Urban Realism Workshop with John Salminen

I have just completed a workshop on Urban Realism with the master John Salminen, in Colorado Springs. This workshop had been in my goals for a few years now and I finally had the opportunity to attend, and it delivered: John is a great artist and instructor; his wife Kathy the perfect assistant! The three day workshop was instructive and inspirational, and the twenty participants did a wonderful job under John's guidance. Some of the highlights were:

• John emphasizes a value plan, but unlike other instructors who used this as a device to maximize contrast in center of interest, John stressed the way to use values to separate the planes of the space and create depth.
• John demonstrated different ways of reserving whites, and of rescuing light areas, and shared his recipes for warm and cool grays and darks.
  
• We learned the use of a mouth atomizer to adjust value and temperature in our paintings.
• We also learned practical techniques for creating soft and hard edged reflections.
• One of the most important takeaways in my view was the importance of related middle values.

Another fringe benefit of the workshop was the opportunity to meet a group of wonderful artists, most from the Colorado Springs area, including the master Tom J. Owens.

In my next post I will include more notes and a photo of my painting from the workshop.

PPWS International Exhibit Opening Reception

The Pikes Peak Watercolor Society National Watermedia Exhibit reception on Friday was a very nice event, I met a lot of interesting people and some famous artists. The photo above shows me posing by my featured painting. I was in good company--my painting was hanging between those of Karen Standridge and Frank Lalumia, both of which received awards. Other well-known names in the exhibit included Bill James, Susan Hinton, and Elaine Daily-Birnbaum, among others. Juror John Salminen was present with his wife Kathy. My congratulations to the Pikes Peak Watercolor Society for organizing such a great quality exhibit.