Hello,

New SALE in my SHOP from Aug 31 - Sept 7th midnight. Save 20% with code FIRSTSALE.

So thank you for visiting, and hope you enjoy the many art tips in my BLOG, and paintings in my SHOP and just feel blessed while you hang around awhile.

Joanie

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Small Stuff continues....and some samples

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I gush over small paintings.....I remember going to Richard Diebenkorn / Matisse Exhibit at SFMOMA. Wonderful, gobsmacking artwork. Huge canvases on the wall one had to step back from to take in...... but just behind on the opposite wall were gouache works, small works, intimate works, and these bowled me over. They, by contrast, invited you in to look more deeply, whereas the huge canvases made you backup and enjoy in a more expanded view. Both were magic.  But i found myself going back constantly to the small gouaches...and watercolors. I just found my Rest there. All that said, I have always enjoyed the many virtues of painting small....they are done quickly, small goals per painting, no stress of painting a masterpiece, and it is an extraordinary way to develop ideas about series.  Here's an apple....small, sewn by machine to a 6 x 6" scrapbook paper. Ready to frame. And here are a few more of this stack of over 24.....but still in their cellophane wrappers. I will never t...
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Some more Trees, Oil Pastels and Oct/Nov Theme

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Hello there, Artsies, And yet another month has flown by....and we are edging into the end of another year! Hard to believe. For our last two full months of this year Oct/Nov, our theme will be Painting Small. Painting Small Each artist will choose what "small" is to them. Might be Artist Trading Card size, 5 x 7, 6 x 6 or even 12 x 12.  What to paint on? paper, wood, cardboard, canvas......in other words, anything and everything! Why you ask? Painting small allows for more paintings and less supplies used. Fabulous way to really FOCUS on your subject, SEE more into it, and EXPRESS it.  What medium? You choose!!! We have experimented all year with acrylic, gouache, ink, soft pastels, watercolor and of late, oil pastels, not to mention all the other mixed media we use at every turn. So you choose what you wish to play with..... When artists tell me, as I do my check-ins  with each of them "I'm just experimenting, or I'm having fun, I'm just playing....."...
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TREE theme continues....get out your palette knives

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Hi folks Loads of fabulous trees painted this past month by all my artists...and we continue with this theme but break out our palette knives for the last of this months classes. Weeks 2, 3, and 4. It's not too late to join us.  Here are few of my trees done this month....I experimented with chalk pastel backgrounds for that nice smoothness, then proceeded to mostly paint with gouache then of course topped with mixed media....in other words I grabbed whatever I thought would work. To tell my story. What are you trying to say in your paintings?   Consider this before jumping in and "just painting." What is exciting to you that you want to convey?  OBSERVE CLOSELY your inspirational source. Study it, what thrills you, what do you not care about....EDIT!  This is your painting, so show us what you love, and why bother with the rest? The ole "Take what works and Leave the rest" adage. Please don't forget to be playful with color!  Pastel background, gouache, so...
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The Tale of a Tree - next theme for Aug/Sept

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I announced in class our next theme, that is, Trees.   Finally got around to taking some photos yesterday morning and came around to a few variations on a theme.  At first I thought ONE tree......with many shots taken from over, under, bark only, roots only, a branch, looking up thru the branches and trunk, etc. But upon taking a few dozen photos I quickly discovered that solo branches in many cases were hard to photograph. Similarly shooting from root to tippy top. Care to lay out a tarp and lay on the ground anyone?
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Coming up Flowers!

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Spring greetings..... We have been working on figurative paintings this past several weeks as we segued from Hands just prior to that. Most figurative compositions include arms and hands so that worked out quite smoothly. Many of us, I am happy to report, are no longer so daunted by hands. That's a win! So before I briefly share the new theme, which of course, you can glean from the title of this post, I will share a series of vintage portraits that I have been working on this past theme of 6 weeks or so.
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More on the portraiture of Hands

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Emily Dickinson starts a poem I felt my life with both my hands To see if it was there— It is so interesting.....during this past month of focussing on hands as our artistic subject matter, I have come to have insights that paintings/drawings of hands are truly portraits. The hands hold so much character....even the age spots and wrinkles, the way the knuckles swell and enlarge over time. And young hands hold such innocence in their blemish free and smooth texture. And the way hands MOVE, the way they DO so many things......Consider the hands of a carpenter, a ballerina, your mother's hands, your father's, your children, your best friends. Yep, I stand firm: Hands are portraits.   Here are a few of my hands experiments from this past month.... and i do mean experiments. Every month i do so many demo paintings, and i consider them painting sketches most of the time. They are done quickly, with abandonment to all rules, and with a medium that is within arms reach. It's so fun...
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High Key, Low Key, Neutrals.....playing with values and palettes

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Hello Artsy Folks I visited San Francisco Legion of Honor this week to visit the inspiring (Edouard) Manet and (Berthe)  Morisot exhibit. What amazed me observing a few glorious rooms full of their work, it was so evident that these two artists painted their works with very contrasting approaches to value.  Whether intentional or not I haven't a clue.  Manet used the full value scale masterfully, so many deep darks to express his subject material. Whereas Morisot, to my amazement worked from mid to high value tones. Just stunning. Her work felt so feminine, soft, energetic, immediate.....her strokes confident and seemingly quickly done. Her work was fresh, and underdone vis a vis Manet's which, still absolutely masterful, but truly more masculine, with distinct lines between subject and background, values doing much of the work, and much less abstraction overall. My impressions was that he worked perhaps more thoughtfully, deliberately compared to Morisot's energetic fre...
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Let's start 2026 with Color Studies!

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Apologies for the emailed version of this full of typos. I was doing 5 things at same time under deadline and oops, no time to edit! Hello folks, and welcome to a New Year. May this one be full of blessings and joy even when we don't necessarily see it ahead. It's there, waiting to be discovered. Kind of like Art, right?  We come to our practice, a blank canvas or sheet of paper....we don't know in advance what will happen in the process....but we proceed with a smidge of hope, and trust, and ..... there we have it. A new creation.   Every creation deserves to be celebrated....and not judged. Our smallest or grandest of efforts don't rule the outcome...sometimes it's that delicious serendipity that arises. That's what has me so plugged in to art. It's the surprise, the journey, the discovery. How about you?  Ready for another year of discovery? Starting next week (Mon Jan 5 and Wed Jan 7) our new year begins, that's two Zoom morning classes, 10am to n...
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Happy Holy Days

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May Love and Peace abound.  Ready to join us? There's plenty of creativity, inspiration and fun to go around. →  MORE INFO on my classes here . If you wish to join us for a month or more of classes, GET IN TOUCH and see if you don't get inspired, too! 🎨 Blessings, Joanie
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NOV - DEC Theme

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Final Six Weeks of the Year As for NOV and DEC - we will do our annual let's FINISH paintings!  Doesnt sound too exciting?  Well, imagine this....you could be 10 minutes away from a beautiful finished painting. Bring all those paintings that have stumped you....and lets look at them deeply, and figure out what needs doing to get them to just right! Signed, titled, varnished and ready to hang.  Now that is exciting, right? Give your paintings as gifts this holiday, or just hang them all around you and marvel at what you have created.   As well, we will be making holiday cards out of some of our paintings or painting a new one - so whether you send snail mail holiday cards, or like me, am entirely converted to digital everything....your art can still shine and bless your loved ones. For those wanting to jump in and join us, worry not....you can start a new painting, make it a holiday theme or not, and just join the camaraderie, encouragement, instruction an...
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Chosen Women Artists - the inspiration continues...

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Hello Creative Souls, This past month has flown by, as they all do, but this was especially exciting as we dove into our chosen women painters and painted like them, remained open to what moved us about their painting technique, style and subjects, and are ready in October to create our own compositions....and anything we learned from and wanted to carry forward in our own work. I chose Pan Yuliang and Suzanne Valadon. Pan Yuliang, especially......I just finished a well researched biographical novel about this amazingly talented artist from China. What a life!  Check out The Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein. Loved this book! Love this artist who bridged Eastern and Western painting styles. The objective for painting our painter's paintings (that's a mouthful) was not to become masterful counterfeiters!  But to experience what it is like to paint someone elses decisions...their colors, their shapes, their compositions. And listen quietly to hear their voice....
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