Renée

Bill Teitsworth, NWS

(Don't forget to click the "back" arrow on your browser to return to this page after clicking on an image!)

Arts Alive!

Demo: "Flag Donut"

At right, a demonstration painting for the Arts Alive group, at ArtWorks Gallery and Studio in Scranton. The Arts Alive painters were with us all month, and they are a lively bunch, talented and motivated. My demo was about "conditions of lighting," and orchestrating and scaling values to support, in this case, the final touch: the glossy highlights on the donut. A classic Boston cream, of course.

Flag Donut

acrylic on ragboard
12" X 10"
Demo, Arts Alive, July 28, 2010

Daylilies (demo)

watercolor on Saunders Waterford paper

15" X 22"
July 24, 2010

There's a long flower border in the front of our house, on the bank of the gully where Bear Brook runs between us and the road. This melon-colored daylily is a focal point for most of July. The study (The Long Border, below) was painted right on the spot.

* * *

At left, another view of the same subject, done as a class demo. Two teaching points: first, the interplay of warm and cool color to convey the effect of sunlight; and second, the development of pattern in the background and subordinate areas by painting between the lights.

Shadow Rebecca

acrylic on board
8" X 8"

July 7, 2010

The Long Border

acrylic on board
9" X 5"
July 10, 2010

The Last of the Foxgloves

acrylic on board
8" X 7"
July 4, 2010

One last attempt, for this year anyway, to do justice to the foxgloves. About now they're fading, and all the lower florets are dropping off. Sometimes you see one fall with a bumblebee in it
---the weight of the bee finally too much for the spent blossom. The foxgloves seed themselves widely, and pop up in unexpected places, but they're welcome wherever they come.

So, just a quick sketch...a tiny poem dedicated to the Impressionists, to sunshine and colored shadows, and to the beauty...might even say the "prettiness"... of pink flowers in the sun.

For the watercolorist, the white of the paper is an extremely valuable commodity, with several different uses...as a color ("white"), as the lightest light or highlight, and a variation of this last, as a "graphic accent," to separate objects in the foreground from the plane or planes behind them. I demonstrated the graphic accent in "Foxgloves," at right, for our class on Saturday. Sometimes, for me at least, compositional problems go undetected during a demonstration, especially if composition isn't the main issue. I've put "Foxgloves" up just as is, as proof once again that nobody's perfect.

Foxgloves (demo)

watercolor on Fabriano paper
15" X 11"
June 26, 2010

Two Pines, Spring

acrylic on ragboard
8" X 9"
May 10, 2010

At left, and below, a miniature "suite" of Spring paintings. Sometimes on a day like today (when Two Pines was painted) you can look at the sky and see it exactly as Pissaro saw it. We try, as my friend Serge Hollerbach might say, to bear witness to our time. Time, season, mood...color, light, and space...the raw materials of the painter.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Red Tulips

acryiic on ragboard
9" X 12"
May 5, 2010

From the Bridge

permanent marker on sketch paper
5" X 8"

March 21, 2010

The permanent marker (the well-known "Magic Marker") is one of my top four favorite sketch mediums. You can see the other three in my article for The Artist's Magazine, November 2008, "Four to Go." For an in-depth look at my way of using permanent markers on my sketch outings, click on the link below:

http://www.artistsnetwork.com/article/teitsworth-markers/

"Painting People"

Two days: Saturday and Sunday,

March 27 & 28, 2010

Rehoboth Art League
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

Contact:

Kim Klabe, Education Director

302 227-8408
education@rehobothartleague.org

Claire with Earring

acrylic on ragboard
20" X 16"
March 15, 2010

Sugarbush

acrylic on linen
8" X 10"
March 14, 2010

sold

Sugarbush, at left, is a study of a wide strip of woodland between the MacLain's big hayfield, and what used to be a pasture behind their cow barn. Beyond the pasture is an even bigger strip of woods, and another hayfield, with wild woods, the real thing, beyond all of it. Harry and Alan tap the maple trees, and boil the sap into maple syrup. In fact they're cooking right now in "Harry's Maple Works."

Renee and I walk here with our dog, Honey, in all seasons...the best way to become really familiar with your landscape.

For the watermedia artist, "landscape season" is over once your paint water starts to freeze. Now with Spring coming, landscape season is coming around again, and warm-up exercises like these sky studies (below and at right) make sense to me. Even though I'm interested in the sky, I try to make all the pieces work together. Now I'm interested in how to make trees come against the sky in a believable way.

High Summer

acrylic on linen
8" X 10"
March 5, 2010

sold

Sky at MacLain Farm

acrylic on ragboard
10" X 12"

March 1, 2010

Periodically I get interested in skies, what my mentor Betty Lou Schlemm used to call "...the soul of the landscape." It's an interesting challenge to try to get it right, that huge arching dome, and make it really feel like a sky. We shall see. Sky at MacLain Farm, at left.

So, at right is the second version of my demo. Still using that cropped full-sheet format. Same palette, same value-plan. Just taking it to the next level, and pushing the image to see where it leads. At the "thumbnail" size you can see that for sheer impact, the earlier, simpler version has a slight edge. But at the larger size, or "normal viewing distance," the elaboration of the second image starts to work.

This is the image-making process!

Pennsylvania Nocturne

watercolor on Arches paper
22" X 28"
(Second version of demo)
Feb 24-26, 2010

Last of the Light

watercolor on Arches paper
22" X 28"
Demo, February 20, 2010

There are two other versions of Last of the Light (left): one in my sketchbook, and a small "color rough" done in acrylics. This version was a demo for our class today, so there are one or two problems with it, but still, I must say, this is very close to what I want to say about this subject.

The point of the demo was to show the power of a greatly simplified value-scale. Just three widely-separated values: a light near the white of the paper, a dark near black, and that shadowed blue almost exactly between the two.

In the two demos, at right and below, I was exploring different aspects of painting snow. Of course, in watercolor you paint everything else but the "snow," which is usually untouched white paper.

In the one at right, I really overstated that blue for the shadows...a move that gave me the leeway to put a lot of strength in the sky. The combination of the brilliant white of the paper, the bold blue shadows, and the blustery sky really conveys, for me, the feel of the day...after the storm.

After the Storm

watercolor on Fabriano paper
22" X 15"

Demo, January 23, 2010

Foreground Shadows

watercolor on Fabriano paper
24" X 18"

Demo, January 9, 2010

China Delight

watermedia on ragboard
36" X 27"
2009
The 143rd Annual International Exhibition,
The American Watercolor Society,
at The Salmagundi Club in New York
April 6th-May 2nd, 2010

Claire with Flowers
(hommage a Bonnard)

acrylic on ragboard
8" X 7"
2010

At left, "inspired by the masters"...in this case, a double-barreled investigation into Bonnard's color and his wonderful, quirky sense of composition. An exercise like this is fun to try occasionally, and is a great way to map out interesting new directions.

December 15, 2009

White Still-life

watercolor on Fabriano paper
22" X 30"

Demo, December 4th

The companion piece to Black Still-life. Here the "forms" are carved out of the untouched white paper by the midtone washes. The rough, raw quality doesn't bother me...it was a demo, after all...but I may have gone overboard in selecting "unpretty" subject matter. Still, our students definitely got the point, and they did a fabulous job!

Saturday class, December 4th, 2009

November 24th, 2009. At right, a short pose from our sketch group...trying out the new batch of Domestic Etching paper.

Claire, Tuesday 11/24

pastel on Domestic Etching
26" X 20"

Black Still-life

watercolor on Fabriano paper

26" X 22"
Bill Teitsworth, NWS
November 2009

At left, a demo from our class today, November 21st. It was great fun to do, and I hope that sense of enjoyment comes through!

Fenceline, acrylic on linen, below, can be seen until the end of November at the National Arts Club, Gramercy Park South, NYC, in the Allied Artists of America annual.

Study for "Fenceline"

Permanent marker on sketch paper
Drawing Board
The Artist's Magazine, June 2009

For web-exclusive tips on value-contrast in
drawing, go to:

http://www.artistsnetwork.com/article/value-contrast-technique

Winged Being

watercolor on Arches paper
30" X 22"

Civic Ballet of Scranton Art/Dance Collaboration

PS: Click to enlarge the images in my gallery below (some "pre-crash" ones don't work), and don't forget to hit the "back" arrow on your browser to return to the gallery.

Recent Watercolors and Acrylics

Patterns, Summer Fields
(demo 2008)

watercolor on Fabriano paper
15" X 22"

Food Court
(Study for "China Delight")

acrylic on ragboard
9" X 5"
2009

The Green Pool

acrylic on paper
32" X 21"
2008

The Walser Greathouse Medal
142nd Annual International Exhibition,
American Watercolor Society
March 31-April 26, 2009

Portrait

watercolor on Aquabee wet-media paper
9" X 12"
Watch our "Workshops" page for info on upcoming workshops in portrait and landscape at
The Art School of Northeast Pennsylvania!

Marshall Point Light (demo)

watercolor on Fabriano paper
22" X 17"
2008

Festival Tents at Conte's

watercolor on Fabriano paper
15' X 22'
2008

McClellan Point (demo)

watercolor on Fabriano paper
2008

Owls Head Harbor

watercolor on Fabriano paper
2007
Courtesy of the Landing Gallery, Rockland, ME

sold

You'll be able to see one of the pencil studies for
Early Morning, Bullshead, at right, in my article for the "Drawing Board" department of The Artist's Magazine, October 2008...on newstands or in your mailbox on September 9th.