Thursday, February 16, 2012 Happy Birthday Jordan!!!

Wow!  What a dynamic and colorful piece this is becoming!  I like its diagonals and the variety of shapes (both geometric and organic) as well as the many colors…at the same time, it felt to me that we needed some “muting of color” in some places, to make the remaining bright color stand out. 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it needed a bit of depth.  An under water scene to me, conjures transparency (it does not help that I just returned from a vacation in the Cayman islands where the snorkeling was spectacular).  To that effect, I began to draw some “wavey” shapes with just chalk and a bit of pastel (can be removed).  My idea was to photograph before and after and see if I liked it, before committing to acrylic glazing to “veil” some areas and to add or render some shapes with softer edges, to create the illusion of things being “in and out of focus” (=>depth).  But I ran out of time working on the monochrome piece instead.  Next time, if I still have this impression after examining the progress of this colorful piece , I may try to execute that plan.  Of course, someone might have done it by then, and it is great, either way.  Enjoy very much and thank you all and to Jordan for this opportunity!  Have fun,

Mariana Kastrinakis

Friday, February l7

The painting certainly changed today.  Overall, we felt the orange and yellow needed to be toned down and to integrate the right side with the left.  Because of the one face we decided to insert Botticelli’s Venus.  The bottom right side was tweaked a little to exaggerate the wave and continue the fish up to top.  We would like to keep the Venus that Joan worked on so beautifully. We had a lot of fun today and will be very interested in seeing what happens next.

Marian MacKerer, Carol Bouville, Joan Mazer

Saturday, Feb. 18

Joan Mazer here again! I continued changing the colors to suit the mood of the sea as I experience it in my head. Observing the work I did today, I realize that there are still a lot of shapes that could emerge further from what is currently on the surface but that it was much more fun working with other artists present. On the other hand, a lot of people came through the gallery and commented on the color scheme!(?)