Taos Trip 2010-
Joe Anna Arnett’s Painting Demonstration
Today, June 19th, we traveled down to Santa Fe to experience a painting demonstration by Passport and Palette Master Painter Joe Anna Arnett. We started out a bit early, so that we could stop along the way to capture some of the beauty of the gorge just south of Taos. It was coming up on noon, but we did manage to capture some of the shadows and colors before the flat light wiped the color out because of the mid-afternoon glare.
When we got to the part of the gorge where the Rio Grande River flows through (actually it does through the whole gorge–this is just where we went to take pictures) a group of adventurers were launching their rafts for a white river rafting experience. Here’s a few pictures of the gorge with the river rapids and some of the rafts going through them.
We stopped on the way down for a great lunch at Chili’s and have to say that the Margarita Chicken with black beans and rice was absolutely mouth watering. A must have if it is on the menu at a Chili’s near you.
Next came the big event we left Taos for! Joe Anna Arnett treated us to a demo painting of Bombshell Peonies and yellow/orange roses. A still life of live flowers from her garden! Throughout the 3 hour long demonstartion, Joe Anna shared tips on painting and little sayings like..”Don’t know what to do, start with red, yellow and blue.” She is a wonderful teacher and this was a great warm up for the week to come painting en plein aire here in the Taos area.
Joe Anna’s delicate touch and conversation with her flowers, palette and canvas is a beautiful, thought provoking journey to witness. She
started with the background and how that influences and participates in conveying the feeling of your painting. It’s sets the tone, and isn’t just there to fill out your painting. But actually, the start of Joe Anna’s painting,( if any of you have been lucky enough to paint with her) is the plan that she constructs through a pencil sketch, a value study and warm up paintings. She did all these things the day prior to this demonstration, starting this demonstration with a quick pencil value study.
With her plan set and her willingness to stay open to the painting process, she started her painting in a very abstract way. She let her value study and warm up paintings guide her intuitive spirit and her brush loosely added beautiful shapes of light and shadow to a cool toned canvas. She mixed the colors of her “Bombshell Peonies” and began to lay in the focal point of her painting. She explained the importance of finding the center of your canvas so that you avoid it. The focal point of her painting not being in the center of the canvas.
After a short break, Joe Anna came back to finish out the painting. As she worked she departed great tidbits of information about the colors she was mixing and the composition of the painting. I quickly saw in the painting the importance of the placement of each rose in relation to the peonies and the suggestion of leaves and how the intricate linkages leads the eye through the painting. In the finished painting, which I won’t post here out of respect for Joe Anna, there was a triangle between the focal point of the two peonies, back to a 3rd peony in shadow. Below the white peonies was a second smaller
and less attention getting triangle between the 3 roses (two in the
center to the one in back.) These two triangles form a counter flow to the peonies’ strong presence pointing to the left. The placement of the roses beneath the focal point peonies direct your eye to the focal, all pointing to the stars of the painting.
This demonstration was not just simply a demonstration of painting
flowers. It was a demonstration of all the fine technical information
needed to make a viewer walk over to your painting from across the
room. It was a lesson is painting white–white in shadow, white in
light, white in the background and how you handle each without using
white paint straight out of the tube. To often, the student doesn’t see that white isn’t white. White is the playground for wonderful
reflective light…from cool tones in the shadow to warm tones in the
light. The experience of Joe Anna’s painting career showed as she
tickled the canvas with delightful, luscious varying shades of white and never failing.
So much was learned and I’m so grateful to have seen Joe Anna paint. And of course, it was so nice to get a couple great bear hugs from her hubby, James Asher. It has been too long between visits with both these Master artists and it is so nice to feel their energy and experience their positive spirit. Thank the stars that I can
experience their painting and personalities on Passport and Palette, not to mention seeing their wonderful works on their website.
To learn more about Joe Anna Arnett and James Asher, visit their website.
