Art Unraveled and More

Posted on | August 19, 2009 | 4 Comments

The past few weeks have been filled with art and friends. The annual Art Unraveled mixed-media art retreat was here in Phoenix. Linda Young always does a fabulous retreat here in town. She pays so much attention to detail and I know how happy the instructors are, as well as the students. Each year since we moved here, I always treat myself to a few classes and lots of time with friends who come in from out of town for the event. This year, I was able to see Joanne, Tracey, Lorri, Jen, Martha, Leighanna, Shoshana, Shari, Harriet, Sandy, and more – all of whom are from out of town. I was also able to see some of my local friends who I don’t get to see often enough (*wave to Maija!*).

Classwork from Experimental Watercolor with Alex Shur

I took 3 classes this year. The first was Experimental Watercolor with Alex Shur. Alex has a very interesting approach to watercolor painting. Whereas most of the time when we’re doing watercolor we decide upon our shapes and our subject, Alex creates backgrounds on quarter-parent sheets of watercolor paper. After they dry, she looks for objects in the backgrounds. It’s a very intuitive way of working. I have to admit that it took a bit for me to be able to get into that mode of searching for shapes in clouds, but once I did, I found quite a few things in the backgrounds. I still have to finish some of them, adding in some details and some white gouache or china white watercolor, but I like where this is going. Some of the images are really small. Others are larger, like 1/8 of the parent sheet of paper. It was a good exercise to get me out of the comfort zone I’ve been in lately with determining my painting subject before starting. I think it will be an exercise I use going forward.

Classwork from The Land of Odds with Katie Kendrick

The second class I took was with Katie Kendrick. Katie is a giving and loving soul. I’ve taken classes with her in the past. I mostly took the class because it was a different subject (not a face-painting class) and I just needed a dose of Katie! We brought to class five or six paintings from an artist who inspires us and used those as jumping off points. For me, it was Chagall’s paintings. In particular, I was drawn to his paintings of couples who appear to be flying or floating. I also like that he has more than one subject in his paintings. He seems to have things that appear unrelated, but are related to each other in the painting. I often paint just one main subject and then go back and finish off the background. So, like Alex’s class, this one was a good stretch for me. It was forcing me to embrace a less-detailed method of painting.

Classwork from The Land of Odds with Katie Kendrick

My third and final class was with the fabulous Judy Wise. Judy has so much expertise to share and there is always something to be learned in her classes. Judy is dynamic and giving as an instructor and a person. Her art has always fascinated me and I have some of her prints up in my studio. She shared with us how to get a multi-layered encaustic (wax) painting while using collage and acrylic painting techniques under the beeswax layer.

Classwork from Captured in Wax with Judy Wise

One distinct thing about Judy’s encaustic work is the black halo that is around the artwork and she was willing to share that technique with us. It was a fun class. I haven’t done collage in a while, so again, this stretched me as I created the main figure for my painting. She is made up of collage elements and paint – a combination to make her all mine. I’m not sure yet if she’s done, but she’s certainly on her way!

After Art Unraveled, Joanne and I went to Sedona for four days. I’ll post about that next!

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