Francis Picabia inspired

The first of the summer series - Shapes and Planes - we painted with infleunce of artist Francis Picabia - Lu-Li, painted 1946 - 1949. Picabia in his painting created paintings with many overlays and many dimensions of flat planes and lines and overlapping areas. His work ranged from brushy paintings to line drawings and poster like illustration work.





Our first exercise was to create a small painting of two planes and one shape.

Then we painted Lu-Li using 4 8 x 10 inch panels. The painting Lu-Li divided easily into the four panels and the focus of the exercise was to create planes of color under the primarily black and white shape on top.
There are a few approaches possible. One can paint the triangular panels underneath first or one can paint the entire quarter or one can abutt the panels and paint the entire painting at one go.

I painted the under triangles and then overlaid the primarily black and white shape. when the paintings are complete, then mix them up with the other painters in the class.

Objects - influenced by Jean Arp

Jumping off from Jean Arp - Artists from HOPE first painted the negative space around their object. They then filled in their object with a few irridescent colors and worked on shaping the object.

The Paint by Puzzle of the day was a STAR - for Denise -

Emily's hands painting

Todays painting started with a layer of mustard colored yellow. On top artists covered with purple and then scratched into the paint to create a fig.

Thavory and Emily painting while we ilstened to the Beach Boys.

Hello All:

Hot day and here's why. Sam, who calls himself "Sam, One Tree Hill" - inspired us today to paint a tree. Brian who was absent last week and heard about the Paint by Puzzle Cat - created the narrative. A cat in a tree with a barking dog below. So we went. See our paint by puzzle painting of Cat up a tree with Barking Dog Below.

Sam, when asked admitted that - yes, he does climb trees. And he said, It is a risk.

all my best,

Judy

Sam - One Tree Hill

art brief and irregular May 14, 2008

Welcome to the first day / night of Art Brief. I am writing to you as an ambassador of ART FOR WELL BEINGS. From this spot I hope to lead you into the findings of ART FOR WELL BEINGS and illuminate the artists and their work.

Today I had class with Joseph, Brandon and Emily. They worked on creating paintings like Karl Benjamin - a living artist - with a show opening in Oakland on 5/26/08 and an image in 5/23 Chronicle - who paints shapes. First they prepared their surfaces - One surface with micaceous iron oxide and one with a ground for pastel (Golden Paints). Then on a plain board they painted the shapes, two sides of an aisle and about four figures on each sides. We painted in greens, golds, and grays.

Lovely.

One highlight of the session occured when I began to explain the sequence of painting to Emily and she said she didn't want a lecture, so I started talking like a baby. I continued talking like a baby morphing into a college professor morphing back into a cooing baby. Emily laughed harder at Brandon dragging his feet accross the floor.

Very Hot weather.

let me know if there is anything you want to know more about.

Best,

Judy