YUPO ARTISTS

Our YUPO workshop in Middletown involved a week of learning, exploring, and creating beautiful work on the slick YUPO surface. People from the Dayton, Ohio, area as well as artists from Indiana, Michigan and Alabama enjoyed some pretty intense and exhausting days but all thought it was well worth the effort.

I've posted only a few of the paintings from the workshop artists here for your enjoyment. In all my computer changes last month, I've misplaced all the other artists' work but still hope to find them. All are watercolor.
ABOVE - Work in Progress on YUPO by Dot Holdren
ABOVE - Completed masterpiece by Joan Givens - PEGGY'S COVE
ABOVE - Completed masterpiece by Shirlee Bauer - done with orange undercoating ABOVE - Work in progress by Sue Barnhart

Most artists in the workshop began at least three paintings during the week as they discovered many techniques in handling watercolor on YUPO. We also worked with fluid acrylics on YUPO.

I'll be posting info soon about three and four day YUPO workshops that I'll be teaching here at my studio soon. Plans are also in the works for holding a BATIK BASH Workshop to help artists explore that unusual process, too.

VENICE on YUPO

This painting was one of the demos done at a YUPO workshop I taught this past April. The challenge was to begin the painting with one good white shape that was unpredictable, irregular, and had diagonal movement, and which took up less than a third of the whole paper. Everything around that shape was painted with a combination of cool, pale colors first. Next, some small warm darks were added.

From that point on, the painting was developed by interrupting that original white shape and painting in the dark and medium valued shapes. Much of the original white shape was obscured at this point.

This approach to painting takes some advanced planning, but it continues to amaze me how easily the painting falls together when done this way. The sense of unity in the painting is greatly enhanced because of the preliminary planning with the original good white shape.

I had plans to post some of the workshoppers' paintings but have somehow misplaced my photos of several of the finished paintings. I'll post what I do have later this week, even though some are works in progress.

"GONDOLIER" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO 20 x 26"