Mary B Spires Watercolor & Art Stuff

11" x 14" Transparent Watercolor on Paper I just finished this one!  Reminds me of my Great Granddaughter, Haddie Girl...... so that's where the name came from.  This project will be taught at  the Beach Art Center the first two weeks of April. Just love all the primary colors.....

8" x 10" Oil on Board As many of you know I'm schedule to take a workshop on Lake Como next fall with Jerry Fresia ( http://www.fresia.com/  ).  He also has a 3 minute video on You Tube and a wonderful instrucitonal book, plus two small books of his  paintings.......Wednesday afternoon in the Pumprey's class I copied one of his paintings .....just to get the feel of what his brush strokes felt like....what an eye opening experience.  I painted it in one hour on a Masonite board with a soft hair brush.  I first scumbled in the dark and middle values per his instructions. The squinting thing is sooooo important......this morning I actually used my computer to blur the image.....this is a great help in seeing the dark, middle and light shapes. 

The Birds will be taught the last two weeks of March......I think I'm having tooooooo many senior moments!!!!!  Sorry!!!!!

11" x 14" Watercolor on Paper This is a new class projects that will be taught at the Beach Art Center the last two Wednesday in March.  My friend and student Nancy took this photograph and wanted to see how I would go about deciding colors, composition and how to paint the overall painting.

11" x 11" Transparent Watercolor The scheduled Make It Take It for Thursday, Feb 23 has been canceled due to scheduling at the Beach Art Center. This will be the project for Thursday, March 1, 2012.....

Make it Take it Fridays Has moved to Thursday Due to special workhop schedule Thursday, Feburary 9th, 2012 Impatience 11" x 11" Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 Clematis 11" x  11" Please contact Beach Art Center Indian Rocks Beach, FL 33785 or Call 727 596 4331 

12" x 12" on Oil on Canvas This is a painting I started last year.  I didn't like the first run at it so I decided to work on it again......I have been known to do this to watercolors, but oil can be re-worked too! As you know from my previous post Dick & I are planning a trip to Europe for our 25th Anniversary.  We booked the rsvp last night! Yea! Yea!  We will be going in late September, first to the workshop on Lake Como with Jerry Fresia, an American impressionist who studied with William Schultz, who studied with Robert Brackman who, in turn, studied with Robert Henri, an American who studied in Paris during the 1880's.  He was also a distant cousin of Mary Cassatt, and as you know worked closely with Edgar Degas.  Robert Henri also studied with Ivan Olinsky, who studied with John Singer  Sargent.  Sargent was very close to Claude Monet and James McNeil Whistler.  I plan on studying several artist who stu...