The last few days have been so busy – no blogging! I taught a class yesterday and forgot to take pictures! Ugh. Anyway, I do have some news from the Vanguard Gallery in Moreno Valley – where I will be teaching tomorrow and Thursday. I will try harder to remember to take photos! You might get a preview of the show he mentions in the background.
One of the things that didn’t get on camera when I was taking photos of my Paint-the-night class was that earlier in the afternoon Rick (Rick Archer, President of Moreno Valley Cultural Arts Foundation and Vanguard Gallery) and I had hung up a 14-painting solo show on the left wall.
<Sigh> this is by far the first time that I have put up a solo show and promptly forgotten to take any photos of it. Senior moment!
Blissfully I was passing not far from the gallery on Monday morning and (seeing as I’m on the advisory committee and one of the tutors and I have a key to the gallery) stopped in to rectify this. The show will be up through August and there will be a reception on August 19th, 7-8pm. Rick should have the labels up by then! Actually many of these are available through my Etsy store at the moment (though it might take a little longer than promised to ship….).
Underpainting going down
On Friday I ran the Paint-the-night event at the Vanguard Gallery in Moreno Valley – and had 11 students, many of whom knew each other, so they were enjoying the evening together. We painted a scene from an open road through fields in the Ojai area – a painting I’d completed in watercolor many years ago and thought would work well as a paint night subject.
Filling in the grassland.
One of the thing that I tell students at these evenings, is that their painting is not going to look exactly like mine – which is why art forgers are paid so much.
Fences going in.
However this group all got really close to the painting we were working from! The main difference was that I had yellow ochre deep – vs yellow ochre which I usually work with, and as I hadn’t used this before, I hadn’t realized how dull this color is compared to regular ochre. I figure I learn something in every class too, so this was it for this one!
Most of the graduates. One had to go home because her baby was crying.
Three concentrating on making round blue blobs into birds.
Last night there were three students at the Paint-the-night evening at the Vanguard Gallery in Moreno Valley. I’ve guided a different group through this painting before, in case it seems familiar, but they were all first time bird-watchers. They all had a lot of fun, and are looking forward to a different painting next month. If you’re in the area, and you’re interested, it’s on June 23rd. A great way to celebrate a TGIF.
Variations on a theme.
For those of you who don’t subscribe to my monthly newsletter, here it is. This is quite an important subject – that of redefining “dis”-abilities.
For those of you who don’t subscribe directly to my mailing list or follow me on facebook or twitter – here’s this month’s newsletter – “A turn to the right”. (For those of you who do follow me elsewhere and have already seen it, please excuse the repetition, it only occurs once a month.)
In this class, the paintings all ended up really similar, despite the fact I gave free rein with placement of clouds, mountains, hills and sheep.
Sometimes it’s a big class, sometimes a small one. This month I goofed and brought the painting I’d intended to work with next* month – which is easy to understand when I’d been planning three classes next month and had the planner turned to September. Nevertheless, all the students, one of whom is a returning student, had fun painting ‘The Old Red Overalls’. Hmm, I really need to start picking some simpler subjects. One thing that teaching has taught me is how difficult it actually is for beginners or someone with just a little experience! The student on the left is an accomplished gardener and decided my ‘rows of crop’ were closest to red lettuce. Her crop looked a lot more like red lettuce. Good work all of you!
We were meant to be 16 but one student had babysitter problems at the last minute – so 15 ladies, 10 of them from Morongo Casino came to Vanguard Gallery last night to paint Cottonwood Creek. I didn’t take many pictures during the later stages as with 15 that was a lot of time that I needed to give individual help to the members of the group. A few snuck off at the end to grab a burrito next door so not all are holding their finished work, but you can see just about all the paintings that were completed.
Underpainting.
Making Progress
Working on clouds
Some of the graduates
Next month on Aug 25th we’ll be painting a sunrise (see below). If you’re in the area and would like to join the class, please contact Rick either through the Vanguard Gallery website or by calling him at (562) 556 5178. Please call him by August 23rd, though as we may have shopping to do. At the last minute we had to turn away four people because we didn’t have the supplies for additional students and it was too late to acquire them.
Last night was one of the Paint Night Out nights at the Vanguard Gallery. We had originally hoped to hold this in a local night club but this didn’t work out for various reasons. However for the venue I had prepared something a little different – a couple of cocktail glasses to enjoy! And I think everyone did enjoy the night. One gal was a long time friend who surprised me by turning up – and said that one of the most encouraging parts of the class was when her painting wasn’t going as expected and I would say ‘it’s ok, we can fix that’. It took a lot of the fear out of trying to paint.
I get so involved with the teaching, I forget to take photos at earlier stages……
Getting some details in on the glasses
All done. Drink up!
These two bowls are donated by Ikea to the Salvation Army for local artists in Moreno Valley to decorate for auction for the support of homeless children in the area. Rick Archer, the gallerist at Vanguard Gallery talked me into painting two bowls this year by simply sliding both under my nose one day while I was at the gallery. I’ll be delivering these today. You can see more about the Hunger Bowl project on the Vanguard website.
The bowl on the left has painted around the rim: “Hunger is only as deep as a bowl… but the fear of it is as deep as the sky.” At the bottom is a dark moonless night skyscape.
The bowl on the right has painted around the rim: “A hungry bowl is a shallow bowl, not deep enough to capture the morsels of hope that are thrown into it.” The little green and white flecks you see are a dollar bill cut up in little pieces.
Skyscapes for the Soul - Jeni Bate 