Welcome to Our Archives!

The Art Guild split the cost of a booth - and the space - with Rose Jacobson, who displayed decorative platters, cards, and closet dividers.  Nancy Cagle, Charleen Isbell, Ellen Foster and Bill and Judy Franklin displayed their art and talked up the Art Guild to visitors.  Sales were meager, except that Nancy sold a fair amount of jewelry.  However, all had good time visiting with shoppers and shopping at other booths.  Thanks go to Linda and Gil Morales, who loaned us the lattice backdrops - and then gave them to us!  Nancy is storing them for us, although she would be happy to pass that honor on to another volunteer.

     Talmage Minter studied art and tried for a while to be farther out than others.  When he had a one-man show, he looked around at it and decided it just wasn't beautiful.  He then turned to commercial art, which he still does, here in Waco.  After seeing and painting a church that appealed to him, he discovered that both he and others liked what he had done with it.  Since then, he has been touring Texas photographing and painting historic churches. 

     He showed us several examples of his paintings, and told us that he starts by composing a painting by cropping and otherwise altering a photograph to get the effect he wants.  Then he prints the photo with grid lines on it so that he can transfer the layout to the canvas easily.  You can see the one he used for the demo above the painting at the left.

     He lays down a background tone on the entire canvas surface, draws a light pencil set of gridlines, and sketches the scene with brushed lines of thinned paint.  Then he uses a medium sized brush to apply patches of what will be approximately the final colors, letting some of the background color show through to unify the entire painting.  A third layer refines the details, and a fourth may be needed to touch up some areas.

     He works "lean to fat," meaning that the first layer is thinned with mineral spirits, and each succeeding layer has a higher percentage of linseed oil.  The first layer is sometimes acrylic, so that it will dry quickly and allow him to move on.  The second layer is usually straight out of the tube, while later layers have increasing amounts of linseed oil added.  This is intended to reduce the tendency of oils to crack with age.

     The painting he brought to work on was a door of a church in Paint Rock.  On the photograph, shown at the right, he digitally pasted a rose bush next to the door to improve the composition.  He also vignetted the edges and adjusted the colors and contrast of the photo to make it resemble what he had in mind for the final painting.

     He began with the sketch and some of the second layer in place.  During the demo, he did much of the rest of the second layer, but avoided the detailed parts of the gingerbread over the door and its shadow on the door, which will require more time and concentration than is available during a demo.  The painting at the end of the demo is at the right.  Compare it to the photo in the paragraph above.

     We thank Talmage for an interesting afternoon.  By generously sharing with us his techniques and aspirations, he gave us a glimpse into the workings of a accomplished artist that may help us improve our own work.  Thanks also to Christine Niekamp, Ellen Foster, Bobbee Watts and Judy Franklin for refreshments, and to those who brought things for show and tell, examples of which are shown below.

Show and Tell

                             

Pat Blackwell            Nancy Cagle           Judy Franklin        Rose Jacobson  

                      

Eileen Lyster (photo)         Linda Morales

Please bring no more than three paintings (minimum size 16" x 20" framed) to the Ball Performing Arts Center at MCC between 3 and 4 p.m. on November 15.  If you cannot bring your own paintings, please arrange for someone else to deliver them or bring them to the November 4 meeting, and Bill Franklin will deliver them for you.  The exhibit will run through December 10.  Please pick up, or arrange for someone else to pick up, your paintings between 3 and 4 p.m. on December 10.  A $5 fee will be charged for any paintings left at 4 p.m., and you will need to pick them up from Bill Franklin.

      We received 19 paintings from six artists, fewer than we would have liked, but it still made a good showing.  At Christine Niekamp's suggestion, we kept the works of each artist grouped together, rather than scattering them out as we have been doing.  What do you think?  Is it better to let people see one artist in a grouping, or to come upon each painting as a new experience as they move along the line?  Each artist group in the exhibit appears below in the order they appear from left to right.  To achieve some balance, we put the artists with larger paintings in the middle and put the smaller works on the ends.

       Drop by and see it in the foyer of the Ball Performing Arts Center.  Many fine performances are held there, including some free ones, so take some of those in too.  Check the calendar at mcclennan.edu.

                                                   Bill Franklin

                                  Christine Niekamp

                                      Martha McKinney

          

                                  Linda Morales

                                             Sue Young

                                              Judy Franklin