Painting Maioliche

So this turns into . . .

 

this!!!

Quanto costa?

1,000 Euros

Let me introduce you to some of the ladies

that are doing the painting in the fabbrica.

Meet Laura.

She's works away without saying much,

but she is always singing along to the radio,

and especially loud when her favorite tunes come on.

Well, I surprised Laura this afternoon.

After pleasantly listening to her lovely voice for the past two and one half days in the 'decoratrici' - the decorating room - a song came on that I know and love.

It was an Italian version of "Missing You", by John Waite. Laura started to sing, and maybe becasue I was feeling particularly happy today, I just couldn't stop myself from joining her, only in English. The entire workroom stopped, and then burst into smiles and mild laughter. They loved it, and Laura was beaming! The song wasn't over, and she wanted to hear me again, in English.

"I ain't missing you at all (beat, beat), since you've been gone, (beat) away."

What a good time had. I hadn't sung in Italy since 1985 when I sang "All of Me' in a restaurant in Rome with a live band. But you know, I think today was more fun, and a wonderful way to connect with a woman whose talent I admire, whose language I can't speak!

The hand of Simonette.

She is putting the makers marks on the bottom of the cup

before she starts to paint it.

More tomorrow. I have to download my camera

to get the other ladies' photos for you.

Oh, one last thing. My husband Martin is working in Virginia.

I emailed to ask him if he felt the earthquake. He said, "Yes." He thought it was a crain hitting the side of the building he was working in, but it went on way too long for that. His co-worker laughingly said, "Earthquake," not realizing that it really way one!

Fabrica, Deruta

Inside the fabrica of Ubaldo Grazie.

This is the oldest pottery continously owned and operated by one family,

since the 1500's, 25 generations!

Above is Ricardo, one of the six workers that I have met over the last two days. He is a nice young man whose specialty seems to be painting Italian landscapes on plates and platters. I learned today that Ricardo studied with 'the' maestro of maioliche painting, who works in Deruta.

I'd done a lot of ceramics in my younger years, when my daughter was young. I worked in a shop pouring the molds and learning about the firing and the glazes, and the hand painting, so this was like coming home for me. Yet not quite.

Here's the process:

Clay from the 'quarry'

The old processes have been modernized when possible, but there are pieces that are still thrown on the wheel.

A machine to wedge and extrude the clay.

Molds

Rooms and rooms of fired bisqueware

Dip the fired ware into the glazeing vat

Ricardo not happy says, "old bisquit" in reference that this piece I picked has been on the shelf a long time and not taking the glaze as he would like it to.

Sanding the glaze off of the foot of the piece so it won't stick to the kiln.

The designs are still transfered to the ware by use of 'pounce bags',
bags of powdered graphite.

The stamped design.

 Now, it's ready to paint.

More tomorrow.

Driving in Italy

Here is the little Fiat Panda we are driving around in.

This car is great for driving in these villages where the streets are narrow with stone walls on either side. Of course it's a manual transmission, and I haven't driven one, maybe since 2006, when I was in France with Susie, Margie and Meg. And I have never driven in Italy.

It's been going pretty good on my end, because Susie is an excellent navigator. I bought a Michelin 'book map' of Italy before going since I knew I'd be driving around on my own, which so far, hasn't happened.

I did have a momentary panic in Todi, as we were leaving. Our Sri Lankan helper gave us a parking space on a small dead-end road. We had to drive downhill for only a few yards to pull off into that short deadend space, and the back of the Fiat was only a foot or two off the main road.

When we left, I had to back out of the space and uphill. New to driving this car, I put it into reverse, took off the emergency break, and drifted back and up hill as far as gravity took me. What I neglected to do was to ease up on the clutch, and engage the gears! When gravity tugged on the car it started to roll forward towards the corner of the stone building.

Inside I was saying, "Merde!" but cool on the outside. Still for a split second that was crucial, I didn't make the correct moves, and stalled the car out. I started it, and did the same thing, put it in reverse, but didn't ease up on the clutch to find the fulcrum point to get it moving backwards, and that stone wall was awfully close now.

Susie had been in this situation when she was driving last time, so she took hold of the hand break, let me get the gas and the clutch where they needed to be, and told me to give it gas and let her know when to release the break. It worked like a charm!

Whew! Crisis resolved.

On the open road, the Italians are interesting. They seem to have what I'll call 'white line fervour'! They whiz past you, and come over into your lane, as if their's wasn't wide enough, but of course it is. Your heart is now pounding cause you think that they have almost side-swiped you. They know what they're doing, but if you're new to this, and it can be a bit disconcerting.

Once past you, they straddle the white line. I am trying to figure this out. They might drive down the road for several minutes straddling that line, as if they are trying to decide which one to drive in.

The scooters are the worst. The drivers are fearless, and they squeeze into every nook and cranny possible, and often at very high speeds, and they seem to come out of nowhere.

I am navigating the round abouts really well, so well, that when I come to a traffic light, it is easy to miss it!

Tomorrow may be the day I drive without a navigator. Maybe I'll tackle a small village first, and I'll stay in the right lane as someone in America told me too. But Perugia and Assisi are where I really want to go, and Perugia is a big city.

Martin! I need help in Italy

Hello folks, my tripod was acting funny before I left, and my Sherpa extraordinaire told me what to do, but I have tried it and it is not working. So, I am writing now to ask him how to fix it.

Deruta and the Fabrica

Buongiorno!

Touching the hand of Christ in Todi!

Todi is one of the nicest villages in Umbria, so I have read, and my time there confirms that. That Rough Guide says it has the most beautiful piazza in Europe, Ubaldo Grazie said, "the world." Below is the church in Piazza Popolo. You might notice a banner hanging over the entrance to a small road to the right of the church. The San Lorenze Tres, our hotel, was down that little road, and then turn left onto a smaller ruelle. (But of course I am mixing French, Spanish and the very few words of Italian that I have learned since I left America last Thursday.) Suddenly, I can speak French! and Spanish.)

It is down this street that we found a wonderful exhibition on Raffaello, the Italian spelling.

The exhibition was the last thing we did before leaving Todi. The cost was 9 Euros to get in, and I bought a small catalog for 5 Euros. The exhibition had two short films, but we didn't watch either of them as we had only one hour to view the exhibition.

I was at first surprised that someone would put on an exhibition of reproductions of paintings, but that is what this was. Not reproduced on canvas, but on some sort of plexiglass panels or something of that nature.

I took this photo of the pizzeria in Todi. it was always packed, not just because it was very cheap, but also because it was quick and good. They sell pizza by the weight, and they cut it with those scissors that you see. We were thinking what a great idea to do this! Of course you see that the pizzas were prepared in advance. I had a slice of a yummy zucchini pizza with a perfect crust, a half bottle of an Umbrian rosso wine, and a salad. Voila, dinner with no fuss.

Art connoisseurs waiting to get into the Raffaello exhibition.

We decided 'what was not to like' even if the exhibition was on plastic instead of paint and wood. Suppose one could never get to Pisa, Firenze or any of the other palaces or musuems that house these paintings? This was an opportunity to at least see a body of his works in one place and get a sense of what he was about.

His draftmanship was absolutely stunning, and the opportunity to view these works with another artist is always valuable. We might each take away something different, but could share that and see the painting from another's persepctive.

One thing I noticed was that Rafael seemed to use the same face for women, or men, over and over in his paintings.

Here's the face as a woman.

Here it is as a man.

Both of these faces were in the same painting, but in crowd scenes.
However, this same face was also used as that of
St. Sebastian.

More on this exhibition next time.

I am now going back to the fabbrica

Fabbrica: http://www.ubaldograzia.it/

the ceramic factory to paint a dish.

Caio!



I have no photos yet of the hotel we are staying out. But here is the link.

Farmhouse: http://www.lecasecoloniche.it/territorio/umbria_i.htm

Italy: First Night Hotel

Here is my bed at the hotel San Lorenzo Tre, in Todi, Umbria.
First night: http://www.sanlorenzo3.it/

The Rough Guide says this is the best bargain in town,
IF you don't mind lugging your suitcases up several flights of stairs.

Below is the first of the staircases.

Below is Susie's room.

She said I could have pick of the rooms and since I was going to be sleeping on her sofa in the next hotel for the remainder of the trip, I chose the big bed.

Both rooms were appointed with fine linens, interesting furniture and some nice art. I had etchings in my room, and she had some prints from England.

Below is my little sitting area where you can see the etchings lined up on the ledge.

Next is one of the many views from the rooftop.

There were nice lounge chairs and a table

but it was scorchingly hot, so after taking photos of pigeons

we skedaddled out of there . . .

Just off the rooftop was a drying area, and a small room to the right. That area reminded me of some that I have seen in India, rooms for the workers, where there is very little but a hard place to sleep. I wondered if that was where Neel, the very nice man that met us and took our luggage up all those steps was living.

Neel, was originally from Sri Lanka, but has been living in Italy for many, many years.

Sadly, I forgot to get his photo.

He was helpful in so very many ways,

but the most important to me, was in finding turpentine,

or in Italian, tremetina.

Here are some views of the common areas of this hotel,

which is housed on the primo secondo of a townhouse.

Our wonderful breakfast!

Some Italian trees, so you'll believe that I am really here!

And the impoirtant stuff, the stuff that life is made of

Espresso!

My first one.

This cup was shaped like a funnel getting smaller as you drank it down.

Maybe just a tablespoon of high test,

but strong enough to keep me awake until at least

11:00 PM on jetlag.

And of course,

graffiti!!! Banksy, eat your heart out!

I might have mentioned in the last blog entry that I lost my sketchbook!

Yikes, the same kind I lost in India, the coveted Molekin book: hardback black cover with  pocket in the back. Well, I traced my what's left of my memory to where I last had it, the ferramente (the hardware store), where I got the tremintina. It's been on an adventure since Saturday afternoon in Todi, but it was retrieved today after a day at the fabrica.

I realize I am way behind on blogging, but this is a huge responsibility. How can I possibly keep up when there is painting to do, and swimming - to keep up with the fitness plan, which also includes endless flights of steps at every turn.

Painting is hard to fit in, let alone blogging!

Next time, Derute, painting, the fabrica, and driving.

Caio!

Italy: Sunny and Hot

Hello from sunny Italy. Land of olive trees, great art, and of course fabulous wine, great clothes, gelato, and much more.

My traveling companion, Susie, on Monday is going to start working in the oldest pottery in Italy, over 500 years in business, Ubaldo Grazia Maioliche. This is her fifth time coming to work at this pottery over the past year. She is designing a line of pottery that is for sale in Coumbus, OH at Caterina's, in the German Village.

Katherine, the owner of Caterina's, is the wife of X-Mayor Greg Lushutka (not sure of that spelling), and has been in business for about 5 years. She sells marvelous luxuries from France and Italy. At her suggestion, she and Susie came to Italy last year, and Susie spent 6 weeks learning from the experts the process of making, transferring and painting her designs, in this historic pottery.

We stopped at the 'fabrica' today to see if Ubaldo was there. But he was away. It is still the vacation time for the locals, and Susie expects that he is on vacation. Both of them will be back at work on Monday.

Susie has learned how hard it is to control the ratio of pigment to water that will giver her the finsihed look that she wants. It was fun to see her pieces all lined up on one of the work tables, waiting for her.

I have taken many photos since our arrival at 10am yesterday, but I am not sure if I can download the photos directly from my camera into this blog. If not, I may have to go to Plan B. And since this afternoon, my blog wouldn't let me get into it to start with, I am not willing to try at this moment.

After all, I have been drinking several glass of Soave wine. I saw it on the shelft in the grocery this afternoon, and took it as a sign, as today is my dear departed Father's birthday, and this wine was one he learned to love on my parents trip to Italy in 1973!

Until then, I will say that we painted one painting yesterday, in the private garden of the man that was running the beautiful hotel that we staying in in Todi, south of here.

Caio!

7-weeks Plein Air Class, Columbus, OH

My first painting at the 2011 5th Annual Door County Plein Air Festival
"Quiet Morning, Ephraim" 8 x 10", Oil on Ray Mar Panel
Now in a Private Collection on The Door
Copywrite 2011, Debra Joyce Dawson

The weekly class, sponsored by the Cultural Arts Center in Columbus, OH, is a first for me. Class starts on September 12 and goes through October 31.

Registration and Supply Lists:
Cultural Arts Center (CAC)
139 West Main Street, Columbus, OH 43215

Registration begins: Aug 13th

Need help registering?Geoff, at 614-645-7527, can help you get an account and get registered.

More info on the CAC website, and also at www.debrajoycedawson.com

OAC Riffe Gallery OPAS Exhibition Video & Italy!

Below is a link to an ArtZine video. It features Jane Black, speaking about the Ohio Plein Air Society Exhibition which she curated.

You'll see some of the artist's works, but sadly, not all of them. They did put one of my paintings in the video, it's a painting of a Maillot sculpture in the Columbus Museum of Art's Russell Page Garden. Size is 6 x 6", Oil on Gessoboard. It sold at the opening.

Interestingly enough, when I was painting in the garden that day, one of the caretakers told me that squirrels were eating away on that sculpture. You could see their little teeth marks in the metal! That surprised me as much as my host family telling me that a porcupine gnaws away at the treated lumber of their steps to get the salt out of the wood.

http://beta.wosu.org/artzine/natural-light-paintings-by-the-ohio-plein-air-society/

Also, I wanted to let you know that I am traveling to Italy tomorrow. My traveling companion is Susie Astleford, a great artist working in watersoluable oils. Susie is going to be working, again, at one of the potteries in Deruta, south of Perugia, so most of the time will be spend in the region of Umbria. We are half an hour from Assisi, and I plan on returning to see the Giotto murals that I saw in 1985, the last time I was in Italy!

I am going to try and blog from Italy, but you know, I will also be painting, so we can only hope. Arrevederci - the extent of my Italian.

Door County: "Where the Wild Things Go"

"Where the Wild Things Go", 12" x 12", Oil
Copyright 2011, Debra Joyce Dawson
SOLD and living in Wisconsin

The first part of this story appears in my July 20, 2011 post, and shows the 6" x 6" painting that I did before the competition began. That small painting was completed in early afternoon. Here's the link to that post showing the start and finish of the small painting.

For "Where the Wild Things Go", I revisited this quiet spot on ZZ, just east of Sumac Lane. If you make the right turn to go north on ZZ you have gone too far. It was really nothing more than a place to pull off.

I was looking north to paint both pictures, and painted this second one in the morning. Looking to the left of where I stood, there was a distant farm sitting at the edge of a meadow animated with wild flowers; turning a little to the right, there were more pine trees.

As Cezanne said, " . . . make a quarter turn and there is another painting." But I decided to paint the exact same viewpoint, and in the morning, there were nice shadows falling across the road on that sunny Thursday morning.

I could just as easily have named the painting "Thursday Morning", but one always hopes for a more poetic title. Still "Tuesday Afternoon" was good enough for the Moody Blues.

When the time came to sit down and fill in my paperwork for the exhibition, I thought back to another painting I did during the inaugural Door County Plein Air Festival. I called it "Walk on the Walk Side", the title inspired by a song you might remember by Lou Reed.

Reed once said about the song: "I always thought it would be fun to introduce people to characters they maybe hadn't met before, or hadn't wanted to meet." I'd like to think my paintings could introduce viewers to things they pass, but don't see.

Armed with the memory of the first painting and it's title, I pondered what I could do with the word 'wild'. Wild Thing (another great song), but not the right mood for the painting. Wild place? Yes it was a wild place - even if man had trampled it a bit. After all, hadn't someone, or thing, created that path leading into the wild where I never walked. So, "Where the Wild Things Go", giving a nod to Maurice Sendak, was a logical progression.

Maurice Sendak; photograph from the Rosenbach Museum
and Library, Philadelphia From “Where the Wild Things Are” (1963)

Here's a link to an article written in 2008 where Mr. Sendak consider's how history will remember his work.

I wasn't wild enough that day to walk down that road, but the title might lead a viewer, traveling down that path in the painting, to get in touch with some wild place or memory within themselves.

This wild place held a certain magic for me and my eyes.
Anything wild could have been lurking in there,
watching me while I painted.
It really is all about
me and my imagination!
And you and yours.

Plein Air Painters Skin Cancer Awareness!

http://www.captaincutaneum.com/index.php

The link above was posted on Facebook by an artist the I met while painting in the Publisher's Invitational "Paint the Adirondacks" event in June of this year.

It's a site about skin cancer, and every plein air artist needs to know this information.

Figure Workshop

Well, here I am again, late night blogging. No wonder I can't seem to get the spelling, punctuation and grammar correct. I apologize for that, as I have a great respect for language and it's proper usage. I do appreciate your patience with me.

Tonight I thought I would post a bunch of photos from Tuesday's one-day figure workshop. The above photo is my class, all staring at one of the three wonderful models that I brought with me.

The workshop was held at the Ohio Arts Council's Riffe Gallery, in Columbus, OH. The Director or the gallery, Mary Gray, is a really nice woman with a fabulous voice and magnificent organizational skills. She set up the room with the drop clothes, tables, chairs and really paid attention to details that made my students and me feel comfortable in this very visible space.

We had all three models working in quick poses as we warmed up with some contour drawing, to learn about hand/eye coordination and to start thinking about the importance of collecting information. I have no photos of this as I was drawing at first to demonstrate what I wanted them to do, and then checking their drawings to make sure they understood the idea. Some of the students hadn't done contour before, and they wanted to make the one minute drawings what they wanted them to be, but not what I intended. Contour - outline - not form, or light and shade. Not a finished drawing, just contour, to improve their observation skills while gathering as much of the information that is present, in as careful a drawing as they could make in one minute.

Next we mixed values of grey, and I did a short demo. Our model was my 17 year old grandson, Tyler, wearing white Bermuda shorts with a black plaid, a black T-shirt, a tan colored Irish cap, and a caramel colored cane. (I wasn't going to hire him, but when he showed me this outfit, I gave him the job.) He wowed the class in the quick contour poses with his poise and attitude. He is a born model. Or maybe it's just that I have worked with him for many years. Still, whatever he's got, works. And, we were all too busy at this point to think about photos.

Tyler chose to pose on one knee holding the cane out in front of him, in a profile pose. I didn't stop to think about his poor knee on bare wood, and neither did he. Nearing the end of my 10 minute demo, he was shaking, and one of the students asked me to take pity on him. My response was, "Well, he picked the pose." Judy said, "Wow! you are really hard on your models!" We all got a good laugh out of that, including Tyler, and I released him from his misery.

Our next model was Gina, Tyler's Mom.

Just 10 - 15 minute studies simplifying the model into a shadow mass and a light mass was all I asked for. For students who had been meticulously studying models  at Columbus College of Art and Design, with weeks on one painting, this 10 minute quick painting was mind boggling. One of the CCAD students said to me that his teacher there would be "turning over in his grave at this approach." For students who came to paint form, this exercise confused them, and it seemed to be a challenge at first to switch to a new way of seeing and thinking.

I found myself saying more than once that "you are thinking too hard." Just squint and separate everything in shadow into one mass of one value, and don't touch it again. Mass the shadows and darks first. Then do the same with the light side. A third value could be used for the background if they wanted to do some negative painting and carve out some contours if they weren't quite correct to start, but they were definitely not to cross the shadow side into the light side or vice versa.

And of course to keep those values separated, you have to wipe and wash your brush frequently, or you create unintended values. Below are two paintings by the same student. Anne is a very experienced artist who hadn't painted in oils for years and years. (She is a very fine printmaker who studied with Sid Chafetz, a legend at OSU, and now professor emeritus in his 90's - and still working.) Anne struggled with just two values. She regularly put in extra values to create form, and I struggled to get to her before she crossed her values. When I did, her paintings were so charming that we talked about the concept, but I waited for several paintings before I actually asked her if I could paint one of her paintings.

Tyler on one knee at the right, and his Mom on the left.

Below, you can see the result of Chris' painting of the model with a shadow mass in black and a light mass in a lighter value of grey. Using just two values, it already feels like light. Once I felt the students understood the concept of separating the dark and light masses, we talked about edges which made the simple values start to feel like form.

Above Chris's painting of Gina. She has a good separation of light and dark masses,

but also couldn't resist adding extra values and turning the study into a more finished painting.

Above you see another painting value painting of Gina, by Anne. By now, Anne, has mastered the concept of a dark shadow mass and a light mass. But she expanded her value range to create a background space. In this photo, she is now working on translating that black and white painting into a color painting. Students chose two colors of their choice - sometimes colors right out of the tube - in the correct value range and transitioned into color.

And then came Tyler. And that's me beside him pointing out values,

and how to compare this to that, and that to this. (P.S. I learned this from Neil Riley at CCAD.)

James is painting in the foreground.

Tyler posed in his Johnstown High School marching band uniform. His idea!

I couldn't have planned this any better if I'd tried. This was a fairly simple transition into an expanded local color and value painting. Just black, white and red and some mixing for flesh tones. Relatively easy, and a great transition from the black and white work. The problem was, people forgot to squint, and now they had to deal with the local values of black in light and white in shade.

Daina painting Tyler. This painting went through several transitions of values,

but I don't have another photo of it.

I suggested that they could stick with pure black for the darkest darks, the correct value of premixed grey that they already had, the Quinacridone rose right out of the tube for the red in shadow, and pure white for the lightest whites. In the second pass, they could adjust the black where the light hit it. It looked to be a touch of Cad Lemon added to the black, to make a greenish grey for the chest area and a cooler and bluer grey down the leg of the pants in light. Most folks used the suggestion to use one of the greys they already had, but most went a little lighter than was needed to make that white in light sing out.

The worst mistake was, most of them forgot to mass their shadows and darks first! They went for the middle values first, the hardest values to judge, and they had nothing to judge them against. 

Ben's placement of the figure, with Judy behind who is massing her darks first.

Ben's painting  with the darks massed in and using the correct value of grey to represent the white in shadow.

Sherry, a nurse, stuck with the first stafe and got a strong separation of dark and light masses.

Rog had a charming painting going, but his grey value needs to be darker.

Anne's values in the shadow whites are confused. She was thinking, not observing.

Still her painting is compelling and you see she has added that greenish grey in the correct value to represent the light side of the black on the chest and cooler bluer grey down the leg of the pants. It was really there. Ann has also added a very sensitive background that transitions from a color lighter value grey to a greener grey on the right side of the figure. This is great painting folks.

I cropped this photo of Chris to show her painting of Tyler and to show that huge glob of grey paint on her palette. Students don't mix enough paint, but Chris came through and wasn't afraid to go for it! After all, you can't paint without paint. Can you?

When I got to Chris, she was already starting to do what she always did,

push both ends of the value scale towards the middle.

She needed to push the darks back down in value, and I showed her how easy it was to express the light on the red by using straight Cad Red Light - because it was the correct value! The quality of strong light and shadow came back.

This is Carmen's painting of Tyler in progress. She also needed to push her dark values, but of all the paintings of Tyler, hers was the one that "felt" most like Tyler. She captured the sense of his body under the clothes and had the correct proportions. And Carmen has a sensitive touch.

Tyler had to leave early to go to work, so the painting session wasn't as long as the students would have liked. I gave them a "10 minutes more", and then came Layla. You see her peeking out behind Ben's drawing of her on a 20" x 16" panel. Ben does a lot of drawing in charcoal, but he'd never painted in oils. I had a hard time believing that, cause he sure came on strong, and it was lovely to see. Later on in this painting I walked by and said, "the value of the skin in shadow isn't correct." He said, a bit frustrated, "I know, I am trying."

This was a beautiful set up of complimentary colors with beautiful neutrals in the skin tones. The students had only 45 minutes to capture it!

Rog, a very fine hair stylist and owner of his own salon, massed in one dark and then went for the flesh. He also had some delicate green marks that aren't really visible in this photo. I could see by his color palette that this would have to be a very high key painting if he continued it without massing in the strong deep shadows that were actually  there. We talked about that, and I said it was fine if he wanted this to be a high key painting. I wish he'd had more time as I would like to have seen where he would have taken this. The drawing was not quite correct, and at the end, I placed just a few guideline marks on the painting in what would be the darkest value, around a value five. Honestly his colors were so clean, beautiful and delicate, that it didn't matter if the drawing wasn't spot on. He was creating an equisite statement in color.

Christ at the start of her painting. We corrected the drawing a little and I told her to mass in the darkest dark first, and stay out of it!

Judy, had done absolutely gorgeous paintings all day. I heard later that she ran out of panels and wiped off her painting of Tyler, much to Gina's chagrin. I didn't realize that she had used up her greys toning this panel, but the paint was more than a tone, and she was struggling with color and value as everything she put on mixed with the grey paint already on the canvas. Too bad, I think she would have gotten a great painting otherwise. And she admitted to me that she was getting tired.

Judy is a fine artist who works in drawing, painting and sculpture of the human form!

Helen's painting in the front and Carmen's in the back.

They painted carefully and both had good starts in simplifying and painting in large masses. In the end, they had too much time on their hands and the paintings turned from statements of light on form to statements about things. I did quite a bit of finger painting, simplifying the masses on Helen's, and she could see what I meant. We were out of time, so I didn't get to help Carmen with hers, but I did give her a critique of her painting. Like Helen, the thinking brain wants to see the eyes, lips, and all the tiny folds in the dress which took her initial strong statement of shapes and color values and pushed everything toward the middle values for a weaker result.

I want to thank my wonderful models. We didn't have time to get to the great flirty skirts and tops that we picked out for Gina. And I commend my students. They painted non-stop for three hours straight in the morning with an hour lunch break, and then another 3 hours in the afternoon. My models told me that I talked almost the entire time!