by Karen Lynn Ingalls Acrylics, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.... Seriously — I know I'm biased, but for good reason — acrylic paints are the most versatile paint medium today. You can:
Two very different paintings created with acrylic paints — on the left, a mixed media painting with collage — Do It on Purpose • Acrylics and collage on canvas • 10" x 10" • © 2014 Karen Lynn Ingalls (AKA Karin Johansson-Bolin - my alter-ego mixed media self). On the right, a landscape painting — Autumn Celebration • Acrylics on canvas • 12" x 16" • © 2014 Karen Lynn Ingalls And acrylics are forgiving! Don't beat yourself up if something isn't turning out in a way you like! (You should NEVER do that anyway.) You want to change it? Just let it dry a little, and paint over it. No problem. They dry faster (oh so much faster!) than oil paints — but you can extend the drying time if you like blending and mixing your paints on the canvas. They dry permanent, unlike watercolors, but you can give them the appearance of watercolors. In short, it's the perfect medium. (Well, yes, I'm biased — but, as you see, I have good reasons for it.) This Saturday I'll be teaching Acrylic Painting 101, my introductory workshop to painting with acrylics. If you're new to acrylics — or new to painting in general — this is a good way to get started. We'll begin by exploring many of the ways you can apply acrylic paint to a surface, and practice mixing colors. Then everyone will create two paintings. The first is an abstract painting — you'll receive open-ended, guided instructions to get you started, so there's no feeling of being intimidated by looking at a blank canvas. And although everyone hears the same guided instructions, because they are open to individual interpretation, each person's painting will be completely unique and unlike anyone else's. The second painting is a simple still life, so that you'll get some practice in working from an object. You'll learn how to start your painting, and how to approach it each step of the way until you have a finished painting. One of the things I love most about this workshop is that we approach painting with an attitude of experimentation. There is no judgement here! This is all about diving in and exploring the medium in a way that will give you a strong basic foundation. Then you take what you learn and go on whatever direction appeals to you most.... I'll be teaching Acrylic Painting 101 is at the Calistoga Art Center, 1435 North Oak Street in Calistoga, California — and the time is this Saturday, June 28th, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Bring a lunch! The registration deadline ends soon — you can find out more on my Acrylic Painting 101 page, here on this website. You can also learn more tips and basics about acrylic paints on my new Acrylic Painting 101 website. I'll be adding to it over time, but there are some very helpful tips there now.
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by Karen Lynn Ingalls Last week, I gave a private lesson at Bardessono, in Yountville. When I emerged, night had fallen, and the trees were magical. Here's a glimpse of the view....
by Karen Lynn Ingalls
by Karen Lynn Ingalls Lately I've been busy planning and preparing for my next art workshop, Secrets of Color Harmony, on Saturday, January 26th – which is coming up soon! We'll be learning about and practicing how to make colors work (and play) well together in paintings. I'm enjoying finding new artists to share whose work exemplifies that. And I have to get back to work on my examples of different color palettes. As part of the afternoon, everyone will be trying out different combinations of color, and discovering what works best for them. We'll be creating books to take home, too – so that you'll go home with a resource you can refer to, all about color. The idea is to make it as useful and practical as possible – so you can immediately apply what you've learned in your own paintings, and see right away what color harmonies you can create. You can find out more about the workshop on my website, here - at www.napavalleyartworkshops.com/secrets-of-color-harmony.html.
by Karen Lynn Ingalls In December, I gave a demonstration and talked to the students at St. Apollinaris School in Napa, invited by their art teacher, Napa Valley Open Studios artist Sandra Cassayre Moore. Most of the students at the K-8 school came, and, wow, did they have great questions! Below you'll see one of my favorite paintings by Sandra, Red Bug. You can sure tell she loves color, too. I talked to them about painting landscapes with the colors you love - not necessarily just the ones you see. First, Sandra gave a slide show, which I talked about, starting with three of my favorite artists, Beverly Wilson (also a Napa Valley Open Studios artist), Richard Mayhew (who lives in Santa Cruz), and Wolf Kahn (a New York/Vermont artist whose niece Sally Manfredi is also a Napa Valley Open Studios artist). Then, we had a nice question-and-answer session, with questions about all kinds of things about painting and subject matter and art. Great questions! Then came the demonstration! And afterward the students spent the next three weeks in their art classes painting landscape paintings in acrylic on canvas, in colors they loved. Here are photos of three from the sixth grade class that Sandra just sent me. You can tell we live in the Napa Valley, can't you? This one reminds me of my painting Hillside Vineyard, Tilted Heart! When we looked at this painting in the slide show, I asked the students to see if they could find the heart (actually, there are more than one) - I guess that made an impression! And this painting actually makes my colors look subtle!
by Karen Lynn Ingalls So, how do you get a painting started? How do you create a strong composition? How do you come up with a design on the canvas that will make a painting that works? They've given it the title, "'Set-Up Success in Acrylics' – getting the composition in focus, finding the big forms, building layers, approaching a finished painting with confidence.' If you get started on the right foot, it makes all the difference. I'll cover some very simple, but absolutely basic, ways that help create a composition that works. I'm looking forward to it!
by Karen Lynn Ingalls I've been collecting my favorite quotations since I was first in college. Then, I would write them down on 3" x 5" index cards, and file them alphabetically by author. For this little series of mixed media pieces, I pulled out some of my favorites and combined them with vintage postcard images in addition to fabrics and special papers. This quotation from Thomas Hart Benton really does get down to brass tacks, doesn't it? For all the fun and creative glamor people sometimes associate with artmaking, it really does just get down to doing it. Whether it's feeling fun or feeling more like pulling a tooth.... This quotation from Dolly Parton gives one marvelous permission to live life creatively, doesn't it? It seemed to particularly suit this photograph of two girls in costumes they might have preferred to wear on more than just special occasions.
This is the kind of thing we'll be doing in this July's mixed media workshop, Paint, Paper, Fabric, & Collage: Adventures in Mixed Media. In this kind of artwork, you combine whatever the heck you like - special papers, text from newspapers or magazines, photo images, fabric, lace - and quotations, if you have something special that seems to sum it all up. Layer upon layer, it becomes something special - it can be something fun, like this. It can also be something personal, using photocopies (not original photos!) of family photographs. These techniques are ones you can take in many directions. Paint, Fabric, & Collage: Adventures in Mixed Media will be Saturday, July 21, from 10 to 5, at the Calistoga Art Center. by Karen Lynn Ingalls I've been working on a mixed media series, using quotations and a strong orange palette (it's such a joyful color!). I have a treasure trove of fabric scraps to cull through, but only a few of them worked with my colors. So, I was off to the fabric store, where I found a wonderful assortment of new fabrics to incorporate.
A good resource for mixed media artists wanting to incorporate fabrics into their work are "fat quarters," small portions of folded fabric intended for quiltmakers. I managed to find some beautiful batiks, three of which I incorporated into this painting, along with a fourth piece of material fished out of the treasure trove. The quotation, by the way, is a favorite of mine, from Goethe: "Whatever you would do, begin it. Boldness has courage, genius, and magic in it." It seemed appropriate for this group of images – what they asked of me was simply to dive in and begin. by Karen Lynn Ingalls An artist I met recently, on seeing this and the images of other dragonfly paintings of mine, told me that Native Americans in the Southwest considered the dragonfly a symbol of life. Where you find dragonflies, you find water – and water is essential for life.
In this little painting, and the others in the series, I have created the stencil of the dragonfly, from a drawing I did of a dragonfly some years ago. I have cut a new block to print the dragonfly's image on the stenciled one, in the next layer of the process. Combining methods like this is one of the things I love most about mixed media – you try a little of this, and what about that? And what if you did this...? It encourages experimentation and discovery in ways that other kinds of painting don't necessarily. I have no idea how they'll turn out – I'm just enjoying the process. I'm looking forward to teaching both relief printing and making and painting with stencils (in two different workshops this time) in the coming year. You can do so much with both these processes! Here's to the joy of discovery! by Karen Lynn Ingalls Where does the time go? Already Thanksgiving has passed, and December is here.... I'm putting together a workshop schedule for 2012, with visions and revisions as to what workshops I'll be offering - and I should be able to announce them soon. In the meantime, I've been working on a series of small relief printed paintings. Incorporating relief printing into painting is fun and wonderfully exploratory. You can't predict how the results will turn out – so you just appreciate it. If you approach it as a layering process, each layer adds new interest, depth, and complexities.
It's a method you can use to create beautiful papers to incorporate into collages, or you can use it directly in paintings. With these paintings, I intend to add stencils and block prints – but I like to stop and appreciate each stage just as it is before I move on. |
Karen Lynn IngallsI am a working artist in Napa and Sonoma Counties, in northern California. I paint colorist landscapes of rural California, teach art classes, workshops, and private lessons, live in Calistoga, and have my art studio in Santa Rosa, California. Archives
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