President's Message: Spring 2012

I am excited for our next meeting at The Artist Studio this Saturday (please see side bar for location & time details)! Mr. Fred Miller is an exceptional portrait artist based right here in Albuquerque. He is a treasured local artist, a past president of the Pastel Society, and has proven his outstanding commitment to the world of art though teaching & workshops!

I believe his true dedication can be seen through his own words: "…I am a full time painter and teacher of portrait painting." His sincere hope is to be considered by his students as one of the teachers who profoundly helped them realize their potential in the field of art. He has studied with a number of outstanding artists, including Jackie Goodyear, Sally Strand, Albert Handel, and Bud Edmondson. And like our own group - they shared, taught, and pushed each other to a higher level.

On his website, I found not only portraits, but impressive landscapes in oil and pastel. I encourage our members to look at Mr. Miller's website before the next meeting.

I cannot wait for this meeting and am looking forward to seeing Fred Miller in action, and all of our talented members as well!

Sincerely Your Prez
Jeff Stephenson
President, CPSA - DC219

MEETING 2/25/12: Reminder

Dear CPSA - DC219 We're back on at Bear Canyon Senior Center this coming weekend, February 25th! In addition to our regular group-news and show&tell sessions, Ann Jeffries will be leading the Zentangles program we teased you with in early January, that had to be postponed due to cleaning at the center. A little reminder of what to expect:

Zentangles is the name given to a popular new linear technique which can be described as "extreme doodling." Zentangles are usually done with black ink but we will make them a little more interesting using our colored pencils. This method creates richly patterned images with just a few simple guidelines. Bring your sharpened pencils, a regular pencil, an eraser, and a few pieces of drawing paper. It will be fun, mistake-proof, and relaxing (after all, its "zen"tangles). If you want to find out more about this technique before the meeting there are many zentangle websites.

See you there!

President's Message: Winter 2012

Dear CPSA - DC219 Members,

I had a wonderful holiday season and I trust you did too! I am looking forward to our meeting on Saturday, January 28th at the Bear Canyon Senior Center!

Please bring something you've been working on for our "Show & Tell" segment of the meeting - we all love seeing our fellow members' work. Remember the drawing can be completed, in-progress, or works that did not turn out as hoped. We can all learn together from the sharing time.

We have exciting programs set up for the first part of the year. January's meeting is going to involve a drawing exercise called Zentangles. Ann Jefferies will walk us through it. Plus, we will be experimenting with music themes, to see the effects of music-mood on our drawings.

Coming up:
February: Business of the Art World: The ins and outs of entering an art show.
March: TBD - a new Presentation on Miniatures or the esteemed artist, Fred Miller.

In short, I have missed seeing all of you and the wonderful works you create. I'm looking forward to see you all at the January meeting.

Sincerely,
Jeff Stephenson
President, CPSA - DC219

Member Suggestion: Colored Pencil Demo

Melody of Fallen Leaves (colored pencil, 12½ x 9½) by Alyona Nickelsen

Click here for an article called Colored Pencil Demo: Alyona Nickelson (from the Artists' Magazine online).

Suggested by CPSA 219 Member, Betty Lehnus.
Thanks Betty!

Discussion: Making Your Art More Salable

An article titled 8 Ideas to Help Sell Paintings from the blog of M. Steven Doherty, was suggest by chapter member Betty Lehnus:

These ideas on how to make paintings more salable are surely open to debate . . . but worth thinking about . . . Betty

The comments section is open - let's make an effort for each member to leave an opinion!!

MEETING 4/25/09 Yupo Process

Hello everyone!
We had a fabulous meeting on Saturday - and we have images of the event to share.
Chapter Member Betty Lehnus did a demonstration of the watercolor pencil & Yupo paper technique - what fun!
She also brought enough samples for everyone to experiment with - we all got to draw, play, and share the process as a group. Please see the images below for an overview of the supplies and process, examples of Betty's finished works and contact Betty for an questions you might have. :)



Don't forget you can click on the images for a larger view.

MEETING 3/28/09: Color Theory & Colored Pencils

Our meeting for this month brought members Ben & Lee Nurry in to present and demonstrate several experiments in color theory using specific colors (Yellow, Blue, & Magenta) to achieve some dramatic effects such as Mixing colors on the color wheel and mixing colors for shading (using compliments). Lee & Ben came prepared with some great handouts for everyone to experiment with. The extra hour really helped out too - plenty of time to play and talk!

First we started to create our own color wheels, using the blue, magenta and yellow to mix secondary colors (and tertiary, if we had time!). I highly recommend this for everyone that loves working in colored pencils, as it gives you a real understanding of how to layer and mix your colors while working on your paintings. It can be a tedious exercise, but as you work through it, you develop a method that works for you and your individual style and will quickly become second nature in your creative process.

We also worked at creating new colors using only the three primaries with a simple punched paper technique to help us really focus in on the target color (Brown in the example).

Finally, discussed the best ways to achieve shading without using blacks or grays - which is to say, using complimentary colors. As an example, Ben provided us with a still life reference of oranges and encouraged us to recreate one of the oranges using just an orange pencil, and it's compliment, blue. I confess, I used the orange pencil and all three primaries - Magenta, Yellow & Blue - along with a little white to complete my experiment (pictured).





On a side note, back in college, I took a color theory class and my instructor, Edie Fisner, went on to publish a book on her course. Thanks to her I got some great 'basic training' when I was first starting to use colored pencil to complete my various works - it gave me a great foundation for future projects, and I realize now, just how much I've taken it for granted. Edie used student work to illustrate many concepts in her book - and two pieces from my class work were included, which were executed in colored pencil.