Reception in Pasadena

Just returned home from a quick trip to Pasadena for my reception at Galerie Gabrie. Thanks to everyone who attended! It was a lovely evening of art conversation and wine! I flew into the Burbank airport and Jasminka Gabrie picked me up and delivered me to the lovely Westin Hotel in Pasadena. After a quick, lunch I had time to visit the Pasadena Museum of California Art and take in a wonderful exhibit of Millard Sheets' work; wonderful watercolors and oils. He was circa 1920's. It was a warm sunny day in Pasadena, so I took the opportunity to wander around and reconnect with the city where I went to college,(ACCD) as seen through older eyes! I really enjoyed it!

Off to the gallery at 4:30, in time to admire the show of both my work and my husband's work. People started to trickle in soon after. Always fun to dress up and talk about the work, and meet collectors. I really enjoyed this reception! After, we headed to dinner around the corner near the Pasadena Playhouse which very sadly is dark due to the rough economy. But, dinner was lovely and so was the company! Many, many thanks to Jasminka and Jimmy for making my trip down, so pleasant and easy!!

How to Start & How to Finish

Here's a little re-cap of some of the thoughts from our 2-day workshop. We ended the workshop with a discussion of how to access your own work followed by further discussion and critique. The goal being sending students off on their own, a little better equipped to make positive, objective judgments of their own work.

Some Questions to Ask Yourself

• Does your piece do what you intended it to do?
• Have you been clear?
• Does your piece have an area of interest or focal point?
• Do you have a definitive foreground, middle-ground and background?
• Do you have a variety of masses of unequal sizes?
• Does your piece have rhthm and movement?
• Is the arrangement of elements dynamic or static?
• Are you leading the viewers eye?
• Does your piece have texture that lends a cohesive look to the piece?
• Do the marks have a variety of scale?
• Does the texture support or detract from the compostion?
• Are the edges hard or soft?
• What is happening where one form meets another?
• Do the edges help explain the atmosphere?
• What happens when a shadow meets the light?
• Do the edges help explain the space between elements?
• Does your piece look finished?
• Does it have polish?
• Does it look too slick?
• Are their areas that feel unresolved?
• Are their areas that have "issues"??? Such as drawing mistakes, areas that are handled differently??

Once you've gone down this checklist you should decide if you need to reserve judgment temporarily, put the piece up on your wall, so you can glance at it from time to time over the next few days. This gives you a fresh eye on it and perhaps to see what is working after all. I'm often more satisfied with a piece after I've given it a rest.

Critiquing your own work is a crucial piece in becoming a stronger painter and is a skill that you can cultivate over time.

This was a great workshop that I not only thoroughly enjoyed teaching, but was fortunate to do a demo that led to some new pieces this week. Here are a few of these pieces. Please let me know what you think. They are a little different. Cheers everyone!