GEORGIA O'KEEFFE WATERCOLORS

Georgia O'KeefFe's watercolors are not as well known but, I would argue, even more powerful than her oil paintings. Her paired down forms and direct approach, coupled with the intensity of color that watercolor is capable of, deliver a direct and visually eye-popping punch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=37zyoBFcFeA

Georgia O’Keeffe, Untitled (Abstraction/Portrait of Paul Strand), 1917
Watercolor on paper, 12 x 8 7/8 in. (30.5 x 22.5 cm)
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico Gift, The Burnett Foundation
Copyright, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York

JUST ADD WATER: Watercolor Exhibition at Studio Quercus

STUDIO QUERCUS

JAN 12 – FEB 16, 2013

Also open for Oakland Art Murmur

Just Add Water

A survey of Bay Area artists who use water-based media on paper.

Artist’s Reception: Saturday Jan 12, 4–6pm

About the Exhibition:

Studio Quercus is pleased to present Just Add Water, a survey of Bay Area artists who use water-based media on paper. The show, featuring works by eight artists with widely varied approaches, opens January 12 and concludes February 16.
Water-based work, employing watercolor, gouache, ink, or acrylic, traditionally has been used to explore ideas that might later be fully developed in oil on canvas. However, the spirit of experimentation and exploration that is associated with works on paper can be beautiful and inspiring, and is echoed by the artists featured in this show.
The featured artists — Amy Wilson Faville, John Fadeff, Michael Hall, Scott Hewicker, Alex Jackson, Carrie Lederer, Kara Maria, and Francesca Pastine — offer a broad overview of what is possible in water-based mediums.

Painting with Water Based Media Class at CCSF

My CCSF class, Painting With Water-Based Media, runs April 19 through May 16

The purpose of this course is to engage you in a laboratory of contemporary practice using water-based mediums such as watercolor paint, gouache, and ink. We will also experiment with different surfaces and collage. You will begin to set up experiments that will lead you to your own unique visual language. you will be introduced to the process and techniques of traditional watercolor painting and water media as a component to mixed media works. Methods of critical analysis, color literacy, contemporary painting issues, and basic painting methods and skills will be introduced. We will communicate ideas and concepts through artistic development and art making; complete individual and collaborate art practices; and combine visual thinking and creative problem solving in the creation of finished paintings. There will be image lectures, suggested exhibitions and readings, and group interaction through critiques and shared experience. you will be asked to maintain a visual journal that communicates creative process, assignments, ideas and musings through drawing, collage and water media experiments.

Examples of interesting works with traditional and untraditional methods.  For example, Mary Delany creates rich black grounds in ink to bolster the luminosity of her botanical paintings. Ross Bleckner uses bleach on his watercolors, Wangechi mutu uses collage and inks on vellum.

Mary Delany

ink and watercolor

 yvonne estrada

ball point pen, graphite, watercolor, ink

 ross bleckner

watercolor

wangechi mutu

mixed media on vellum

WATERCOLORS BY EMIL NOLDE

WORKS BY EMIL NOLDE:  German Expressionist painted born in Schleswig (a village near Nolde), Germany. His birth name was Emil Hassen but he later changed it to Emil Nolde after the name of the town near where he grew up in.  Nolde was one of the first Expressionists and a member of famed "Die Brücke" group. He is perhaps best singled out for his heavy brushwork and dramatic use of color. Nolde was a supporter of the Nazi party from the early 1920s. He had considered Expressionism to be a distinctively Germanic style and shared viewpoints with high level Nazi officials such as Joseph Goebbels. Ironically Adolph Hitler rejected all forms of modern art as "degenerate art", and Nolde's work was officially condemned by the Nazi party. Prior to that point in time Nolde had been a highly regarded and famous artist in Germany. More then one thousand of Nolde's works were removed from German museums and some of them were included in the Degenerate Art exhibition of 1937. By law he was not even permitted to paint. In personal protest he considered to do so and created hundreds of watercolors  which he titled the "Unpainted Pictures". After World War II, Nolde was reaffirmed as a great German artist and even received the German Order of Merit, Germany's highest civilian award.