Reference Photos from Ellwood House

Last Sunday a group from the Kishwaukee Valley Art League gathered to do a little sketching, painting or photographing at the historic Ellwood House a National Register historic site located in DeKalb, IL. I have included 2 of my spring reference pictures of the tower and the children’s play house located on the grounds. I often use reference photos to work from when in my studio. I will be adding some current Ellwood sketches soon. On Sunday fall color was really nice, but I am afraid most of the pretty leaves were blown away in the winds Wednesday night.

Web cite http://www.ellwoodhouse.org/
A FaceBook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ellwood-House-Museum/230983890530

The mansion offers tours Tuesday through Friday at 1 PM and 3 PM and Saturday and Sunday 1 PM, 2 PM and 3 PM which meet at the visitors center. Local floral businesses usually decorate the house for the holiday season. Holiday Open House, December 9, 7 - 9pm; Dec.10, 1 - 5pm; Dec. 11, 1 - 5pm..
Location:
Ellwood House Museum
509 North First Street, DeKalb, Illinois 60115
Phone: (815)756-4609

Exciting Visiting This Labor Day Weekend

 Finally back after getting NIU Electronic Reserves ready for faculty and students. Saturday of the holiday weekend I am visiting  two Milwaukee museums: with a group from NIU.

Milwaukee Art Museum http://mam.org/    to see the China Exhibit.
Then on to Milwaukee Public Museum http://www.mpm.edu/?gclid=CJOd3NmIgKsCFQ0BQAod-UZo2g


Some pictures from my trip to the Chicago Botanic Garden August 15th.

I loved the high color.all over and found the water lilies especially exciting.

Now I have more reference pictures for future paintings to come.

"The Sunflowers Three" will be featured on my next post, soon, very soon.

"The Sunflowers Three" is making progress.

The blue sky is underpainted.

The under painting is complete with the blue sky and yellow flowers.

"The Sunflowers Three" is making progress. The under painting is complete. Now to get on with applying the glazes. I love doing this layering of color. It wakes up the painting and wonderful things begin to happen. To me this is part of the magic of art.

A glaze is a thin transparent veil of color applied over the under painting or over another glaze. The purpose is to enhance the color creating jewel like tones and it can make the colors brilliant.

A glaze can be used to tone down a color patch that is popping or too noticeable. A glaze will enhance and add depth and life to shadow areas and push colors further into the background.

Warm colors are applied to bring an element forward on the picture plain. To push a color toward the background cool tones are glazed over an area. The complementary color grays down the color beneath it. To add luminescence a veil of a transparent white is applied over a highlighted area then more color is glazed over that.

In this stage of my work there may be from 5 to 15 or more layers of glazes applied. I keep adding glazes until the effect is pleasing to my eye. After that happens I will refine the the painting, possibly adding yet more glazes. I will get the glazes resolved and take another picture to post for that stage.