Welcome to the Art Guild's Archives!

The Art Guild of Central Texas was pleased to offer the first chance to paint along with George Boutwell.  This was the first workshop he has ever conducted!  He has developed a distinctive style and innovative ways of achieving it.  It was interesting to see how Boutwell-like our artists' paintings turned out.  It will be even more interesting to see how they incorporate his techniques into their future works, if indeed they do.

We are grateful to the Carleen Bright Arboretum for the use their facility for the workshop, and to the Central Texas Watercolor Society for the use of their mirror frame.

A few photos of the workshop participants follow.

 

                             

 Pat Blackwell             Nancy Cagle          Christine Niekamp      Saundra Vasek

Art Guild will be exhibiting, for the month of March 2005, at the Waco Civic Theatre, 1517 Lake Air drive. for the theatre production of Neil Simon's "Fools!," a play set in rural Russia.  Paintings were used that could suggest the play locale.  Please attend this wonderful comedy and see some our members artwork in the lobby.  Three overall shots are below.  As is true of all the thumbnails on these pages, clicking on one will enlarge it to the full screen.  A few of the paintings also appear singly below them.

                                                                    

                             

   Ellen Foster                  Bill Franklin                 Judy Franklin              Rose Jacobson

                                  

                 Martha McKinney           Linda Morales           Christine Niekamp

Glenn Lyles was interested in drawing and in animals from a very early age, and began art lessons in the third grade. His love of animals led to a degree in animal husbandry, but art won out over ranching. He credits lessons from Jack Sorenson for much of his success. He adopted Mr. Sorenson's color palette, his approach to using color, and the use of a fairly large, flat brush. His understanding of animal anatomy is also very apparent in his painting. Before he began painting for us, he related some aspects of his use of color and how he uses elements of composition to draw the viewer's eye to the focus of his painting. Among other things, he creates deliberate lines pointing to the focus, and he tries to make the strongest color and value contrasts at the focus.

Mr. Lyles does his sketching with a thinned, earthy-brown color, making bold lines with a broad brush. He takes photos of likely subjects constantly as he travels, and uses these as he paints. He often concentrates on negative shapes as he sketches. For example, in the painting of horses he did for us, he drew the legs by working with the shapes of the spaces between them, rather than trying to draw the legs themselves. He also turns the painting upside down to look for problems.

He begins with the darkest colors in the scene, then the highlights, and gradually fills in the gaps, jumping about from place to place. White spaces bother him, so he puts some paint in them, establishing at least what color will end up there as he works from broad strokes to finer details. Areas away from the focus are given duller colors and less detail so that they won't distract the viewer from the focus.

He has an extensive palette of about fifty blobs of color, grading from top to bottom from cool blues and violets through warmer colors to greens and grays, and grading from left to right from darks to lights. These blobs are mixed from a smaller set of tube colors, small blobs of which are placed in the lower right for use when brighter accents are needed. He mixes a few drops of clove oil into each blob to slow the drying of the paints, using more in the dark colors than in the light because he finds that the darker colors tend to dry faster. He can generally do four or five paintings before he has to throw out the palette and start over.

Mr. Lyles shared his insights very generously, and those present were an attentive and interactive audience. The possibility of a workshop with him next fall will be explored.

Show & Tell

Only the Franklins brought painting for show and tell.  Come on people, bring your work in and share it with the rest of us.

                       

 

         Bill Franklin                       Judy Franklin

 

2005 March - Exhibit at the Hippodrome

Be sure to see our exhibit at the Hippodrome, 724 Austin Ave., during March.  Some of our members judged the entries and chose Christine Niekamp's  painting, Young Man with Guitar" for the First Prize, and Bill Franklin's "Dance, Dance, Dance" for the Second Prize.  These two entries are shown below.  A sampling of other entries appear below that.  We will be removing the March exhibit and installing the April exhibit at 1:30 p.m. on April 1. 

 

                                                                                            

The paintings, sculptures, and other works are visible 24 hours a day through the glass storefront.  Look for them when you attend a Hippodrome event or anytime you are in the downtown area.  The works selected as prize winners are above.  A sampling of the others artists appears below.  Altogether, there are 28 works by 12 artists. 

 

Charleen Isbell Butterfly on Sunflower	Ellen Foster Petunias	Jean Larkie Flowers and Hummingbird	Jean Larkie Roses on Ceramic	Larry Garza Ballerina
Nancy Cagle Thai Dancer	Sue Young Hanging Basket	Linda Morales Comedy and Drama	Judy Franklin Chorus Line	Rose Larkie Vase with raised vines