THE DONNA ZAGOTTA WORKSHOP!

Well, I guess the country was going to the dogs this week, but I was having a great time in Donna Zagotta's workshop sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society (SCVWS) Above are the 3 paintings I completed this week. The focus was on designing the rectangle with simplified shapes and creating value patterns. Each one of these is a different value pattern. This is her fourth workshop for SCVWS as everyone gets so much out of it and wants more, more, more! She designed this workshop to be more advanced and included an evaluation sheet for how to determine your direction and how to create a focused approach to moving to the next level, plus individual consultations. It was intense.

We also had a lot of fun and Thursday night went to Stanford University to see a Diebenkorn exhibit. They also had a traveling exhibit "Saved from the Storm" from the New Orleans museum collection. I have created a small slide show of some of the week's activities. Notice the Duane Hansen sculpture of a workman leaning against the wall. It is rather unnerving, to say the least, but we had a lot of fun checking him out. There was another Duane Hansen sculpture in Kansas City dressed as a Museum Guard. What I am noticing about both of these scupltures is how dusty they are getting. It must be difficult to keep them pristine.

Tomorrow I will post the slide show for FRENCHMAN: LINE AS TEXTURE.
Here is the slide show from my photos. I didn't take that many. If you attended the workshop and have additional photos you would like to add to the slide show, you can do so from your computer! I will get a message letting me know and to give my approval.

AWS GOLD MEDAL WINNER CONTROVERSY!

I am taking the most fabulous workshop this week with Donna Zagotta! She is all about design and composition and finding your true style. Good luck with me, as I change styles every painting! It is intense and I am very tired right now. I want to post more about the workshop, so will do so a little later in the week. We are going as a group tomorrow night after the workshop, to the Kanter Museum on the Stanford University campus to see the Diebenkorn exhibit and then have dinner together. That should be a great outing but gets me back too late to post, so looks like Friday I will give a synopsis of the week. I will also put together another slide show as many of you are sending me images of your Frenchman paintings, and they are terrific.

In the meantime, check out the Wet Canvas link by clicking on the title of this blog posting for a stunning controversy regarding the hyper realistic "painting" which was awarded the Gold Medal from the American Watercolor Society this year. Almost all of her images are now gone from the web but the AWS sight still has it, so you can refresh your memory, if necessary. I was nose to plexi with this painting to see how it was possible to paint every little wiry hair in his beard and head. Turns out, perhaps it isn't possible. I sure didn't see a single sign of paint or mark of brush. Be sure and follow the links that are provided in some of the comments on this Wet Canvas discussion for more complete details. Especially the link to the photography discussion board.

I look forward to your comments.