Exetazomichanophobia n.
Fear of using search engines. A word I invented to explain the phenomenon of posting a question on a forum to which you can Google the answer but you unaccountably do not, even though you are demonstrably on the Internet and you can use a computer and even a forum.
You heard it here first.
Using some stashed Kroy sock yarn, I knit up a design of a Turkish sock.
This is designed from Zilboorg's "Fancy Feet" and is done on the fly--a bit tight in the leg but very pretty. As with a lot of Turkish socks, hard to put on but the fit is fine once you get there. And pulling it off is best done by grabbing the heel.
The winter watercolor class ended 3/4/2009 at the Gibby Center for the Arts in Middletown, DE. In case you don't know, the Gibby is a combination teaching center, studio and gallery on Main Street, next to the venerable Everett Theater. If you've seen "Dead Poet's Society", a film with Robin Williams and Robert Sean Leonard, you've seen the Everett.
Five classes is just enough to get a taste of watercolor--the real learning happens when you repeatedly put BRUSH to PAPER and PAINT. We covered materials, paint characteristics, paper, how to draw if you don't know HOW to draw, washes,, successive layers of glazing, composition, and how to paint faces and figures (Jellybean figures and faces.) But we didn't even have time to get to color harmony, palettes, the chemistry of watercolor painting, and much more. We'll cover more of that in the Spring class, which will focus on getting what you envision from your head to the paper and dealing with the accident-prone nature of watercolor.
I posted a video of how to paint a small painting (ACEO or card-sized) of a watch. Funny, there was a billboard up on 95 in Wilmington some months after I posted this on Youtube, and it looked a LOT like my painting!
Until the Spring class, I'll be posting some lessons here, and eventually we'll move to a better website for the class, but my Blogger is handy right now.
Meanwhile, my class asked for a reading list and here it is:
This is an essential guide to learning about paint characteristics, from pigments to color harmonies. It's also really FUN to read.
This is a great book for learning about color, layers, and consistency of your paint washes and glazes. For some reason, it is out of print (!!!) and I suggest you get a copy even at this price before it becomes scarce.
This is Charles Reid's new book, has all kinds of stuff, from going from photo to painting, and Reid will LOOSEN you up like no other person and help you deal with accidents.
Charles Reid's Watercolor Solutions
FINALLY! A good ALL AROUND BASIC starter textbook with beautiful art.
Watercolor for the Serious Beginner
I'll post more demos, comments and other things in coming weeks, and if any of my STUDENTS want to post some of their work here (I saw some nice stuff from everyone!) email me and we'll do it.
The watercolor is a portrait I did for someone.
New Painting
This is from my watercolor class at the Gibby Center in Middletown, DE. We were doing a lesson on loosening up, and this was the example I painted in class for my students.
Well, almost finished. The cool toned version is blocking on a towel and needs two tassels on the ear flaps.
The colors I used were from Knitpicks Palette Yarn, a fingering weight Andes wool that comes in 51 colors, some heathered and some solid.
Colors:
The flaps have the Ripples pattern and the main body uses a few patterns I found for Scandinavian borders, the dots, the spiral (not quite right), and the Alpacas for the main motif in the middle. Pool blue applied I-Cord.
I knit up another pair of those Selbuvotter gloves in Palette Yarn (that beautiful stuff from Knitpicks) and then proceeded onto the kit of the Chullo hat from the same place. This Palette yarn is lofty, soft, light as a feather and colorful. And inexpensive. I adore it.
The kit itself is about $20 and can make two hats! Generosity is a blessed trait, isn't it? I had to start the earflaps many times until I remembered how to knit colorwork in flat knitting. I had stopped knitting for some years, and this was hard to remember to do correctly. But after some bobbling around, I got the flaps done and then, ugh, I twisted the hat in joining ears to the knitting-around of the hat body. Ripping banded colorwork? Not worth it. Just start again. Plenty o' yarn.
Finally the hat is done. I re-worked the i-cord applied to edge differently than they worked it--because their method works from the RIGHT side and I think i-cord applied works best from the WRONG side--no color peeking through and the nicer part of the cord shows. This necessitated redoing the applied cord, no split up the cord to apply on either side of the hanging end (where the tassel goes.) Instead, did the hanging cord, applied one side of hat, then worked down on other side and ended in a cord. Then wove edges together. You have to BLOCK with pins to get it to lie flat and also colorwork REALLY requires some blocking. It is a mistake not to block colorwork.
I wore the hat yesterday. Warm. Light. I'm off to make another, using cool tones of blue, purple, and dark pink-red with cream. And maybe some gloves to match.
