Wednesday, January 31, 2007
FAS Alumna Pam Rice goes from strength to strength
“Kids on Beach” by Pam Rice
(click to enlarge)
Pam Rice has a full and varied career in the world of art. In addition to her “day job” as Vice President of Design Services at an advertising agency in Chicago, where she oversees the firm’s creative operations and manages their programs in design education and training, she is enjoying increasing success as a fine art painter. In June, she will have an exhibit of her work in Chicago, showing her new work—including the paintings reproduced here.
In whatever spare time she happens to have, Pam gives back to her community. Recently, she was honored because of her annual donation of time, talent, creativity and devotion by designing the Annual Report for Family Service of South Lake County. Each year, Pam spends approximately 80 hours to complete each report. In five years, that adds up to over 400 hours of donated time. “Her dedication gives Family Service a clean, professional look in everything we do.”
We’re proud of you, Pam!
(Please click on the images to enlarge)
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Velazquez takes London by storm
We’re just back from a week in London. One of the highlights of our stay was the exhibition at the National Gallery of paintings by Diego Velazquez. In the final days of the exhibition, you could hardly see the paintings for the people—but it was worth braving the crowds to see so many wonderful works by this outstanding Spanish painter, gathered together for a limited time.
Velazquez is known mainly for his portraits of the Spanish royal family in the seventeenth century, but as this exhibition demonstrates, his range was wide, and his genius lay in his ability to create a compelling sense of the physical and psychological presence of the people he depicted.
Visit the exhibition website and enjoy a close look at these compelling masterworks.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Museum visits without leaving home #2
As noted here before, a number of museums around the world have detailed, informative, and interactive websites that are almost as good as visiting the museum in person.
The Louvre in Paris, for example, has a marvelous site (with English version easily available) that offers visitors a real look inside, including virtual tours of the entire museum, “kaleidoscopes” of images on a variety of visual themes, and “spotlights” on some individual works of art, like the Mona Lisa.
All that’s missing is a glass of wine at a sidewalk cafe!
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Renovated home for art opens on Yale campus
In December 2006, Yale University Art Gallery celebrated the reopening of its 1953 Louis Kahn building, widely regarded as the architect’s first masterpiece. The renovation re-creates Kahn’s open spaces and natural light, and enhances visitor access to the Gallery’s extraordinary collection.
The Gallery was Louis Kahn’s first major commission. He had a vision of architecture that would be at the same time monumental and humanistic: not just a functional place for exhibiting works of art, but a communal space for creative exchange. With this recent renovation, the Gallery seeks to fulfill that aspect of Kahn’s design, with expanded educational initiatives and outreach to artists from both the university and the surrounding community.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Helpful hints for the artist #7
Watercolor techniques—applying a wash
The most important thing in watercolor painting is to know how to apply a wash—and luckily it’s quite an easy process. A wash is a smooth and even transparent tone of diluted color. To begin with, you need to have sufficient color mixed, because you will rarely get the same tint again if you run out halfway. Use a large brush, fully loaded. Place your paper at a slight slant (you can use a book under your drawing board), and carry the brushful of color lightly across the top of the paper. You can move either from left to right or the opposite, but keep the direction consistent. The wet color will gently roll down like a little wave. When it gets to the bottom, or to the place where you want it to stop, mop off the surplus with a dry brush or blotting paper.
If you want to graduate your color from darker at the top to lighter at the bottom, you will add water to your brush after each line of wash, so that at the bottom you will be using almost pure water. This is an excellent technique for skies. If you want washes that are darker at the bottom than at the top, start with water and add the wash gradually. Another approach is to simply turn your paper upside down. You can introduce different colors into a wash in progress, or even add touches of pure color direct from the tube or palette.
Experiment, and have fun!
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