Sharing a Carol Nelson Experiment

Donna demonstrating

Today the few Pieces who were in town were treated to a lesson in one of Carol Nelson's mixed media techniques by our one and only Donna who had attended a Carol Nelson workshop last year. Donna brought all the supplies: foam plates, acrylic paints, black markers, glue, and paint brushes. She even gessoed over some of her old paintings to create backboards for us. Her instructions were wonderful. Basically you paint with acrylics on the center of the foam plate. When it's dry, you cut out a small square and bend and crease the square. Then you glue it to a gessoed board and extend your design out into the board. A black marker or black paint can highlight the creases. It's all very loose and abstract. Time passed quickly for Fay, Mary and I as we played with this technique. Below are a few pictures and our results.

It's that simple - paint some colors with acrylics on the plate!

Fay and Donna working on their plates.

Our finished and almost finished pieces against the backdrop of Mary's studio.

We have heard lots of praise from both Donna and our own Carol about their experience in the Carol Nelson workshop they attended and I notice she has one coming up next year in Clearwater, Florida. That's not too far away, and considering Carol Nelson classes fill up pretty quick, not too far ahead of time to consider signing up if you are interested. Here's the link to the Carol Nelson Experiments in Mixed Media Workshop in Clearwater. You can also explore her wonderful results from this technique by clicking here: Carol Nelson Small Paintings.

Catching up on Mondays

by Kathy Garvey
We Pieces of 8 are away a lot in the spring and summer but when even a few of us get together at the Guild, we are enjoying our time together and doing "our thing" which varies in so many ways for each of us that it's always fun to see what everyone is up to. And we have a lot to catch up on if we've missed a week or two. I missed all of April but am so glad to be back and surrounded by such talented friends.

I've made a summary of May 6th and May 13th in pictures. Not everyone is included in the photos who was there working. But here's a little of what was going on. Carmen was with us on the 6th and did an amazing ocean view that she discovered looked equally enchanting turned upside down. I have to be fast to catch Carmen because she gets off to a really fast start each Monday and is always finished with at least one painting before we wrap up three hours later.

On the other hand, Denette is so careful at planning, drawing and then painting that it can look like I've taken the same picture at the beginning as at the end. She has the patience that I envy. She can spend an hour on a very very minute section of a painting, and it shows in the final image.

Carol and Donna returned from their adventure and Carol Nelson Workshop in New Orleans full of new techniques. Donna demoed one using Styrofoam plates for the starting design, and Carol started and completed a really beautiful panel using the same technique right before our eyes.
 

I started on the 6th with a computer project I was working on to build a tutorial in Illustrator using the beautiful graphic style of Alphonse Mucha. The following Monday I was waiting for some more Mucha references to arrive in the mail so I worked on an acrylic named "I swear, the thing just grew on me!" (Hope it does by the time it's finished.)

Mary carefully constructed a drawing for a complex watercolor that I'll post next week.Can't wait until next Monday to see what we are all up to. (Click on any picture to enlarge.)