CartaBella

l'Artista Blog

April 14, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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“AFTER RENOIR” Vase of Roses, acrylic on square canvas.
Painting with the Impressionists. Studying their techniques and color schemes.

April 13, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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BEFORE—First, my “studio” gets relocated to the kitchen. Better light and easier access to water. Not to mention the all-weather inspirational view of the pond from my kitchen window!

AFTER—And after adding more dabs of greens and reds and ochre, I’m finally transported to Summer in Tuscany!

It’s April showers now, but I’m dreaming of summer. So I decided to return to my summer in Tuscany theme. Experimented with an acrylic palette on a narrow canvas. I like the thicker paint effect, but wish I had thought to include a “looser” watercolor effect in at least one area of this painting. Next time. . . .

March 16, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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TORN PAPER PAINTING. Have some papers (magazines, pamphlets, wrapping paper, etc.) waiting to be creatively recycled?

Some time ago, I started sorting my collage papers by colors and values, creating a palette similar to my watercolor palette. Greens and blues are the biggest pile, and I have bright little trays of reds, oranges and pinks, and small boxes of yellows and browns. My stash of printed words (a lot of pages torn from foreign magazines and travel brochures) and maps is beginning to grow like Kudzu and creep out of the boxes on my shelves. Not to mention the overflowing tins of postage stamps and candy wrappers and . . . you get the picture!

Finally the day arrived when I put everything else in my life “on hold” and smiled and waved good-bye to my husband when he went outside to do yardwork. One of my old watercolors of a Tuscan villa needed a new life. Torn Paper Painting seemed to be the perfect solution. So I set up shop and began tearing and sorting and shuffling papers. A jar of liquid starch and an old 1 in. flat brush became my glue tools.

It was so much fun layering papers, playing around with bits ‘n pieces until I liked the emerging effect. Messy. Relaxing. A learning experience.

Warning to heed if/when I ever do this again: My large canvas curled as it dried and I accidentally lost several pieces I had intended to use—they probably ended up in File 13 (the trash).

Let me know if you have a creative paper recycle art project to share.

March 15, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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PAINT DAY for Bell’Arte students. Each student made a monoprint of a Gerber daisy. My acrylic flower painting was laid on the table under an 18X20 sheet of glass. As the young artist painted his rendition of the flower with primary colors of tempera, an original piece of art emerged within minutes. We all cried out “drum roll” and pounded the tabletop as the artist prepared to quickly lay down his plain sheet of paper on top of the still-wet paint and then peel it away. “Hey, it’s like peeling off a tattoo” exclaimed one of the children! Voila! A mirror image “print” of the flower painting appeared on the white paper. And then a ghosted second print, and sometimes even a third “ghost” image could be printed.

March 1, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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BELL’ARTE students are proud of their work!

A handful of serious, but fun-loving, young artists meet in my home/studio every Friday afternoon. We start with a warm-up exercise and then get down to work on a project inspired by a Master Artist. Current artist: Albrecht Durer, the greatest Renaissance artist of northern Europe. His animals—drawings, paintings, etchings, woodcuts, etc.—comprise a pictorial zoo.

Right now we’re studying Birds, rendering them in different medium, starting with sketchings and colored pencils. After drawing these backyard birds from calendar photos, we used wallpaper scraps to position the birds on branches on a background color similar to the one in the photo.