How We Did the Art Class - for Missions

August 7 I taught a painting class. I posted about it on my church blog, but thought I should post about it here on my art blog.

There are some places around here that do this sort of thing all the time. That's where we got the idea. Only since this was a church deal to raise some money for a mission team going to Portugal the money goes to missions rather than the teacher.

I had LOTS of fun teaching and I have heard from several of them saying they want us to do this all of the time.

Here's how it worked.

I painted a picture to use as a model and to help advertise. It's 16x20 gallery wrapped canvas painted with acrylic paint. I didn't use my nice thick acrylic paints because I wanted to use the same paint they would be using (and it had already been purchased by someone else for another project). I was still pleased with how it turned out.

20 people signed up for the class.

We met on a Sunday afternoon at 4:00.

Each person had a set of brushes, a canvas with the outline of a vase and table and a foam plate to use as a pallet. I showed them how much paint to get of each color.

Then I walked them through each step of the painting - demonstrating on a canvas and walking around giving them ideas of what they should be doing.

You'll see from the slide show how even though we were painting the same thing, each painting is different. Very cool.

Here is the painting I ended up with. The flowers are bigger than on the original. It was kind of difficult to paint and walk around commenting on everyone else's paintings.

The Secret of Vivid Color

Vivid Color. There's not really a "secret" to it. There is a simple way to figure out how to get a big POP in color in your paintings. Look at a color wheel. Using colors that are across the wheel from each other add excitement, pizazz, drama and interest to your painting. In some paintings you'll want a lot of color splash and vibrancy so you'll have many places on the canvas where colors opposite each other on the wheel are right next to each other. If you want a painting that is calmer, more peaceful and relaxing then you'll keep your big contrasting colors away from each other or use them in smaller doses.

Colors opposite each other on the color wheel add the most exciting contrast when they are next to each other in your painting.

I just painted "Hydrangeas in an Orange Vase" this week. It will be a model for a group of mostly non-painters who will all get together for a painting "lesson." I wanted a painting with a lot of "woohoo here we go" in the color, so you'll notice that the background is violet and yellow (opposites on the wheel) and the blue flowers are contrasted with the orange vase (also right across the wheel from each other.)

There are places around here - and possibly around the country, but I don't know about other places - where you go and spend a couple of hours painting. The instructor gives directions and demonstrates for the attendees step by step instructions where they can create a painting that is very similar to the sample.

On August 7, at 4:00 at Hilldale's Family Life Center, I'll be teaching those who come how to paint a picture that will end up looking a whole lot like this painting.

If you want a calmer version of this same painting you can do that too. You'll just need to use colors in the background that are close to each other on the wheel. The vase could be a different shade of blue or maybe a purple or green (close to blue on the wheel.) You'll still have a beautiful painting it just won't make your eyes pop out like this one does.

Neglected Blog

Oh wow! I just saw that my last post here was a year ago! It's been very difficult to post because I haven't had an Internet connection at home and haven't wanted to take work time to post something.

We now have Internet at home, thanks to AT&T and a DSL line. I hope it works OK. I've never really heard rave reviews about DSL but of course it's the cable people who talk bad about DSL. All I know is it can't be worse than DISH Internet where if a fluffy cloud goes by you lose your signal. (That may be a slight exaggeration but it really is a bad way to get Internet.)

So over the next few days I hope to catch up a little on my "art" blogging. I suppose another good idea would be to create some new art to put on here. The art I've been doing lately is walls at home. I guess that will be my next post.

New Piano Keys ACEOs

This is the third set of Piano Keys ACEOs that I've made.

I do the background differently each time, but the concept and the process has been the same.

They are fun to make and people like to collect them, so I made another set last weekend.

Keys 1

If you aren't sure what an ACEO is look at this earlier post What to Do with an ACEO

Keys 2

You can find them in my Etsy shop. My Bear Hollow Creations Shop 

I'll be putting all six of them up there over the next few days.

(My Internet is rather slow at home since I have DISH satelite as my provider.)

The Road to Emmaus

"Just paint it yourself!" (Keep reading to see how you can get a print of this painting.)

The title of this year's Passion Play was "The Road to Emmaus." It's the story of two men traveling from Jerusalem to a town seven miles away called Emmaus on the day of Christ's resurrection. As they are traveling Jesus joins them and the three of them walk to Emmaus.

My Administrative Assistant at church and our Publications Assistant spent a lot of time before our Passion Play looking for just the right graphic to use for advertising and for our program cover. I looked at some of the art sites too.

One of the pictures that we liked was a painting. It was close, but not quite what I wanted. So Donna, my Administrative Assistant said, "Just paint it yourself."

So I took an idea from the painting and then chnged it up to how I wanted it to look. Here's what I ended up with. It is a 9x12 acrylic painting on archival quality canvas.

As the men came to Emmaus it was getting close to time for the evening meal. The painting shows this not only from the setting sun, but from them men almost stepping off the edge of the paintint. They are almost to their destination.

For centuries painters Jesus Christ and then also "saints" were with a halo around them so you could tell who was who. (Or is that who was whom?)

Anyway, I didn't want to paint an actual halo, but you see how the sun light is shining around the head of the man in the middle - who is Jesus.

Julie did a great job turning it into tickets, advertising posters and the cover of the program. (She always does a fantastic job.)

The picture is hanging up in my office.

One of the ladies in the choir told me that I should make prints and sign and number them. Several others said they wanted a print too, so this next week we are going to print some on a nice heavy paper and I will sign and number them.

I may put one of the prints up in my Etsy shop. For our church members and my facebook fans I'm not going to set a price. I am just going to ask for a donation to our music/worship ministry. We'll use the money to go toward fancy new lights or other equipment we might need or want for next year's Passion Play.

Leave me a message on my facebook art page (or see me in choir Wednesday night) if you'd like one of the prints. If you're not already a fan notice the link right over there on the rightof this page and click on it to become a fan. How easy is that?

Stained-glass Crosses

We had a great time in my stained-glass class making little panels of a cross.

There are several steps in creating a stained-glass piece. There are also many tools required.

First, you choose the pattern, copy it, and cut out one of the copies to use as a pattern.

After tracing around the pattern onto your glass, you cut the glass with a glass cutter.

You leave a little space for the lead, so cut your glass INSIDE the line you drew. Each piece of glass needs to be the EXACT size of the pattern. Too big and it won't fit. It will push the other pieces out too far or just won't go in at all. Too small and you'll have a gap in your finished piece.

You put your glass together on a board that has two boards on top at a right angle. You use these boards to push against as you put the pieces of glass in place. The pattern is there so you know where everything goes.

The outside of the panel is zinc. Lead stretches and is very soft, so it doesn't make a good border. We cut the zinc channels at a 45 degree angel.

Here is a piece with most of the glass in place. The nails are there to hold it together until after the solder is added. You put them in as you go along then move them when you are ready to put another piece in. This is especially important with curved pieces (in a different pattern) because they move around a lot when you put new pieces in.

Here you can see that piece number 12 is the only one not in. We number the pieces so we are sure they go in the correct place. This is more important in a larger piece but is still helpful even in a small panel like these.

After all the lead and pieces of glass are in you put some flux on each joint. 'The joints are where the lead meets up against another piece of lead. The solder won't stick to the lead unless you put flux on it. There's some sort of chemical reaction that you can google if you really need to know more about how that works.

The soldering irons are REALLY hot, so make sure you only touch the handle. You use just enough solder to cover the joint. Go straight down and straight up for a pretty solder joint. DON'T Paint it on. Down and up - that's it. We wear masks because it's really not good to breath the flux fumes. For that matter, the lead is rather hazardous too! Please don't eat it.

After all of your joints are soldered you remove your nails, flip the piece over and do the same thing to the other side.

After soldering it's good to wash off the flux just to make sure it doesn't keep reacting with the lead and make ugly spots. This may not be as necessary because when the piece is cleaned a little later that may take care of it, but this makes sure all the flux is gone.

The next step is called "mudding." The "mud" is actually window glazing like you would use on an old wooden window sash around the glass. The mud makes the window air-tight and water-tight and keeps the glass from rattling around in the lead.

I'm not sure what "whiting" is, but it cleans up the glass and makes it shine beautifully and it dries up the mud. You sprinkle it on the glass then scrub it with a brush.

A final brushing off with a soft cloth and you have your finished window.

BEAUTIFUL!

You can see more of the finished crosses from my class on my facebook page.

Lyndel's Bear Hollow Creations - facebook page

Fellow Artist's Blogs

You may have noticed a list of blogs over there on the right side of my blog. These are blogs from fellow artists who are a part of the VAST team on Etsy. VAST stands for Visual Artist Street Team. You'll find some great art and art information as well as some nice personal information about a lot of great artists by following the links. They are sorted by who posted last. Come back often and check the links to see the latest from the VAST team.