Rendering glass objects in watercolour

Susan Chater demonstrated techniques for rendering glass objects

Close-up of the painting

At our November meeting

Photo credits: Jean Patterson

Meeting schedule 2014-2015

Bayview Watercolour Society has an exciting schedule planned for our Tuesday evening membership meetings for the balance of 2014 and for the first half of 2015:

December. 9, 2014 - Watercolour  Demo by Long Yun-Xu and Holiday Celebration

March 10, 2015  - Acrylic  Demo by Keith Thirgood  - Post Impressionistic Landscape

Membership dues for the 2015-16 year are payable at the March 2015 meeting

April 14, 2015 - Demo by Sharon Kirsh on Mixed Media Collage

May 12, 2015 - Demo by David McEown on Watercolour

June 9, 2015 - Critique Evening by Didi Gadjanski

These membership meetings and demos will be held at the Rouge Woods Community Centre starting at 7 pm.

There will be no Tuesday evening membership meetings in January and February as many of our members are away and there is the potential for bad weather. 

Preliminary notice:

We are planning a non-juried Open Art Show and Sale at the Richmond Hill Centre for thr Performing Arts from Monday, February. 2 to Sunday, March 1, 2015.   The Call to Artists for this show will be emailed to members in the next few weeks.  Show sitting is not required for this show.

We look forward to seeing you at these exciting demonstrations and to your participation in the February . show.

Jake Mol paints a fall scene

 
 [Text and photos courtesy of Jean Patterson]

Jake Mol came to the BWS meeting on October 14, 2014, and while he was scheduled to paint a water scene, he decided to do a fall scene instead.

He started out by talking about one of his paintings that he brought with him. He basically said that he re-uses his frames so he uses the type that allows him to transfer the paintings whenever he desires. He does not put glass on his watercolour paintings.  Instead he uses Golden MSA medium which has UVLS protection.  This medium is a polymer product which contains no water and he says it is tougher and more resilient than others.  The watercolour pigments stay completely transparent and they are not adversely affected in any way by the use of the medium.  After Jake puts on the medium and the painting is properly cured, he then mounts it on a Duro Plast board which is lightweight and rigid and gives better protection to the painting.  It is then put in the frame.

He generally uses Arches watercolour paper (approximately 200 lbs.) and Winsor and Newton paints (he usually buys #1 paints).  He tends to stick with one manufacturer because he knows for sure how these paints react.  He always uses two colours to paint an area because in this way one gets a sparkle in the painting.  At the top of the background in the demo, he used Cerulean and Alizarin Crimson and for the the orange leaves, he used Indian Yellow and Permanent Rose. Regarding technique—he uses his board at an angle so that the water keeps travelling down and in this way, you do not get a blossom.  As you can see from the photos, he uses the green tape to mask out his birch trees.  

The demo painting is incomplete—he intends to finish it some time later.

Regarding the other painting that he brought, he reminded us that water is a reflection of the sky and that is how one decides the colour to use when painting water. He also mentioned that when you are painting rocks in the water, you must indicate that the rocks are sitting in the water.  He uses yellow ochre to make drawings of the rocks--this usually disappears when you put on the proper colour for the rocks.

The Golden Girl

Bianka Guna at BWS

If one is seeking information about any number of artistic pursuits, they would do no better than attend a workshop with Bianka Guna. At BWS, we were fortunate to have Bianka come to provide an overview of Golden Acrylic paints. In little over an hour, she reviewed the characteristics of numerous pigments, mediums and gels, while pouring copious quantities of paint onto demonstration supports. Many in the group were heard to gasp at the amount of pigment that was being used. (I thought she went through as much pigment as I use up on a large painting!)

 

A typical demo board

Lots of juicy pigment

Pay attention! Lots of information here.

Bianka was one of the early members of BWS and so was already well known to most in the audience. She is a non-objective painter, an honors graduate illustrator from the Minneapollis , MN, US program , and beloved art teacher for a multitude of art groups and community centres. An elected member of various prestigious art societies in Canada like Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) ,Canadian Society Of Painters in Watercolour (CSPWC),Society of Canadian Artists ( SCA), Toronto Watercolour Society (TWS), Israeli Group of Artists in Toronto (IGA) , she has won several juried exhibitions in Canada and abroad and participated in numerous group and solo shows . 

Her distinctive contemporary work was purchased by private and corporate collectors in Canada, USA, Sweden, France, China, Australia, Romania, Israel, Russia, South Africa and UK. In the summer of 2013 Bianka became a Certified Golden Artist Educator. In 2014 she was certified as a Golden Working Artist.

Lots to study

Goodie bag time

Each attendee at the presentation received a small goodie bag of Golden products and encouragement to attend a special workshop on the new QoR Watercolours led by Bianka and hosted by BWS. She teaches water media (watercolour, acrylic, mixed media, critique) abstract painting classes for adults at Visual Arts Mississauga,Koffler Centre for Arts, Neilson Park Creative and at her Toronto studio in The Distillery District or on location.. More information is available from her website at www.biankguna.com

Two parts of a triptych

Bianka's sketch system (left) and a work in progress developed from one of the sketches.
The sketches are about 5 x 7 inches on watercolour paper

Coming meetings:

Oct. 14        Jake Mol              Watercolour /waterscape
Nov. 11       Susan Chater       Watercolour/ Architecture

Floral painting with Julie Snider

Julie Snider, a well-known watercolour painter now residing in St Catherines, Ontario, visited our August meeting to demonstrate various techniques in floral painting.

From Julie's website bio:

"In 1970 I enrolled in a fine arts program at Sheridan College, in Oakville, Ontario. In 1974 I graduated from the Graphic Design program, met my husband John, and began working as a graphic artist. We soon married and began a family. While at home raising my boys, Murray and Ben, I discovered my passion for watercolour and began to paint whenever I could find the time and energy.

"My first solo exhibit was in Perth, Australia, where John was doing in a year- long teaching exchange. Able to concentrate exclusively on painting while away with my family, I returned home to St. Catharines with a large portfolio of watercolour and have been painting at a steady pace ever since."

A house portrait

A finished botanical

Julie paints house portraits on commission, and teaches several days a week.

An initial drawing - note the paper is loose

Before starting her demo, Julie showed us her method of framing watercolours using a raised mat. This allows the edges of the paper to be visible and actually gives a floating effect.

She does not stretch her paper, which is usually Arches 140#. She works in a controlled wet-in-wet process, and does not tape her paper down. With botanicals, she invariably works from life and may keep flowers in her frig to keep them fresh. She draws from life, but often paints from memory,

She uses Winsor and Newton paints, always prepares 3 values and uses quite inexpensive brushes, generally rounds.

Starting the centre

For her demo of two sunflowers, she prepared 3 pigments for the petals, Quinacridone Gold, Cadmium Yellow Light and Quinacridone Red. She had prepared a drawing on a quarter sheet of paper, and had applied some dots of masking fluid in the centre of each blossom. As she paints, she moves around the paper and does not attempt to maintain consistency. She leaves white borders between the petals.

She moves around the page

As the time would not allow her to finish the flowers completely (there were lots of questions and answers), she moved to the flower centres, for which she prepared a dark brown mixture of Quin Red, Burnt Sienna and Payne's Gray. (Some painters reject Payne's Gray but Julie appreciates its qualities). As mentioned, she had applied some dots of masking fluid which would be removed at the conclusion. While the centres were wet (after waiting until the shine wore off), she added small amounts of kitchen salt. Adding salt will suck out the pigment giving the effect of light areas (see pic).

For the leaves, she used Sap Green, Quin Gold and Yellow. For the back sides of the leaves, when visible, she used cerulean blue.

A finished example

As a change of pace, Julie showed us a very loose method which involved completely wet paper, on which a base drawing had been applied ahead of time. Pigments were applied in a very loose fashion, allowing the colours to mingle. (pics)

The initial rough wash

Close up of dried wash

Pauline Holancin steps in

Bayview meeting, July 8, 2014

The artist originally scheduled for this meeting was unable to attend due to an injury. Our friend, Pauline, stepped forward at the short notice to provide another of her excellent demonstrations.

This time, Pauline’s demo was a scene from Lake Muskoka. 

She started out by showing us some of the paintings she had done in Canada and in Europe.

Pauline always does a thumbnail sketch before she does a painting.  She showed us her sketch book in which she has these thumbnails.  

As she went along with her demonstration, she pointed out the materials she used such as a view finder, magic markers for her sketches, 140 lbs. Arches paper and a 1-inch square brush.

The painting was done  wet-in-wet and she reminded us that it is very important to remember to include the reflections of the rocks and trees, etc. in the water.

(Thank you to Jean Patterson for these notes and the excellent images)