Spring 2011 painting class schedule

Just-Spring • © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

We're into the second week of the March/April session already (remember, no class this Friday) – and here's the class schedule for the rest of this spring:

April/May: (Note the week off for spring break!)

Wednesdays: April 13, spring break, 27, May 4, 11

Fridays: April 15, spring break, 29, May 6, 13

May/June:

Wednesdays: May 18, 25, June 1, June 8

Fridays: May 20, 27, June 3, 10

Location:

The new Calistoga Art Center,

Napa County Fairgrounds, Cropp Building,

1435 North Oak Street, Calistoga, California

Remember scumbling?

Three Palms for Gail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Scumbling (sounds like stumbling, but with a "k" sound) is, for me, one of the most useful techniques an artist can learn. I've used it in several places throughout the painting above. It's a particular kind of brushwork – using it, you can create wonderfully magical effects. To scumble, you drag a dry brush lightly loaded with paint across another color.

Detail, Three Palms for Gail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

When might you use it? Anytime you want a transitional area between colors (in portraits, in landscape paintings, in painting skies, for example). Above, it not only helped create an atmospheric effect in the skies and distant mountains, but it also added a kind of laciness to the palm fronds. Scumbling is a way of blending color that allows the viewer to blend the colors with their eyes....

Want to learn more? Here are two earlier posts that discuss it thoroughly:

Scumbling shows how scumbling was used by Rembrandt and Modigliani in portraits.

Scumbling video lesson with Jan Blencowe links to a demonstration of the scumbling technique that Blencowe uses to create a beautifully atmospheric sky.