Day 17

Over the first weekend of November, I took a workshop with Nancy Collins who is a painter known for her brilliant colors and vivid images.  Nancy was in my area and I've admired her work.  I have to say she knows her colors!  She knows everything that each color will do, what it will blend with, and what it does when it sits next to another color.  Not only that, she knows the difference in the brand of paint for each color and is quite specific about which ones she uses.

Here's the series of photos from the workshop.  I continued working at home and finished the painting last week.

 

Step 1. (the picture is rotated from the final view):  Draw the basic outline of a grape branch, pretty bulky towards the edge of the page.  Using liquid latex, paint the back sides of grape leaves and stamp them down onto the paper pressing firmly.  Build up clusters of large, medium, and small leaves.  Use a frisket (Pebeo) to mask the main branch.  Let dry for several hours.

Step 2.  Paint the background, using a rich mix of color and water.  Starting from light to dark, let colors bleed together, keeping the entire paper wet and allowing to dry evenly.

Step 3.  Remove the resist and paint the leaves.

Step 4.  Paint the branches.

There are some interesting tips and tricks throughout the process, which I'm not including as they are probably Nancy's proprietary information.  I highly recommend her workshop.  She's also working on a book which may be out this next year. Check out her website which has several tutorial videos. www.nancycollinsart.com/