Florence Turnour's Blog

Day 30 Day 31 Day 32 Day 33 Day 34: Gant Gator Graduates (1) Day 35: Taking a look at a Gator photo Day 36: Gant Gator Graduates (2) Day 37 Day 38: Emergency backup drawing for a day I was too lazy to put on my paint pants Day 39 I made a couple of them into buttons. I'm going to have to think "round" when I design the next few. I definitely need buttons of these.  My projects from these 10 days were inspired by Ed Emberley's collage work on books he wrote with his daughter. Thanks for looking!

Here are some drawings I did that I posted on Facebook, but not here. Sherman Gardens and Library Work in progress Seal Beach Pier Los Alamitos Bay Downtown Long Beach Downtown Long Beach Signal Hill Two views from the beach at Belmont Pier Gondola Getaway, Los Alamitos Bay Rancho Los Alamitos Thanks for looking!

Last week, in my continuing effort to squeeze as much art as possible in before school starts, I attended a two-day workshop with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer  at Studio CRESCENDOh  in Santa Ana.  In it I started two large collage paintings, one of which I finished today. Look how big it is! Goat! by Florence Turnour For this canvas, Julie directed us to draw a large half-face, but I decided I'd rather have a half goat face.  She reassured us that almost anything with a mouth and eyes will be recognizable as a face, but it occurred to me about a quarter of the way in that this was not necessarily true for goats.  I used a snapshot from my phone, and worried over the minimal drawing on my canvas for a while before diving in.  (I was finally spurred forward when Julie's mother, Eileen, passed by my table and said, "Oh, a goat." Sometimes even goats need validation.) I was super excited to learn how to glue.  Collage has always been one of my favorite med...

For Day 8 of the    Creative Jumpstart  (I skipped a few) , artist Brigit Koopsen  demonstrated a painting in the style of Jean-Michel Basquiat.  I found Basquiat's art grim though  fascinating, but I loved how Brigit pulled inspiration from Basquiat while much of the grim behind. I may have taken more inspiration from Brigit than from Basquiat in the end. I did the drawing and decided I would get the most out of it if I actually tried to take something from Basquiat's work. I chose my colors from the images in the Creative Jumpstart pinterest collection. I also added the scribbled writing as a vague tribute to Basquiat's word-laden imagery.   Do keep your eyes open, because sometimes there really is already a pterodactyl in the dumptruck  Thank you, Brigit. That was a fun assignment.

I've read loads of books since my last post. There is no way I'm going to keep up with that, given how much time I spend in the picture books at the library and bookstores.  It is a smaller task for me to keep track of some of my progress in art and illustration here. I'm taking a watercolor class from Moira Hahn , which is demanding and engaging. In our first assignment, we learned to apply a flat wash (aha moment if there ever was one). I painted the absence of a potato masher, three times. The Absence of a Potato Masher  In our second assignment, we learned some texturing techniques. Then I doodled on mine. Blue Sampler The techniques sampler was to prepare to paint a blue still life. I am not a person to have stuff and things about the house, so I went to Peer One (a borage of stuff and things), and purchased a blue and white botchy ball.  Moira said it reminded her of a bowling ball, and I decided to go with that for my project. Here is my sketch. Bow...

I am experimenting with color using this sketch, which I compiled from drawings I did at the beach. Thanks for looking!

I've been taking mixed media classes with Marah Johnson at the Art Lounge  ( facebook ) in Huntington Beach  off and on for a couple of months. The shop is great and Marah always has loads of tools, inks, paints and ideas, so I keep signing up for more. Today I took my kids for an afternoon of art with Marah. The each worked on canvases, making a large sihlouetted image. First the boys painted the backgrounds. The two boys had visions for their designs, and dove right in. After drying their canvases in front of the fan, they traced their stencils. Marah had a variety of silhouettes ready, but my boys had their own ideas. Stuart wanted a velociraptor (dinosaur-- it's all about the toe claw) and Benjamin wanted a P-38 Lightening (airplane). Stuart painted in his outline, first with gesso and then with shiny tan paint. Benjamin cut strips of paper to fill his outline, which was Marah's original concept for the project. She noticed how much Stuart enjoyed ...