Here are two more pieces that I pulled out yesterday. These are watercolor and colored pencil on hot press watercolor paper. I haven't worked on paper in a while. I love the feel of it, the way the water flows and mingles, the way the pencil works on top..... oh, I'm feeling the urge. It may be time to get out my pile of paper and start playing.

Hope you're having a good Monday.

Peace,

Carlynne

Busy, busy, busy

What a weekend it was. I got to spend all day Saturday with my daughter. She just moved so we had fun arranging paintings on the wall. Of course she has to have a collection of momma's stuff. Looking back at some of the pieces I did years ago was fun, except when I saw some that I really wanted to rework. Sometimes you look back at your work and think - cool, I did that! Others you look back and think - geez, can I take that frame apart and do that over?

Sunday I finished a commission piece. This was fun to do since I haven't done a landscape like this for quite a while. This is watercolor and colored pencil. Some of you might recognize the area, it's in Evinston. A few of my plein air painting sisters were just there for a paint-out, more power to them! I'm a studio painter. I don't know how they deal with the weather, hauling the supplies, bugs etc........ I guess I'm a wimp :) I like the comforts of home when I paint.

Off and running on the next project,

Peace,

Carlynne

Sand and Water

Sand and Water #1

Acrylic on Canvas

12"X12"

Hi All,

Here is a new piece in the beach series. I am using a new name for the next phase of the series, it will now be Sand and Water. I like the color and values on this one but do not know what else I will do with it yet. As always, your comments are welcome.

This coming Friday is our next First Friday Art Walk in Ocala, FL if you are anywhere near the area.

Peace and Love to you all,

Kelli

Great minds... I can only hope

Waxwing Poetic

Vera Curnow

Tri-Focal

Vera Curnow

With this being the 20th anniversary of the CPSA, I was thinking back to the beginning of the group and Vera Curnow came to mind. My first contact with Vera was 20 years ago when she wrote an article to the Artist's Magazine wondering if there were any other colored pencil artists out there. I was down here in Florida doing my thing... coloring away. I was thrilled to see that there were other people as in love with the medium as I was so I wrote to her, along with the others who were saying "hi - we're out here". She founded the organization and I've been a member ever since.

Vera has been an inspiration to me on so many levels - her work, her drive and energy, her creativity, her teaching ability and her willingness to take chances. She's the one who taught me to paint with colored pencils using mineral spirits - this was revolutionary for me! It changed how I worked and opened up a whole new way for me to play. Working with a brush again brought me to working with watercolor and colored pencil which led to doing colored pencil on canvas which led to doing..... acrylic on canvas - acrylic without colored pencil, hmmm...

A few years ago Kelli and I had the opportunity to go to Vera's gallery in Indiana and teach a workshop. It was great fun to see what Vera was up to. Not only was she doing colored pencil, she was also doing acrylic. She has the same love of texture that I do and I was thrilled to see that we were going down the same road. I had an argument once with a woman online. She was telling me that you can't change your style or subject matter in your work - that would mean you were unfocused and immature. What a bunch of BS. Of course you can. If you feel the need, then by all means go for it. I still work in colored pencil, I just expanded my horizons to include other things. Vera works in a variety of media, is she unfocused and immature? I don't think so!!! Just take a look at her work above. If you want to see more of what she does visit her at http://www.veracurnow.com/ If you want to see what she created when she started the CPSA go to http://www.cpsa.org/

Thanks Vera for being an inspiration to so many,

Peace,

Carlynne

Thanks and here comes '10

Nancy and Kelli

The first thing I want to say is thank you. Thank you to Kelli - my co-author, teaching partner and most importantly my friend. This little chunk of time called 2009 would've been a lot harder without her. It was a tough year for a lot of people including me and my family. We've been through numerous serious illnesses, loss of a beloved pet and some difficult relationship changes that are still causing some challenges. Through all this we've found reason to be grateful and some of that gratitude goes toward our students. Not only are they fun people to be with, we're grateful they're still paying us for our pearls of wisdom. These really aren't art classes, they're actually therapy sessions and these wonderful people are the highlight of our work week. And, it's especially fun watching Nancy get paint absolutely everywhere.

Lea

We all love when Lea comes to town, we're fortunate to have her with us for the winter - it's Canada's loss. She can wield a colored pencil like a pro when she's painting these adorable animals.

Johnnie

Mama Johnnie keeps us all in line. She reminds me to make the coffee before the rest of the crew starts to snarl. I think I'll call her that from now on..... Mama Johnnie, I wonder if she'll mind.

Jean

A brave soul who tackles new media no matter how scary it can be. One week it's pastel, the next it's watercolor with colored pencil and then it might be acrylic.

So this is what happens to our students when they work up the energy to come to class between Christmas and New Year's. They get their pictures taken and plastered on the internet. I wonder how many will show up next year. I don't want the rest to feel left out - we love you too... Bob, Chuck, Jo, Mary Kay, Glenda and Betty. Kelli - did I forget anyone?

Well, here's to 2010. May it bring joy, good health and prosperity to all!

Happy New Year!

Carlynne

Our Fantastic Students!

One of our "new kids," Levi working on
a colored pencil piece while Samantha
learns to mix colors in acrylic.




Jean working on an acrylic landscape.

Diane who has been with us for many years,

working on a colored pencil piece with Jane

in the background, also working in colored

pencil.

Bob and Chuck (our token males) and

Diane in the background, with Jane in the

foreground, all working in colored pencil.

Hi All,

Thought you'd like to see what some of our students look like. This is the Wednesday class. All of our classes now are Open Studio, people can work in any media on their own projects at their own pace, with our guidance.

Carlynne and I are both, mixed media artists and between the two of us we have worked with or are still working with almost all media. We like having our students work on many different projects. It's fun for us and inspirational for them. They see something that someone else is doing and they want to try it themselves. Our students work in graphite, watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil, sometimes oil and pastels, and even gourds!! Yes, we have one student using acrylic texture mediums on gourds, look for more photos in upcoming posts.

We are thinking about starting some online lessons and critiques to reach more students. During my childhood and young adult years, I lived in a remote part of Michigan and the internet, had it been available then, would have been my lifeline to the art world. Instead I had to depend on what few books were available to me and draw and paint on my own, making the same mistakes over and over. It wasn't until I got to college that I had instructors to help me over my bad habits and mistakes.

Let us know what you think!

Peace, love and creativity to all,

Kelli

Mixed Media Workshop

One Missing

by Carlynne Hershberger

To all you mixed media artists and all you wannabee mixed media artists, we are teaching a workshop in Cloudcroft NM that you will want to attend!!

The piece shown above (One Missing) is a mixed media piece that Carlynne will be demonstrating during the workshop. Over the course of 5 days (that's five whole days with us!!!) you will work on three different projects combining colored pencils and several other media. This piece uses colored pencil, solvent and gold leafing and combines several techniques. (And although it's very pretty, the color, as seen here is not quite accurate. Don't know why it published this way!) For another project you will use colored pencil, watercolor and acrylic paint. It's a great chance to take your colored pencil work to the next level and/or learn how to combine several media.

The workshop takes place in the picuresque little town of Cloudcroft in the beatiful mountains of New Mexico July 27-31, 2009. For more information, go to the Cloudcroft site http://www.cloudcroftart.com/. And keep watching this blog for more info and another piece of artwork to be demonstrated at the event.

Peace and creativity,

Kelli

Been a long time....

Wow, it's been a very long time since we've posted on here. Shame on us for taking this long. There's been a lot going on. We've been busy getting ready for workshops, art shows and teaching our weekly classes. There's Kelli in the above photo doing a demo at the workshop in Rising Sun, IN. We had such a wonderful time with the students there. What a great group! They took the projects and just ran with them. I absolutely love seeing the creative way people interpret a project, everyone is doing the same image in the same colors yet the results are amazingly varied. We did 2 projects in 2 days, the first one combined watercolor and colored pencil and the second one combined colored pencil with silver leaf. The workshop was fun, the people were great, the weather was perfect.....what more can you ask.

The next workshop coming up is in Seattle at the end of the month. I'm one of the instructors at the Colored Pencil Society of America's annual convention and exhibition. This is going to be exciting. I've never been to Seattle and I've heard all good things so I'm really looking forward to seeing a new city. My hubby's going along so he'll get to explore a little more than I will. The exhibitions are always excellent too. It's nice to see the artwork in person. AND.... this year my work was accepted to the show so I'll get to see it hanging there with all the other wonderful paintings. I'll bring some pics back and share.

Peace,

Carlynne