Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store FREE Weekend Demo for August 16th with Collage Artist Nola Ahola

This Saturday the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store has invited Nola Ahola to do a FREE demo on Collaging and Painting on Exotic Papers. Check out her website to see some of her fabulous Collages!


Saturday, August 16th at 11am & 1:45pm

COLLAGE: Painting on Exotic Papers

Nola Ahola

nolaahola.com

*****

DANIEL SMITH Store in Seattle's FREE Weekend Demos with Daniel Rice and Blanche Niznik

This weekend the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store will have FREE demonstrations with artist Daniel Rice on Saturday and Blanche Niznik on Sunday. Daniel Rice will be sharing his tips on painting with acrylics, and Blanche Niznik will be demonstrating her tips on using painting knives with oil paints.

Saturday, August 2nd at 11am & 1:45pm

ACRYLIC: The Gift Of Acrylic Painting

Daniel Rice

danielriceart.net

Sunday, August 3rd at 12 & 2pm

OIL: When All Else Fails Use a Knife

Blanche Niznik

blanche-niznik.com

*****

Bellevue Daniel Smith FREE Weekend Demos July 12th & 13th with Carol Stecher-Jones and Blanche Niznik

This upcoming weekend, July 12th and 13th, the FREE demo at the Bellevue Daniel Smith Store will have Carol Stecher-Jones demonstrating basic Watercolor Painting. Carol's own Watercolor Paintings have a strong sense of light and space, click HERE to see some examples of her work. Sunday's FREE demonstration will be with Oil Paint Artist Blanche Niznik, please click HERE to see examples of her work

Sat July 12th at 11 am & 1:45 pm

WATERCOLOR: Let's Get Started

Carol Stecher-Jones
arts-umbrella.com

*****

Sun July 13th at 12 & 2 pm

OIL: When All Else Fails Use a Knife

Blanche Niznik

*****

Seattle Daniel Smith Stores' FREE Weekend Demos for June 28th & 29th

This weekends' FREE weekend demonstrations at the Daniel Smith Store in Seattle is an All Acrylic weekend! Be sure to check out the Seattle Store Employee's acrylic paintings in the Store Gallery.

Saturday, June 28th from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm

ACRYLIC: Fluid Acrylic Basics

Paula Balch

SPECIAL Hands-on Event

Sunday, June 29th at 12 & 2 pm
ACRYLIC: Everyday Still Life Expressions
Cheryl Hoople
absolutearts.com

*****

Bellevue Daniel Smith FREE Watercolor Demo with Susie Short on Saturday, June 21st.

Watercolor Artist Susie Short was at the Daniel Smith store in Bellevue last Saturday for one of the weekly FREE Daniel Smith demonstrations . Susie's theme for the the watercolor painting demo was "Sea and Shore" to give some insight and techniques on painting the shore for the 11am demo, and the second demo at 1:45 was tips on painting waves crashing onto the shore.

Susie shared lots and lots of insights, with her amazing observations on shore landscapes and tips on how to paint them in watercolor . She showed the packed room full of watercolor enthusiasts "feathering" to get the strong horizontals of the shoreline and parallel surf, how she makes the foaming surf and spray pop from the paper, achieves the translucent effects of the waves and water as it covers the sand and rocks...and so much more! For an hour demo there was a lot of great stuff!

Working mostly with her new Daniel Smith Sand and Surf Watercolor Triad: Indanthrone Blue , Ultramarine Turquoise , and Goethite (Brown Ochre) Susie demonstrated the watercolor painting effects she was showing the audience...really amazing! Susie also used just a touch of Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor, Green Gold for the light glowing through the wave just before it crashes.

Susie also had a painting on display that she did just a few days before when she was at the beach, it was an incredible shore landscape with dark rocks that she did with the new Sand and Surf Triad, and a touch of Quinacridone Burnt Orange which when mixed with the other three colors produced the most amazing deep, rich dark for the back-lighted rocks. This painting was the one she recreated for the 11am FREE demo.

When Susie was talking about how to paint the waves, she shared her excellent observations on how the light effects the water and how to create those effects with watercolor painting. It was also fun to watch and learn because Susie became very animated waving her hands and arms to act out the action of the wave...complete with sound effects! Susie is a very inspiring watercolor painting instructor, so be sure to come to her next Daniel Smith FREE Demo at the Seattle store : Saturday, July 12th at 11am and 1:45pm to see for yourself. Thank you Susie!

Susie Short also many watercolor workshops and watercolor painting videos and DVDs too! The next Daniel Smith Workshop is:

Sunday & Monday July 27th and 28th.

WATERCOLOR: Sea and Shore

with Susie Short

$75 per day

11 AM to 4:00 PM

001 020 059

Bellvue Daniel Smith Store FREE Weekend Demos this Weekend...

This weekends FREE demos at the Bellevue Daniel Smith Store

SPECIAL EVENT Saturday, May 31st from 1 to 3:30 pm

ACRYLIC: Golden A to Z

Barbara Depirro
FREE!

Sunday, June 1st at 12 & 2 pm

WATERCOLOR: Garden Journal

Molly Hashimoto
FREE!

************************

DON’T FORGET Molly’s Workshop June 8th at the

Seattle Daniel Smith Store

Come to the FREE demo and meet Molly ton learn more

about Garden Journaling, and to find out if Mollys'

Workshop in June would be good for you.

*************

Sunday June 8th

WATERCOLOR: Garden Journal with

Molly Hashimoto
Back by popular demand!

Fine-tune your skills for summer by taking one of Molly’s

most loved workshops.

Bring your own favorite photos and catalogs

to create beautiful pages of studies, sketches,

and small landscape plans.

Many different techniques will be demonstrated for you to find

the ones that work best for your journals and artistic purposes.

Bring a blank journal, or cut paper to size for a journal

that you can put together after the workshop is over.

Instructions will also be provided.

$75 per day

11 AM to 4:00 PM

001 020 069

Seattle Daniel Smith FREE Demos Coming This Weekend....

This weekends FREE demos at the Seattle Daniel Smith Store:

Saturday, May 31st at 11 am & 1:45 pm
MULTI-MEDIA: Anything Goes on Ampersand Panels
Patricia Seggebruch

SPECIAL EVENT Sunday, June 1st from 1 to 3:30 pm
ACRYLIC: Golden A to Z
Barbara Depirro

SUMI: Spiritual Harmony with Elizabeth Kay - FREE Seattle Daniel Smith Store Demo

Last Saturday's FREE demo at the Seattle Daniel Smith store was informative (as they all are) and extra entertaining with Sumi Artist: Elizabeth Kay. There was a bit of theater in Elizabeth's demonstration of Sumi Painting; music, movement and motivation for aspiring Sumi Artists...and at the end of each Sumi painting Elizabeth completed, there was a burst of spontaneous applause!

Elizabeth Kay had lots to tell in a packed hour. She demonstrated "The Four Gentlemen", which are the four basic brushstrokes in Sumi painting, Discussed what to look for in Sumi paper and how it's different from watercolor paper ...much, much thinner, and you paint on the smooth side. And so much more....

As Elizabeth painted three different Sumi paintings she was inspired by music, Asian naturally, but there were some musical surprises in store for the audience. Each painting had a very different type of music playing while she painted: Classical, the theme music from the movie "Dances With Wolves", and my favorite painting of a Bird of Paradise was done to Salsa Music! Elizabeth's brush twirled and danced across the sumi paper enticing a splendid Bird of Paradise to appear...very dramatic!

Elizabeth had lots of wonderful motivating words to tell the attendees: "An Artist is someone who paints", Elizabeth calls all her students who attend her classes Artists. "Know your Subject, Love your Subject, Paint your Subject". Paint on the best Sumi paper you can, and master that surface because you never know when that particular work will be the One...and "if it doesn't work, you've made wrapping paper!" Elizabeth asked the attendees the question: "When is a painting finished? When the Artist dies".

If you missed the opportunity to come to this FREE demo, and if you weren't there you really missed something! Well, you have a second chance because the Bellevue Daniel Smith Store will be hosting Elizabeth Kay with a second FREE demo this coming June:

Saturday, June 14th at 11 am & 1:45 pm

SUMI: Spiritual Harmony

Elizabeth Kay

womenpainters.com

**********************************

Elizabeth Kay will be having a three day SUMI Painting Workshop

at the Seattle Daniel Smith Store,

June 19th through the 21st:
Experience the joy of painting in sumi and

brilliant asian watercolors

during a three-day workshop.

You will learn to master basic sumi strokes

while controlling the use of water, ink, and color

with an objectiveto capture the spirit and vitality of the subject.

Elizabeth believes that

"you are an artist if you hold the brush in your hand,"

and that "painting to theme music gives

each artist a sense of peace and harmony.

"The class structure will progress in the following format:
Day One: Materials, basic strokes and unique traditions,

and beauty of the sumi art form.
Day Two: Create several small sumi paintings.
Day Three: Complete your paintings by mounting

on decorative asian papers.
$75 per day

11 AM to 4:00 PM

001 020 014

Patsy Surh O'Connell and her FREE Daniel Smith Demo on Chinese Ink Painting Last Saturday

Last Saturday's FREE demo at

Daniel Smith in Seattle

featured

Patsy Surh O'Connell
demonstrating Chinese Ink Painting or Sumi Painting.

Patsy talked about her process in creating a painting, she works from a sketch, then traces it onto the good paper like Natural Mulberry Paper , then paints in the image outlines with black Sumi Ink , later working from dark to light she works in the Color Ink . She also talked about the different papers that she uses, and passed around sheets of the different papers for us to see up close.

When showing the audience some of her techniques with water, Patsy used a painting she brought that was partially done of a jeweled hummingbird and taking a spray bottle, sprayed the painting with it! All of us cringed at the damaged we expected...thinking watercolor! Patsy calmly showed us that the ink, once dry would not run...if you work in watercolor you know this is a very different result.

Patsy showed several ways of working the color inks into the paintings, using brushes you "pull" the color into the area. Patsy also showed us the two brushes in one hand technique that she said she sees on her visits to China.

It was a very interesting hour, and seeing Patsy's work in progress was fascinating, thank you Patsy!

******************************************************

Patsy Surh O'Connell

will be at the Bellevue Daniel Smith Store

on Saturday May 24th at 11am and 1:45pm

for another FREE demo on Chinese Ink Painting.

Watercolor Artist Tom Hoffman gave a FREE Watercolor Demo last Saturday at the Seattle Daniel Smith Store

WaterColor Artist Tom Hoffmann gave a FREE Watercolor Demonstration last Saturday, April 19, at our Daniel Smith Store in Seattle.

Tom talked about his painting philosophy, his creative process, shared with us some of his watercolor "sketches" from his travels in Mexico and painted a watercolor street scene from one of the sketches. It was especially interesting to listen to Tom talk about watercolor painting because one of his street scene paintings is on the cover of our new Daniel Smith Summer Sale Catalog.

Some of Toms' tips for the attendees were that for him it's about "what not to paint" that painting is a process of editing out everything but the essential visual keys. He later added that he "prefers to leave something for me [the viewer] to add to the piece".

He also described it as kind of like a horizontal "graph" or timeline....

Photo (too much info) <----> An artists balancing ("how little can you do and still tell the story") <----> sketch (too little info)

Tom shared with us how he mixes really rich, "not murky" darks (shadows) in his paintings by mixing Daniel Smith Watercolors in Phalo Blue, Quinacridone Red and Quinacridone Gold. In the new Daniel Smith Summer Sale Catalog on page 3, Tom talks more about this and other watercolor tips that he has found, definitly worth reading!

The audience was very attentive watching the painting come alive under Toms' brush and watercolor, it was really amazing to watch it happen.

A couple of other things Tom said that I noted down because I thought they were interesting and motivational were: "The role of the pencil is to allow me to confidently put the paint down". Darks are the "narrative content, and the forms that are worth looking at". "I like gorgeous paint more than anything else". And lastly, "I want people to say: 'Hell, I can do that!'"

Tom Hoffmann is an instructor atthe Gage Academy of Art and will be offering workshops later this year through Daniel Smith, more information to be posted later. The workshops will be an excellent opportunity to learn from a very good instructor.

Ann Breckon's Free demo on Watercolor: Flowers and Baskets

Last Saturday's Free demo at the Daniel Smith

Store in Bellevue

was with watercolorist Ann Breckon

showing the audience some tips (and tricks too!)

for painting flowers and baskets in watercolor.

After the demo had ended, as usual, many people stayed to ask

a few more questions as they looked at the painting that Ann had

done during the demo, always a great way to learn!

If you would like a more intensive, hands-on class to learn more

about watercolor painting, register for Ann's

WATERCOLOR: Baskets in Watercolor workshop

coming up Thursday, April 24th.

Even if you are unsure of your drawing ability,

Ann will show you some tricks to get you beyond that.

****************************************

Thursday April 24th WATERCOLOR: Baskets in Watercolor

with Ann Breckon annbreckon.com

Come learn easy ways to paint what looks like a difficult subject.

Ann shows you how to create different kinds of woven baskets

that are beautiful, dimensional, and realistic.

This class will cover several ways to incorporate baskets

into your own charming still life paintings.

$75 per day 11 am to 4 pm

Anne Olwin's Recent Free Demo at Daniel Smith's Seattle Store using Watercolors on Wallis Paper and Pastel

One of last February's weekend Free demos at the

Daniel Smith Seattle Store was with Anne Olwin .

Anne's demo was on techniques for working on

Wallis Sanded Professional Grade Pastel Paper using

Daniel Smith Watercolors and Sennelier Soft Pastels.

For an one hour seminar, Anne Olwin was able to give a lot of information, tips and techniques packed into that space of time! For the watercolor portion, Anne worked on a sheet of the Wallis paper (about 16 X 20) which she had lightly sketched some sunflowers.

Beginning with the watercolors, Anne applied watercolors to the sanded surface. While she was doing it, she passed around to her audience, a sample of the paper with watercolor paint on it, so we could feel how rough the surface was (nice tooth to it) and what watercolor looked like.

As Anne began painting the watercolor onto the Wallis paper, we could see in the demo mirror how she applied it and how it was looking. We could see the sunflowers begin to take shape.

Then Anne turned the demo painting into mixed media by working some Sennelier Soft Pastels into some of the watercolor and into the plain surface. Anne began playing around with the surface and the media producing some very interesting results!

Anne's ongoing chat about what she was doing began moving towards the idea of Having Fun With Painting! To not be afraid of playing around just to see what kind of results might happen. She said that if she liked the results, then that was something to remember to use another time, if she did not like it, well then Anne would remember that too.

The essence is that making art should fun, to not be afraid to play around, indulge in our natural child-like curiosity and experiment. We should also try not to treat our art supplies as so precious that we "freeze up" and stifle the creative flow or process, and to remember, that we can always start over on another piece of paper. Anne said that sometimes adults need "permission" to play with our art materials...and she gave her permission to the class with a laugh!

Everyone in the audience was really warmed up now about the idea of playing with the art materials, and ready to follow Anne's play with the pastels on the Wallis paper.

Thanks to Anne Olwin for sharing with us some fun and exciting ideas with the watercolors and pastels on Wallis paper!

*******************************************************

Anne Olwin will also have a Workshop, Sunday, April 6th, 2008

at the Daniel Smith Bellevue Store.

"Get a jump on the spring flowers, learning how to capture their freshness and beauty.

Painting from the bounty of her own spring garden, Anne will show you how to capture the effects of light as it dances over fresh flowers and creates a vivid colorful composition.

Let Anne help you with her expert knowledge to arrange flowers in your spring compositions. $75 per day 11 am to 4 pm"

Kathy Collins Free Watercolor Demo at the Daniel Smith Bellevue Store

Last Saturday Watercolorist Kathy Collins

demonstrated some of her

watercolor techniques to a full house at the

Daniel Smith Art Supply Store in Bellevue .

The Free demo was:

"Watercolor: Impressionistic Watercolors"

Kathy painted on a full sheet of watercolor paper a composition of boats docked, nearby was a similar painting matted and framed on an easel facing the audience, as a point of reference for us. We watched as Kathy applied the Daniel Smith watercolors to her penciled in sketch with a 2 inch synthetic bright brush. It took just 1/2 an hour to create her watercolor painting and she talked throughout describing her thought processes as she made her choices...it was very interesting to hear.

Towards the end Kathy started warning about overworking a watercolor, to not as she says: "Don't futz it!" Just stop, and start another before you are tempted to overwork it, after all, "it's only paper."

While she was painting, there were some really nice small sketchbooks of Kathy's being passed around of different trips, the most recent was to Hawaii. Kathy sketches in scenes with an extra fine sharpie, then later paints in watercolor. The sketchbooks were a hit with most people in attendance, they were a very personal record of Kathy's visit and everyone enjoyed her "trip".

There were also copies of a couple of articles that Kathy has been featured in, one was from

The Artist's Magazine , April 2007. I took a moment to read a bit, and this quote from Kathy (paraphrasing Frank Webb) really caught my eye: "...it takes acres of paper to make a painter", so true!

Afterwards everyone crowded around the demo table to ask lots of questions for the remaining 1/2 hour to get more insight about Kathy's color choices in general, and where she decides to apply the color to get her impressionistic effects. It was a very engaging demonstration!

Kathy Collins also has a watercolor workshop

coming up April 20th, 2008

at the Daniel Smith Bellevue Store.


**********************************************************

Sunday April 20th

WATERCOLOR: Impressionistic Watercolors

Kathy Collins kathycollinswatercolors.com

Kathy will show you how to create

impressionistic watercolor painting

using dramatic high contrast watercolors.

Learn techniques for large charging color,

and mixing flowing wet paint right on the paper

to achieve dark values while preserving white spaces.

Kathy’s artwork has been published in

Watercolor Magic, and The Artist’s Magazines.

A workshop not to be missed! $75 per day 11 am to 4 pm

Karin Schminke's Recent Daniel Smith Free Demo - MULTI-MEDIA: Basic Intro to Using InkAID

Karin Schminke's recent FREE demo at the Daniel Smith Seattle Store allowed those who attended to see and learn a few of the techniques she likes to use in her Multi-Media Digital Printmaking work. Many more are discussed in much deeper detail in her book, with Dorothy Simpson Krause and Bonny Pierce Lhotka, the "Digital Art Studio ".

This is a very process oriented way of making Art, and Karin talked about how important it is to "start with the basics - then follow your own creativity".

For part of the demo, Karin talked about using different papers, different InkAID Precoats , watercolor and rice papers, and showed the audience some samples of the effects. Karin also likes to work with Arches Black Cover Paper to get certain effects. When using the Arches Cover Black, Karin paints the surface unevenly with one or two coats of InkAID White Matte Precoat and after thoroughly drying, prints her image onto the surface. Because of the uneven application, the thickness varies on the precoat, and when the image is printed on to the formerly solid black surface she gets some really interesting effects.

Karin shared a lot of information with us about how the different materials could be used, which allowed those attending the demo to ask a lot of questions. It was a great opportunity to get answers to specific questions from an artist with expertise in a very specific medium!

At the end of the hour long FREE demo on March 8th, Karin sent us all off with these encouraging words to experiment with different processes: "Be Brave!"