Tuesday

New Oil Painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Loughead and Windtower", studio oil painting, 12 x 16"
$225 unframed, shipping and handling extra

This was the demo I did for the Federation Of Canadian Artists, Calgary Chapter. I am teaching a plein air workshop for them this weekend, and they thought doing the demo might inspire the members to sign up! Although I did this from a photo, and I almost never like the work I do from photos, I tried to point them to what I would be thinking if I was doing this on location. Half way through, I got inspired to change the lighting to an early evening flavour, which made it much more fun :)

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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Monday

New Plein Air Oil Painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"First Leaves Of Spring", plein air oil, 9 x 12"
SOLD

I am a bit behind in my posting, so here is my first plein air of spring -done on May 17th! We had the 'winter that never ends' this year, so the leaves are about 2 weeks behind. This scene was very interesting to me because the leaves were only out on a few of the trees, making a startling contrast with the bare trees.

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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New Studio Oil Painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Still Life With Limes", 20 x 16", oil on canvas
$1195 framed, free shipping and handling

This is another studio set-up that I painted with my good friend Ingrid Christensen. You can see her painting here. As you can see, Ingrid is a much looser still life painter than I am, and that makes it really fun to work together. She tends to work large in the studio, while my practice is to work small outside, so we allow ourselves to be challenged by working together. We are going to do a figure session with a model on Thursday, so stay tuned for the results of that.

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Thursday

New Oil painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Raking Light", 11 x 14", oil on board
$200 unframed, shipping & taxes not included

The Calgary Sketch Club had me and my plein air buddy Jan Chalupnicek doing an "Iron Brush" painting competition. The idea was to simulate the plein air experience inside. Jan did his thing in acrylics while I did mine in oils. We chose a photo from one of our paint-outs together and this was projected onto a screen for us to work from.

Here you can see the set-up -Jan is on the other side of the room. There were about 35 people present to watch our humiliation, opps, I mean success. They were free to come closer and we were able to share some of our methods and thoughts. Look at how fast that brush is going! We had less than an hour to finish the painting.

Several members dressed up to represent the kind of distractions present during plein air painting. We had tacky tourist, people dressed up as wild animal and others with stuffed animals -it was a hoot. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that there was a sound track playing of wild birds, wind and rain. (Jan had time to do 2 paintings to my one, the speed of acrylics!)

At the end of the evening, I won the award for oils and Jan won the award for acrylics (nobody wanted to pick a winner!) We were presented with these cute awards complete with brushes. Great fun was had by all, and the funky atmosphere put the artists at ease.
Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Wednesday

New Mixed Media Collage Demonstration by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Sunday Stroll", acrylic and collage, 12 x 12"

This is the last demo I did for my workshop, and I took a couple of step-by-step photos to help you see how I got here. To begin with, the palette I used to stain and decorate my papers for all of the workshop demos posted yesterday and today, is a simple one of Green Gold or Azo Green and Quinacridone Magenta, along with Carbon Black and gesso for a white.
We dyed and decorated many pieces of tissue paper using all the combinations of the above colours plus black and white. The ones with the white added become more opaque with the increasing amount of gesso in the mix.

I used my above plein air painting as the impetus for this collage, as I liked the simple shapes. I drew the 5 large shapes on my support with a sharpie marker so I could see them through the transparent collage layers. You can see the lines in step one below.

This was the start. The idea was to keep the 5 shapes separate by assigning each one a specific value and then trying to find papers in that value range. This step has collage only on it.

This was the second step. I have begun to add collage papers to distinguish the value shapes a bit better. There still isn't any paint added at this stage.

Here is the painting as it sits now on my 'observation shelf' in my studio. Since the colours seemed to suggest a rock rather than a bush, I decided to take the painting in that direction. I have changed some of the shapes to add interest, and have added some negative painting to make the weed growth in the lower left corner. I have done some outlining of some shapes with different coloured paint on a rigger brush and have negatively and positively painted trees in the upper third. I think I need to strengthen the linking of the dark value pattern to make it more interesting, and try to figure out if I can live with the shoreline not being more straight. I like the feeling of reflections happening in the 'water' area on the bottom, but maybe that could be stronger. I will post it again if I decide to make any changes to it, but that will have to wait for a rainy day!
By the way, I am teaching 2 plein air workshops coming up- the first on June 4 & 5 and the other June 11 & 12. Let me know if you would like more details.

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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Monday

Collage Workshop photos by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Under The Sea", 12 x 12", mixed media

At my Sidney workshop last week, we spent 1 1/2 days dying and decorating fabulous papers beginning with inexpensive tissue paper. Then we did some starts (see below photo, which is a 'T' compostion) in some very simple compositional formats. This was one of the demos I did which began as 'bridge' compositional start, and then I began to play with it. The night before I had eaten at a great fish and chip shop. While I was waiting for my dinner, I began to sketch the angel fish from the fish tank that sat next to my table. So of course those fish ended up being fresh in my mind, and so I decided to take this painting in that direction. Can you see them? Ah, the joy of creative painting!

A 'T' compositional start. The key is to vary the sizes, shapes and colours of the tissues, applying the 'repetition with variation' principle. It is more important to design the negative (in this case white) spaces than it is with the positive shape, making sure the 3 pieces are varied in size and interesting in edge.

This is the workshop group (minus one lovely lady who had to leave early to get ready for a huge dinner party!) and me. I asked them to all hold onto their favorite painting of the week for you to ogle over. It was a fantastic workshop for all of us, and I am excited that I am repeating the workshop this coming spring for Leading Edge Art Workshops.
I will post a step by step demo tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or to commission your own painting, please email me.

Wednesday

Saanich workshop photos

This was the scene from my hotel window this evening -cool eh? I am in Saanich, British Columbia (30 minutes north of Victoria on Vancouver Island) teaching a mixed media workshop. We have had 3 days of making and decorating papers, and making collages galore. This place really makes me wonder why I live in Calgary! The tulips are just about done here and all the leaves are out, compared to home where they are just beginning.
Workshop photos are below. There are 12 women in the workshop and they are wonderfully friendly and easy going. I will post some photos of their work, and one of mine tomorrow.




Talk to you tomorrow!

New Plein Air Painting and class photos by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Easter Runoff", plein air oil painting, 8 x 10"
$495 framed, free shipping and handling

I did this painting on Easter Sunday after church. It was wonderful to be out in God's wonderful creation after worshiping him in church! Painting outdoors is an extension of worship for me :)

I held my last full year classes today -I am transitioning to a workshop model for my classes for next year. It is bitter sweet -now I will have more time to paint and freedom to travel, but I will surely miss all of my wonderful students!

This is some of my Experienced Beginners Watercolour class. Linda and Joan couldn't be in class today. We were just finishing up our floral unit, and the class is proudly displaying their latest work. Several of these lovely women came into my class initially as brand newbies, never having touched watercolour. They have come a long way don't you think?

And this is my all year Advanced Watermedia class. Joan, Debbie, Elizabeth and Kathy are missing from this photo, and we really missed their smiling faces in class today. Many of these very talented students began painting with me several years ago, most as newbies, and have been faithfully coming to class ever since. They are a very talented bunch and several of them have even joined art groups winning awards for their paintings. I am very proud of all of them and wish them the absolute best in their continuing art journey.

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Tuesday

Tribute to A Teacher

I had my last class for the year for my mixed media students yesterday. They have been a wonderful bunch of curious and willing learners, and I owe them a debt of gratitude for allowing me help them on their art journey. As a surprise, one of my very talented students also seems to be a budding poet! Sally Hodges wrote and performed this poem with the help of Pat Davis (who read the lines in blue), and it was all I could do to not bawl.

Poem for Sharon Lynn Williams

An artist sat on a folding chair,

She held her paintbrush in the air.

“What would happen if?” she said,

And thought of the message on her fore-head.

“Repetition with Var-i-ety”

“This way I’ll find out what might be”

She said, never needing herself to coax

As she set to work with new, bold strokes.

“I’m gonna keep loose and take a risk”

Never had art seen one so brisk –

This lady was fast! This lady had powers!

And she painted on for hours and hours.

Now this artist took on lots of folks

Teaching them what was real and what a hoax.

She passed on her knowledge. She shared her skill

And taught that art needs people’s… will.

Her passion was contagious , her eye very sharp,

On the less than good she did not harp!

“Isn’t this exciting!” she’d often exclaim,

“We’re going to play the Waldo Game”.

So she mixed up quins and her favourite blue,

“Looking for the colours is what you do”.

“Now if you are stuck you simply say

‘What do I like, or not, today?

What do I need to leave or change?

Believe that you know how to gauge.

You can fix and change and choose

No rules of never, so there’s nothing to lose”

So her students worked ‘til they all could say

“How cool is that!”…like their teacher one day.

May 2, 2011 The Monday Mixed Media Class

"With our sincere thanks for all you have taught us and for all your encouragement. We have gone far beyond what we thought we could accomplish and have delighted in the process. We owe to you a large debt of gratitude. Thank you so very much."

Wow, I am in awe....

Enjoy!

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Sunday

New Plein Air Oil by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Early Spring Textures", plein air oil, 8 x 10"
$150 unframed, plus shipping and handling

This is my first plein air since we have been tempted by spring in a year of 'the winter that will never end'. There is still a ton of snow in the mountains, and it was a bit of a stretch to see some colour in the rather bleak landscape. I used a palette knife for a bunch of this figuring that if we didn't have colour, I could at least play with the textures.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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