Flourishes

Cover Artist:
In honor of our focus on the study of color
over the next month, we invited the
color fairies to play on this month’s cover with
Caran D’Ache watercolor crayons.

Dear Fellow Scribes,

Happy 2007 to one and all! The holiday parties, shopping, feasting, and lights are memories. I know the December Potluck is a wonderful memory for those of us who were able to attend. There were some 50 of us and thanks to Carol Keith and Mary Bumstead for organizing everything. Thanks as well to Beverly Carter and Camille Storment who made the origami snowflakes. The tables were beautiful. A special thanks to Mary’s neighbor who not only provided the fresh rosemary from her garden, but as a visitor helped with setting up the tables. Thanks also to Carmen who joined us and ensured everything remained orderly and that clean up was flawless!

Lynn reported that her SUV was completely filled with all of the goodies for the Battered Women’s Shelter. She said the back seats were folded down and there were even bags on the passenger seat. Thanks to all who participated in making the holidays special for the women and their children.

The holiday book class taught by Maggie and Leslie was a great success. We not only learned a new book structure, but we also learned about the history of the Nag Hammadi Binding and the first codex. Once again, our guild is the winner with two such skilled teachers in our midst. Don’t forget to sign up for the Color and Design Workshop they are teaching in February. Jill Adams is collecting money for this major workshop.

I was very impressed with the variety and creativity of the cards and bookmarks which were exchanged at the December Potluck. I didn’t get to see all of them, but the ones I saw were wonderful. Don’t forget, we’ll have a similar card and book mark exchange in February for Valentines Day. We’ll also be collecting for the Battered Women’s Shelter again. Watch for more information!

As 2007 begins, along with all of the usual resolutions, think about resolving to find time for art. Our Spring Show will be hung in April. Are you working on a piece? If you have questions about the show, talk to Jill Adams, BJ Grant and Helen Rasplicka. They are the chairs of the event. Pauline Sager will also be teaching a Saturday Special in January. See Pauline or Betty Lou Jordan for more information.

It’s January which means that its time for Paul Freeman nominations. Forms will be available at the January meeting. Give nominations to Lynn Rothe.

Once again, happy 2007.

Pam Thomas
SACG President

Thanks you to Mary Bumstead and Carol Keith for coordinating our delicious Pot Luck Holiday Dinner in December. And many thanks to Beverly Carter and Camille Storment for the awesome table decorations. Special thanks to Mary Hogan, for providing the lovely fresh rosemary that graced our tables. And finally, thank you to each of our members who provided the bountiful meal. This is one of the beautifully decorated tables we enjoyed at the December Pot Luck Holiday Dinner.

* * *
Saturday Special - January 13, 2007

There are still a few places left in the upcoming Saturday Special, Fantasy Flowers and Orizomegami with Pauline Sager. Be srue to contact Betty Lou Jordan if you are interested in attending.

Beginning Calligraphy. Part 2
With Pauline Sager:
Prerequisite: 50 years old and over, and one basic calligraphy course.
In this course you will be working on refining your letterforms, while working on projects introducing layout, design, and color for decoration.
5 weeks, January 22-February 19, 2007. 10:30-12:30. Oasis (Ingram Park Mall Area)
Call 647-2546 to register.

Carolyn Cazares reports that the San Antonio Visual Artists Diretory is offering a free listing to interested artists who contact them by December 31, 2006. The mission of SAVA is:

To enrich the cultural life of San Antonians and visitors by bringing San
Antonio artists to a larger audience"

Contact Ron Clarke at
RCLARKE2@SATX.RR.COM
210-844-2297 (cell) art

* * *
Envelope Exchange

We have 28 participants signed up for the envelope exchange. Kaye will deliver your information at the January meeting. Each participant will send an envelope to each of 4 people each month, January through May. Then envelopes will be exhibited at the June Pot Luck. This is our very first envelope exchange, and we are very excited and eager to see the results in the spring.

* * *
Library Information

In the box with the Gocco machine, Kaye Yarbrough discovered a wonderful binder filled with calling cards and postcards from the early 1890’s. It will be available for all to see in the library in January. If you have any information about who collected these items and when, please contact Kaye so that the appropriate information can be placed in the binder with the artwork and ephemera, and Shawn Behrens can determine which Library Box will house it permanently..

MAJOR WORKSHOP
COLOR AND DESIGN
Maggie Gillikin and Leslie Winakur
Saturday and Sunday, February 3-4, 2007, 9:00 - 4:30, Discovery School

Have you ever blended two colors together, only to come out with a very different result than you anticipated? Well, this workshop is designed to take the mystery out of the challenges of color…all while you have a good time! And it’s engineered to put those new lessons into practice with the design portion of the workshop. Some very handy tools will also be given to each participant – we love great gadgets! Watercolors will be the medium highlighted in the workshop, but other media are also welcome.

First we will explore the properties of color and value. You will learn how to create predictable colors by mixing them, and you will also learn to make things “pop” or recede as desired, making use of the loveliest of colors and the loveliest of grays and browns. These exercises will become beautiful watercolor cards, individual little works of art in themselves, complete with customized envelopes. We will also explore the use of color in calligraphy by painting the internal and external counter spaces of a monocline letterform.

We will continue with basic design skeletons presented in a sampler book, accordion style, with hard covers. We will experiment with a variety of ways to approach design, through collage, weaving, layering, and the use of unusual tools. We will use layouts in some classic designs, such as cruciform, tic-tac-toe, golden mean, box within a box, bands, and grids. We will also explore horizontal and vertical, square, and curved formats.

If time permits, we will begin to create a piece of art in which the letterforms, the color, and the other design elements are united in a single effect, and in which no one element fails to contribute to the whole.

Supply List:

NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT SPEND AN EXORBITANT AMOUNT ON SUPPLIES YOU DO NOT ALREADY OWN. WE WILL SHARE!

Since watercolors are transparent, the effects of mixing colors are more easily discerned, so we would like everyone to work in watercolor for this class. You will definitely need the following colors:
Aureolin yellow, Cadmium yellow
Cadmium red, Alizarin crimson
Phthalo or Winsor blue (green shade), Ultramarine blue – French ultramarine is the truest color)
Phthalo or Winsor green (blue shade)
Indian red, Light red
Any other color you would like to try out
Best brands of watercolor to buy: Winsor-Newton, Grumbacher, Schmincke, Holbein, Rembrandt, DaVinci (Do NOT buy Van Gogh, Cottman, Academy)
Old letterform practice sheets – the crummy ones – we’re serious! We will have some of ours to share.
Small bottle of acrylic matte medium (we like Golden)
Cheap bristle brush, small, for use with matte medium, ½” – 1”
One palette for watercolor – can be a white china or plastic plate
A rag or two, or tissues, or paper towels
Pencil
Ruler, 12” metal
Eraser, Magic Rub or kneaded
2 water containers, margarine tub size or larger
Masking tape
Watercolor brushes, round, sizes 4, 8, 12
Watercolor brush, flat, 1” wide (we have a lot of brushes for you to try during class)
Decorative ribbon, 28” long for book closure, optional
Please bring a quote that matters to you
Usual calligraphy supplies, optional

Class fee is $80, and this includes your $20 supply fee. Contact Jill Adams, 826-8214, to sign up.

Paul Freeman Award Nominations

The Paul Freeman Awards, “ABCdarian” and the “New Spencerian” framed works are presented each year to members voted by the membership as dedicated members who have contributed the most effort to benefit the Guild during the past year. Award winners may hang the framed works of art for one year.

Nominations are now due for the 2007 awards. Nominations are due no later than the February SACG meeting. Nominations will appear in the March Flourishes as well as the April Flourishes and will be announced at the March SACG meeting. Balloting will take place at the April SACG meeting and awards will be presented at the May SACG meeting.

The nomination form is in this issue of Flourishes. Forms will also be available at the January SACG meeting. Please return the completed nomination forms to:

Lynn Rothe
8775 Tradewind
San Antonio, TX 78239

lrothe@satx.rr.co

Women's Shelter Collection Update

The SACG has so many generous members, friends and family that it is overwhelming. The donations were wonderful - clothes, toys, art supplies, stuffed animals, handmade gifts, personal care items, books, games, puzzles, miscellaneous items, gift wrap, ribbons, bows and cards. Since so much of what is given to the residents of the Shelter comes from private donations like ours, everything is greatly appreciated. Even the smallest gift can help make someone feel special and loved and remembered. Thank you for caring.

This year we doubled what was collected last year. YOU ROCK, SACG!!

Having said all that...why not continue to think of the ladies and their children at the Shelter throughout the coming year? Lynn Rothe is willing to store our ongoing donations and to deliver to the Shelter on a regular basis. The next holiday coming up is Valentine’s Day, and the residents at the Shelter very much appreciate being remembered at that time of year. Please keep in mind that the women bring their children with them, and that the children are both boys and girls and are of all ages.

The younger children always need the Valentine packages to share with their schoolmates, but the older children, like their mothers, need toiletries, clothing, etc. Lynn was told that the teenage boys are often overlooked and can especially use toiletries and clothing. So please remember these children when you sort through your gently used clothing items for the spring.

Of course, we are calligraphers, and the folks at the Shelter always enjoy one of our handmade Valentines.

TRUE COLOURS

By Robert Genn

Reprinted with permission from painterskeys.com

There are colourists and there are colourists. There are those among us whose colours are clunky and crude--and there are those whose colours are deadly, tasty, and "right on." There are even some, like Paul Gauguin, who believe colour ought to be arbitrary--that is, it's a good idea if the sky is green and the grass is red.

While we're at it, there are those who think tone values are more important than hue--which is similar to saying colour is arbitrary. But even newly baptized novices know that if you manage to get the right
colour your painting can look "true." God may work in light, but we mortals work in pigment. Getting the colour of the light through haze in front of a distant range of hills is, for many, the Holy Grail. It's not in the magic of some new pigment, it's a matter of looking, seeing, mixing, testing and adjusting.

Looking is opening your mind to your impressions. Seeing is replacing what you know with what you see. Mixing is the knowledgeable confluence of pigments. Testing is comparing your preparations with the truth. Adjusting is the will to fix your flagrant wrongs.

Guidelines for mixing: I know it's basic, but where you mix your colours (your palette) won't show how a chosen hue will react with others on the work itself. You must apply and consider. Also, many successful mixtures contain a mother colour, plus white and black. Don't be afraid of black. Having said that, garishness, when it occurs, is best neutralized with its opposite on the colour wheel. Get a colour wheel. And when you come to mixing, testing and adjusting, it's nice to know that practically everybody must silently and diligently struggle to get it right. There's no easy way. In the words of "Chromophobia" author David Batchelor, "Colour reveals the limits of language and evades our best attempts to impose a rational order on it. To work with colour is to become aware of the insufficiency of language and theory--which is both disturbing and pleasurable."

For those who paint outdoors, colour work can seem devilishly programmed to perplex and confuse. On the other hand, film photography, with its errant chemicals, can also get things wrong. Digital reference material, because of its eternal tweakyness, has been sent by the Great Goddess to help us look more virtuous than we are.

Colourists are epic poets.
Charles Baudelaire

Colour is the fruit of life.
Guillaume Apollinaire

Colour is an act of reason.
Pierre Bonnard

Jan 2007 Flourishes' Web Page is proudly sponsored by
www.Renshirts.com in Seguin, TX USA

January 07