Day 107 - Charles Reid Class #2

Dad's American Journey Paint The two tubes of paint are old Cheap Joes American Journey paints that I inherited from my dad.  He was never much of  a watercolor painter so these tubes were about 25 years old and still worked great! With that in mind I did buy another ultramarine blue. One more session of Charles Reid style painting will finish this one off!!  The brush is one I bought for the last Charles Reid class I took back in March. Dad's going to be tickled that I painted his paint when he sees it this weekend. 

Our group got THE TOUGHEST flowers in the room to paint...even Charles Reid said they were. However I am pleased with the way they turned out. A little nontransparent BUT on the whole I like it.  They were tough because they were a rusty red with the backs of the petals yellow...HUH??!

You would not believe the colors I tried in an effort to paint these. I tried  vermilion, quinacridone red, burnt sienna, aurelin, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue AND a very dark purple..ALOT of negative painting too...mostly with combos of vermilion and rust with purple and ultramarine blue added to it.

This is the setup minus my paintbrush and two tubes of paint.  I scrunched the objects together because I thought they were too strung out yesterday. We didn't have a focal light source on the flowers which was a little bit of a problem.  

This was one I played with trying to get the colors to mingle more on the paper.  I actually like it better though its not finished by a long shot.  I think I painted this in about 20 minutes at the end of class and I actually like where it was going better than the first one. Practice practice practice!


Charles finished his morning demo a few minutes early today so we were lucky enough to get to tour the Cheap Joe's facilities.  Joe himself led our tour.  He's just a sweet lovely man.  There's a gallery of his wonderful watercolors as well as other teachers and some of the employees.  We got to see his man cave office, the order center, the employee lunchroom complete with a monthly birthday cake celebration AND a scale!  Nice big windows with views.  Then it was off to tour the warehouse.  To say it was huge well is an understatement.  At least as big as two football fields.  Joe said he could teach us to fill an order in under three minutes no problem.  We also got to meet his top employee Robert who packs the thank you gift you get with every Cheap Joes order.

To say that the staff and owner of Cheap Joes bent over backwards to make our week PeRfEcT would be an understatement.

If we thought we wanted something from the store not a problem...we run a ticket.  If it was only in the warehouse it magically appeared in no time flat!!

The only way he could improve our experience is if he added a dorm and a dining hall!! :)

Our morning demo.  Watching Charles Reid paint is like watching a magician wave his brush and create magic.  A daub of paint here a daub there and magically the flowers appear.  Just totally enthralling to watch him paint, and Cheap Joes makes sure we can see every stroke in a large flat screen tv set up so everyone can see the teacher working. I painted that same wine bottle yesterday.  WHY doesn't it look like his??!

Charles Reid's set up!

Charles Reid paints!

The wonderful Judy Reid, Charles' wife, retired Kindergarten teacher, aka the Boss, loves to tell stories and make jokes.

After class a classmate, Diana and I went on an adventure looking for old barns and beautiful mountains to photograph.  This is a charming church we found about ten miles out of town down a winding mountain road...on HWY 140 I think!  A beautiful drive that Joe sent Diana and I on in search of gorgeous views.

A view round every bend in Hwy 140...lots of great barns!!

Thanks for looking!!

Day 106- Day 1 with Charles Reid!!

I am at Cheap Joes taking a class from the awesome Charles Reid...the author of 12 books with North Light and many dvds on how to paint like Charles Reid.

Even Joe himself of Cheap Joes is taking the class!! Two days of flower painting and hmm two more days of value studies.  

Cant say enough about how great everyone at Cheap Joes is.  The classroom is just terrific.  We can see every stroke on the HUGE flat screen tv in front of the room.  We each have our own work table, lots of great light, terrific catered lunch, AND last but not least there were guys to help us schlep our stuff from our cars to our tables!! Going to have to take another class at Cheap Joes!!

This is what I painted today.  I am oh so more pleased with it than any flowers I painted in his class last spring.  I actually got the idea of negative painting. I didnt destroy my whites and lights like the daisies...last time I made a hash out of them.    My only critism of this painting is that the wine bottle and pumpkin look lost over on the left by themselves and the vase is DEAD center...never a good look. 

So I cropped it...think this one looks ever so much better than the whole picture.  The bottle and the pumpkins look good but ..hmm that can be a whole other painting right?!

Which one do you like better??

This is the master Charles Reids painting from today. Is it not AWESOME!! I love everything about it.  Notice his wine bottle touches the flowers UNLIKE mine.  

Enough for now. I could do another whole post on the great fun Mike and her husband Allan and I had going to Mast General after class taking pictures of great barns and pumpkins in the valley there BUT I am tired and taking a shower!! 

More tomorrow!!

Thanks for looking!!