A Week of Painting at Springmaid Watermedia Workshops

Being able to paint to your heart's content for an entire week is an artist's dream. It certainly is mine.

I just returned from fulfilling that dream at the Springmaid Watermedia Workshops in Myrtle Beach SC. Out of eight available workshops, I chose the one taught by Carrie Brown. I was not disappointed. Although I've painted for years, taught everyone from kindergarten to adult ages, have my own workshops I instruct, I have learned that you can always learn something new. From Carrie, I learned a lot.

It has always bothered me when my expensive - mostly Golden brand - acrylics dry up on my palette and I have to throw away the beautiful but dried-up paint. Sometimes I have managed to peel off the bits and pieces of color to save. Once I even created a bouquet of colorful paint remnants that became a small piece of sculpture for my studio. I've used lots of items for my palette, from actual palettes made for that purpose to plastic covers and plates. I've also tried Reynolds freezer paper but didn't especially like it.

"Sea of Red" ©Mary Montague Sikes

With Carrie's instruction on taping the freezer paper to a backing--I chose lightweight foam core--I've found a palette I love. It is also a palette that is useful for saving and re-purposing my leftover acrylic paints. Once you've used this palette enough, you have an acrylic skin that can be peeled away and later adhered to a piece of canvas as part of a new painting. I love this process as a method to save paint and to also be creative at the same time. Another advantage to this process is that the palette is then reusable.

Here's an example of a skin painting. I probably will add more paint to the empty white canvas or perhaps I will leave it as it is now. I haven't decided. The paint skin is beautiful, and it gives an artist so many exciting possibilities.

What a fun week. We painted in a classroom with a wall of windows overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. What could be more perfect?

"Springmaid Dock" ©Mary Montague Sikes

"W" is for Wonders of the World - A to Z Challenge

"Wonders of the World, Sedona AZ" ©Mary Montague Sikes

Throughout the month of April, Farrah Ferand, the heroine of Evening of the Dragonfly, has painted her way into the reality of regressed memories. Using the imagery in her paintings, she has come to realize and understand elements from her past. Now, as she nears completion of her one-person art exhibition, Farrah is ready for new beginnings. Her last two paintings will be about wonders of her world.

Although Farrah has never traveled to the Southwest, she is intrigued by that part of our country. She once read the Zane Grey stories of the West, and she enjoys movies set there. The Red Rock country of Sedona, Arizona especially appeals to her. The final paintings for her show are joyful ones created with juicy Golden acrylic paints on stretched canvas. Today's art in her "Wonders of the World" is a detail from a Sedona painting she will finish for tomorrow. This work is 36" x 18".

(Sedona is one of my favorite destinations. For this project, as I looked through some of the photographs I've taken there, I felt a little homesick.)

If you have just joined this blog journey:
Evening of the Dragonfly is a novel set in the 1980s, a time less complicated than today. Farrah Ferand has a high school art teaching job in a small Virginia town. She meets Dirk Lawrence, a businessman from the city, who takes an interest in her and in her painting and is helping her build a studio over the garage in her rented home. Farrah is thrilled to have the studio because she has a one-person art exhibition scheduled. As she works on new paintings, Farrah realizes things about herself, her relationships, and the tragic loss of her mother. We encounter some of her realizations as new paintings and parts of painting are unveiled each day during the A to Z Challenge. My book is available in trade paperback and as an e-book.