Painting with Acrylic is like a golf game, you hit the ball straight to a goal. Painting with Watercolor is like tennis, you hit the ball over a net, never knowing where it is going and when it is going to come back.

Dabbling in a New Medium

By Susan Levenson

 

After a lifetime in the arts, 2020 is the year I began to dabble with Acrylics. Even before the pandemic hit I had begun this year by creating variety, wonderment, movement, and joy with acrylic paint. I have tried to work both abstractly and realistically white adjusting and adapting to my new delight.

 Since Experimenting with this new medium, the magic of the opaque,  I know watercolor will always be my first love. I love the fluidity. I love to watch it disperse and join other hues develop into pools of luminous delicious paint. I miss the spontaneity and transparency.

On the other hand, acrylics, I feel, to be a more calculating medium which invites a system of filling predetermined spaces and determining color combinations.

But voila!

A mistake or poor judgement, just paint over it. In watercolor you are stuck.

My whole life has been “beachy” it is where I live. Recording the experience of the seacoast, the boats and harbors, docks and piers are important to me. I am looking forward to capturing the joy of shape and light of the sea in new and exciting styles in the future.

These acrylic paintings that I am showcasing here are the beginnings of the new adventure ahead. For me, they are already communicating new ideas and visions.

HOW I SPENT MY ARTISTIC TIME SHELTERING IN PLACE

By MARILYN EIMON

It was wonderful being able to have ZOOM critique sessions with the group during the lockdown, as well as giving me the opportunity to explore new mediums and different ways of "seeing" in these pandemic times. 

The online ZOOM sessions, with Dustan Knight Tarbell.

On a full sheet of watercolor paper, tape 6 inch squares, paint as full painting ignoring squares

Remove the tape, and you have twelve 6" square paintings or not.

Changing painting views from horizontal to

vertical

Plein Air Painting by the sea

Pattern painted on squares with acrylics

"High Key" and "Low Key" exercise

 

FOG!

By Claudette Gammon

Here we are talking about my Island life again, for another year, at least.

Since we are able to summer here, especially now that my husband is retired, the view doesn’t change. How we do love that view, and staring out at it with our morning coffee, is always a delight. We never seem to get sick of it.

Therefore when it comes to something to paint, I have been told, paint the view.

Over our 40 plus years here I have painted the view, six ways to Sunday, BUT I hadn’t painted it in fog.

It is now that time of year to do just that.

The lake is still warm and the nights are cool. We either wake up to dense fog, where you can’t see the lake or the fog is rising around the mountains and islands.

I did try that this season. However, I have to admit I didn’t paint as much as I would have liked, because it was a very hot summer. I don’t function well in the heat and humidity, but I hope you enjoy my few efforts.

REFLECTIONS

 OF MY

 FAVORITE PLACES

By Betsy Janeway

SWIMMING HOLE

COASTING TO TNE MOORING

ISLAND ARRIVAL

RECYCLING FOR THE ARTS

By KATHY TANGNEY

LAMPSHADE

MOBILE

ARTIST IN LOCKDOWN!

TAKING CREATIVE CHANCES

By Ann S. Lynch

This Pandemic time of isolation has encouraged me to paint more, as well as experiment with more mediums, push the subject matter and go out on some creative limbs.

In a time of not taking social risks, it has been a good time to take artistic ones.

These paintings are a combination of watercolors, inks and acrylics done over the past few months.

They are all different sizes and some are a different interpretation of the same subject.

It has been a fun journey to help get through a tough time.

"Water Flowing Over Rocks"

Both images 20" x 16"

Acrylic

The Wave, Acrylic, 8" x 10" 

Abstraction with tape 21" x 28", Acrylic

Three 6" x 6" Acrylic Abstracts

Two Acrylic Abstracts 40" x 60"

A Walk in the Woods, Acrylic, 20" x 16"

Estuary Walk, 1 (Watercolor) and 2 (Acrylic) Both 20" x 16".

And 3 (Acrylic Abstract) Estuary Walk 40" x 28"

Flowers, Acrylic, 22" x 19"

Swimming with Turtles, Acrylic triptych, each panel 10" x 8"

Hope, Acrylic, 21" x 16"

PANDEMIC ART

INTRODUCTION

Well, the world as we know it has been turned upside down. But the intrepid MRP artists have risen to the challenge. We have recognized the opportunity that the “shelter at home orders” offer us to spend more time reflecting on our artistic selves! We are sharing daily pandemic paintings with others in the group, and reconnecting in a deeper way to express ourselves with our artwork.

“It suddenly becomes real when you find yourself doing drawings of your kitchen” said one member.

Dustan has begun critiquing again using ZOOM. All the group connects and we share stories and life events, as well as studio struggles, during these twice weekly conference calls.

Zoom has the additional capability of sharing images to all as well as allowing Dusty to make ‘computer drawings’ overlaying the shared images – this is terrific fun and may be a hard advantage to give up on once this whole pandemic is passed.

We hope that focusing on our art and sharing our work with each other, will help us all sail smoothly through this troubled time, and emerge as better artists and friends then we were before!

Staying safe and in the studio!


DUSTAN KNIGHT TARBELL

FORWARD:

As mentioned above, most of the members of the MRPs have been very prolific, and then some of us, well, not so much.

Being the one in charge of the blog, and as the members were sending me their images, I realized that having titles would be a large undertaking. Some members were forthcoming with titles and others were not.

Therefore as THE blogger, I made the executive decision to let the work speak for itself.

Please enjoy the wide range of work displayed on this blog. Comments are always welcome.
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MARILYN EIMON

 

MARY RUEDIG

TERRY HEINZMANN

 

 

ANNIE LYNCH

 

SUSAN LEVENSON

 

DUSTAN KNIGHT

KATHY TANGNEY

JANICE WITTMER

ANN SAUNDERSON

 

CLAUDETTE GAMMON