Here’s the deets: Colored Pencil Technique Janet Balboa
MON 10:00-11:30am $114 for 7 weeks; $65 for 4 weeks (1.5 hour class) Crystal Lake studio
Explore the magic of colored pencil! Each week begins with a short demonstration and technique practice, followed by guided time to apply what you’ve learned in a small, finished piece. This class is ideal for anyone eager to deepen their skills and experiment with color, layering, and texture.
Step by step class to expand your art skills with instructor demonstrations.
So – I couldn’t wait- wanting to SEEEEEEE how this was gonna look IN COLOR. I just started watercoloring before this picture is even finished. (I have never watercolored over graphite on such a big piece. (16 x 20) Yikes.)
I always find new approaches inherently risky. And that’s why I opt for it, artistically, anyway. It pulls the rug out and makes me think on my feet. Use what I’ve got: Paint that’s lying around. Relying on my extremely rusty watercolor skill -set. Possibly ruining a picture that doesn’t really need any paint at all…
i also think- God knows that as I’ve been Arting around since forever, I’ve got a vague idea of the way forward, yet do not feel confident about my skills, this new thing I’m trying, and so I am finding myself disoriented.
(The fact that I have this gorgeouscompilation of DANIEL SMITH watercolors just languishing is a huge motivator. The colors are so amazing. I got them 2 years ago, courtesy of a much appreciated Christmas gift certificate. I’ve decided to use them for this picture.)
Anyway, as I’m painting, my picture goes through my typical arc- The it sucks or crappy phase- which for me, I’ve learned, is often the most productive part of the creative act. It actually makes the risk more of an adventure as both my right and left brain come online together.
I know why I don’t feel right about it:
I dislike it because it doesn’t look like what it feels like in my mind. I don’t know what to do next. I’ve lost the plot.
What to do? I mentally refresh all the feels by re-visiting these 5 questions, the exact same ones I asked myself as I was composing this picture several months ago;
Which way is it?
Where will things be placed- and why?
What are the most basic shapes?
Where is it?
Are there any?
Wondering about the basic premises I started with allows for a kind of hyper- focusing, and I can ‘see’ a way forward, a technique, a process. In other words, I know exactly what to do next.
I’m mighty glad I sucked it up and went out on the proverbial limb and was able to catch the next neural branching. Growth, learning, and expansion become possible mainly at the boundaries. The ecotones between what I know and what I don’t know. The fertile ground of possibilities.
Which is leading to a type of NEW YEARS.
RESOLUTION.
How about this: To make it a habit of mine to dwell here among possibilities, the unknown – and then choose the courageous thing. If it’s true in art, is it true in life?!☘️
Happy New Year
May you be merry and bright🩷🥂💃🎂🙏🤣🐈⬛❄️❤️🐖🖍🤪😜🤣🧸☔️🔥🔥🦄
The foundation of my teaching! A cute little infographic❤️
I am working on another large contemplative piece- 12 x 16 inch Fluid hot press watercolor paper.
🌚☔️The mood is suiting the grey reflective December day. Funny, I started this in the late summer, and all those colorful zinnias were my models. Now, I’m compelled to add the many small hidden things that lurk around in the background, only venturing out when it’s safe to be seen, and that’s not usually in the bright light of day, summer or reason… It’s lovely out in the woods today- 🧸🐻🧸🐻
(Haven’t counted them yet, knowing there are more on the way. Dr. Sue- you’re counting I bet.)
🖍👩🎨My intention for this is a full color, water-color, and colored pencil extravaganza. That’s my style/technique challenge for myself to improve my skills set. ❤️My other intention, the one that eternally motivates me, is the creation of a space that can quietly open a door. A space that can lead to wonder, ponderings, curiosity, and maybe a little healthy lostness. That’s my experience anyway. Entertaining new possibilities in whatever form they may take verges on the adventurous.
I saw/received/ had the idea for this drawing last week and sketched it out in the margin of some notes I was taking. I originally saw a bat in the central spot where the face is now. An upside down bat, like a gargoyle – I was thinking Gothic Cathedral, Notre Dame style gargoyles.
And now…a presence. This Presence. Oh my.
Certainly she’s been called a bat, a crone, a hag, an old lady. Probably worse. Most definitely worse.
All I know is that from where I sit, those word concepts do not jive with this Lady. This is fierce Mother Love. A uncompromising Love for Our Planet and Every Thing that dwells there upon. All encompassing. All devouring. All embracing. The prevailing wind.
That’s what this place, this cathedral forest seeks. Lovers of change, of motion, of life in the tumultuous moment. Those still centers that can witness Life in its endless cycling; unafraid.
I’ve finished two more forests and will post them soon-ish. These Forests are meditations, I think. Guides coming through? Hands/help reaching/piercing the veil. There are better metaphors maybe, but these work for now. For me, this drawing feels/confirms that I/we are not alone. And today, that is a very kind and welcome thought.
a splendid venuecool toolsthe work at hand elegant set and settingpretty colors…shared experiences smilesmore smiles
So paint and sip…
A demo is done on a huge easel in front of the group- the whole process is led, step by step- and an example of finished Art Work is on display to the group as well. All the tools you need are on the table in front of you. Name tags get you on a First Name Basis… with the whole room pretty much. 🤣
(So, You come in, sit down, chill, order a 🍷glass of something, get to know the peeps around you, listen to the 🎵 live music, settle in. The venue helps:🐍Lou’s Lounge -after Eliza ‘Lou’ Ringling – snake-charming Ringling Sister to 🎪Ringling Brothers. The Ringlings are entagled with this place; The Dole – a historic mansion in Crystal Lake.
The idea: a bit of Surrender upfront to the process/flow of creating an art work. Something unknown and as yet unrealized by you. You see an end result – but yours may or may not come out like it. Certainly not exactly like it. There is room for experimenting, augmenting, and making different choices.
The Follow Along orients you nicely to the work at hand, and also opens up a group flow, a group dynamic, and a level of connection with The Room.
After enough time, determined by you, the artist, you will Get the Hang of It = some confidence in your hand and the tools it holds. You /It becomes rhythmic, understandable, and now, you begin to add your own embellishments, touches, wonderings.
Tonight is not about practice, but execution; the making of some thing….encompassing a jazz band, friends old and new, lively chatter, and *doing* something creative, some thing tangible, using your hands, your body, all your senses -surrounded by others sharing the same experience.
🔥That’s the magic for me. It’s not often we express ourselves creatively in large groups together. Yet this is a very human, very ancient, very nurturing experience to have.
So yes, ‘Paint and Sip’… but really so much more, so much more potential to be had with this model. So much good can be done by creating together for ‘fun’. For Joy.
It’s who we are. We were made to create- and doing it together is a luxury.
A little project of mine since forever. In the cycle of the moon, it is the First Quarter Moon. half light half dark Balanced Poised… a choice point. Tomorrow, I will walk out into my world under a Gibbous Moon, ideally, with a sense of wonder, delight, desire and adventure. The word commitment is often paired with the1st Quarter Moon and for me it’s becoming a conscious commitment to the practice of ‘getting my heart in the right place’ – opening up and out to the World.
I’m making a deal with myself today, that I will try to pull back on my knee-jerk fears when they come up, and exchange fear for blessing- seeing what is in front of me, the situation, the person, the thing, each event, as it IS. I bless what is; unconditionally.
In theory, this attention will help attend to my shadow, in the moment, as it presents itself. My shadow side doesn’t respond well to the bright light of day, analysis, or reason.
I’m practicing this unconditional self love, figuring that this too is a skill that can be learned. So, the practice. Swap fear for love. And the deal is, it’s just for a lunar week.
And, the picture is Telephoros. An important symbol for this half and half day. He’s Part of my Anam Cara picture- from ages ago. He’s speaking to me again, bringing a soft glow to all the hidden bits.
I have had someone ask me to draw Merlin. So I am practicing. And this is how I practice. Grab a magazine cover and the markers. I chose this cover initially, because I loved this man’s intense stare, thinking that to my mind, a Merlin may in fact have a similar countenance.
This is only the cover of the magazine. I work it Creative Arts, a local art studio, and we devour magazines for portrait and gesture studies, so more often than not, the magazines rarely survive intact. After I had finished, several students and I tore the place apart hoping to find the rest of the magazine. We found the contents page, mostly covered with acrylic paint and marker, apparently a well loved palette for the younger students. But at the bottom :
a pilgrim pauses in his meditation at the shrine of an 11th century Sufi saint. ‘photo by Reza’.
And so it goes. This is the beginning of an idea- way out early when it can turn into anything- pure potential. I love this wide-open phase, but I also dearly love the drawing in progress where I have limited the options and am fairly certain that I know more or less, what the outcome will be. I have collapsed the wave, the work is done and all I have to do is color in the lines. for the Merlin, however, the work hasn’t really started yet.
The Journey 