Monday, July 31, 2017

Home Again - Friday Afternoon Workshop - Marc Taro Holmes

I feel like I've been away an eternity. I didn't expect this trip to be quite so intense and exhausting. I know I push myself a bit and during the symposium I didn't want to miss anything...workshops, social events, meeting new people, or just hanging around with other artists. My day usually started about 6 am to shower and dress, breakfast with friends around 7:30, meeting at 9 to find the day's schedule, a workshop, lunch, a workshop, dinner and then socializing. I don't think I got back to the room any earlier than midnight any day. lol I'm not as young as I once was. lol

I must say it is a pleasure to be blogging from my laptop again. Doing such long posts on the iPad were just too hard. 

Back at the post of my first day in Chicago I showed the sketch of The Bean. While I was sitting there sketching I heard a voice behind me and it was my internet friend, Tina Koyama from Seattle. She and I have been internet friends for years and planned to finally meet at the symposium...and here we are...


My afternoon workshop on Friday was wit Marc Taro Holmes and was titled "Watercolor Silhouettes, Combining Drawing With the Brush and Wet-Into-Wet Silhouettes for Fantastic Watercolor Effects." Wow...quite a title and quite a class.

Marc did a demo by Congress Square of the statue of the indian on horseback. Then we were given 15 minutes to do our version. In that time I spilled my water twice while I tried to get my palette out and set to paint. That left both my chair and paper wet. lol It took me a while to get started so I definitely didn't finish the first sketch.  The idea was to do positive and negative painting to do a silhouette edge and some blending inside. We used fresh paint which gave the rich colors.



I already showed you the head of the statue of Lincoln, but I'll post it here again. This was done in a similar style from the previous sketch.


Our final assignment was to do the entire statue using the same concept. This is unfinished at this point but I would like to work on it this week while the workshop is semi-fresh in my mind.


My thanks to Marc for a great worksop!






13 comments:

  1. The whole experience sounds amazing! Your statue of Lincoln has a very fresh and immediate quality, great job!

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  2. Wow Joan it sounds like you had a great trip. So neat to meet one of your internet friends in person. Bet the two of you had lots of great conversation. I am so impressed with your silhouettes - did you use Ultramarine blue for your blues? It looks lovely with the gray tones. So glad you shared. Hugs!

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    1. Debbie, thank you. Yes, I used ultramarine. We had a great time.

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  3. Getting to meet people is such a bonus. Glad you took your vitamins and made the most of it. Lots of info and techniques to sort through

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    1. Lol, I needed a lot more than vitamins. Thanks. Now I have to put some of it into practice.

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  4. How nice to finally meet your internet friend. Your schedule sounds incredibly hectic - I am surprised you are not still catching up on your rest. The final LIncoln piece looks great and I look forward to seeing it finished. Thanks for sharing Joan.

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    1. Thanks, Val. There is never enough time in workshops to finish things which may be good because you force yourself to work the same way on it when you get home.

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  5. Sounds like an exhausting time but exciting and must have been invigorating
    to be able to exist on such a small amount of sleep. I really envy you being able to go to it. I followed your trip and it sounded great plus I love what you accomplished.

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    1. Thank you so much, Julie. The exhaustion was worth it.

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  6. It was so great to finally meet you, Joan! You seem exactly like your blog posts, and I mean that in a very good way! Looking forward to reading the rest of your symposium posts. (Though I might not comment regularly as I'm still using only my phone. I'm in Minneapolis for a few more days)

    Tina

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  7. Look at you go. Love the statue in total!

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  8. Love all your sketches from each day at the symposium. Great photo of you and Tina at the "Bean" and I enjoyed our chat at the Hub on the last day. I'm pleased to have met you in real life after all this time following each other online! Cheers!

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