In New Mexico, fall’s harvest bounty is abundant. For me, this first post in a while represents both a rich temporal and conceptual harvest of my art experience: This is the second post on this new site – the first that I am making, myself, as I struggle to adapt to the digital challenges of WordPress. At the same time, I am making new work, having just returned from a 10-day road trip to Central Nebraska, during which I made journey daybook pages from place to place. I experienced five days brushing up my experimental watercolor techniques from a young master painter, Joanna Barnum, www.Joannabarnum.com who was recently honored by the Carl Folke Sehlin Medal from the American Watercolor Society for her work, “The Poet is a Funnel” See the image here.
The beautiful site of the TLC Fall Workshop is The Leadership Center, located in Aurora, Nebraska that is administered by Maile Boeder, who is inspiring, efficient, and creative CEO. This stunning location boasts 4-star amenities, including a pool, a fitness center and comfortable lodge-like rooms. I enjoyed the excellent facilities, the tasty food, and I soaked in the history and culture of this central Nebraska farming community. Nebraska was a beautiful surprise – the only state I had never before visited! Beside portrait painting in class, I made journey daybook pages during my Nebraska time.
Since moving to my new home in New Mexico, I have jointed 4 New Mexico art associations based in Albuquerque. Every Monday, I paint plein air with the “Monday Painters,” and each month I draw and paint with the local Urban Sketchers. In September, three of my framed journey daybook pages were juried into an exhibit at the New Mexico Art League, “In Other Words”.
It was a gift that one of my pieces sold and paid for my framing costs! Additionally, at each monthly meeting, the New Mexico Watercolor Association offers a demonstration by an artist/member. This past Saturday’s meeting featured the study of reflected and refracted light and its depiction in watercolor – sophisticated techniques that the presenter made appear deceptively simple!
Since the pandemic began early in 2001, I have returned to painting figures and portraits, exploring the use of watercolor, rather than using oils, as I did in my early career. My friend, Sandra Burshell, a renowned pastel artist from New Orleans, created an international Zoom group with a model sitting in her own home each week and painters worldwide working on their own studios. This recent figure drawing I made as part of the New Orleans Drawing Group shows the model posing in his shower.
This group has grown and evolved into a close fellowship where members have interviewed other artists and created forums for learning about art practices and studio procedures. This summer one of our members, Darlene Bigus-Doheny created an online exhibit of much of our work produced during the two years of the pandemic. My exhibited work is available here –
https://art.kunstmatrix.com/en/taxonomy/term/496679?uid=84730
Although I miss my friends and art community of central Florida, I have enjoyed living in the high desert of central New Mexico. I have adapted to the dry climate and high altitude (an average of 5,000 ft above sea level), but learning about local color, density of atmosphere, and desert flora has been a greater challenge. Painting plein air has been very important to my educational process. I always yearn to know what I am depicting before grabbing my pencil, pen, or brush. I made this piece last Monday, using the technique for masking watercolor that I learned from Joanna Barnum. The wild sunflower growing near Las Poblanos was painted over the masked area after the watercolor of the old schoolhouse had dried completely.
For another autumn experience, next Saturday I plan to drive to Taos to paint at the garden, home, and museum of Ernest Blumenschein, the co-founder in the early 1900’s of the Taos Art Colony. This brief paint-out sponsored by the Plein Air Society of New Mexico should give me yet another observational and painting opportunity in this busy fall of 2022. I hope to show the results of my Taos painting experience in the next post.