal of these three colors, as if I was born color-coded with oranges, greens, and violets.  Interesting.  Pat no longer teaches; she has retired and moved.  I hear her health is failing.  She was one of my first art teachers and I am grateful to her.  The painting is dedicated to Pat Barron.

"Hush, Baby" (acrylic on paper; 4" x 6")

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This is an old piece, but seemed appropriate for the season of angels.  It's an acrylic painting (on paper) of an angel statue in Burgundy, France.  The spots in the background that look like lights sparkling in the sky were created by dropping rubbing alcohol to the still damp surface.  The painting was juried in the Art League Small Works Show in Alexandria, VA in 2002.