MOOOOO - HOW ARE YOU?

Here's a larger shot of the finished magnolia I did yesterday.




And today we worked on cows (or any animal the students wanted to use).  Carol called this technique the Glaze and Silhouette technique.  Before we could do our first glaze of color, we had to protect our cows so no paint got on them.

Carol does this by using masking tape to tape the large shapes and then using masking fluid to mask around the edges as well as all over the cow shapes (so no pigment bleeds under the masking tape). 

You can see how covered the cows are in Carol's version.  When the masking fluid was dry, Carol wet the whole background area and then started in the center with pale orange (Cadmium Orange), moving to the top and adding more pigment to make it darker Cad Orange, leaving the bottom white.

When that dried, she went in with Holbein's Horizon Blue and Lavender under the cows and as the shadows of the cows.




Pretty bold, yes???


When that dried, Carol removed the masking tape/masking fluid and began on the first cow, wetting areas inside the cow but leaving dry areas (which will be the white area of the paper).  Then she painted in Quin Burnt Orange as the underbase.


But for a really bold cow you can't have just Quin Burnt Orange.  You have to go even bolder!  So Carol started at the top of the first cow with dark Mineral Violet, moving down the cow into Alizarin and then Cad Orange in the legs!!!  Now that's a cow of a different color :) 

(The different views with the cow on the left or the right was due to the fact that sometimes I could get a direct photo of the painting and sometimes I was shooting up at the overhead mirror so the sides were opposite.)

The trick is to let the colors merge but still control the stages of colors.  To do that, you have to remove some of the really juicy puddles that may happen.  You keep reiterating the colors and the darks at the top, letting it blend a bit and move a bit but keeping the areas controlled a little.

Carol's goal was to have cool on top and warm on the bottom - hot Cad Scarlet on the feet :)

Here's the start of my own cow (a beefy steer I named Gorgeous George :)  At this stage, the background is in and the masking is off the cow.

My goal was the opposite of Carol's so I had to think warm colors on the top and cool colors on the bottom of the cow, with purple behind the cow instead of orange.  I had some problems with the paper - it seemed like it had spots and rough areas but I wanted to make it work so I kept going.  I didn't get a good gradation of the purple from dark to medium to pale because I forgot to start in the middle and darken at the top.  That's okay.  A graduated wash is something I'll have to practice a lot to get right and I need a good 2-inch brush to help with that.




So this was really pushing the colors and playing.  Here's the group on the wall for the critique - look at that color!!! WILD!!!!

Can you see Gorgeous George on the top row right side? 

Here he is in all his glory :)









The workshop finished today and everyone cleared out and headed for their various homes - or on toward their next destinations.  It was a bit of a let-down for me because I really wanted to go home but knew a 5 hour drive after the last day of the workshop would be too much.  So...one more night of missing Sweetie (although we talk twice a day).