Dear painters, art aficionados, and art explorers everywhere. I would never have guessed this journal would keep my interest for so long! Join me as I learn about the processes of painting, drawing and at times, the history of art.
My website is: terirobusstudio.com

7.11.2017

Gruening Cabin Artist-in-Residence


Rainy Summer Day     Acrylic on canvas    9 x 12 inches

Maureen Engle is an Atlanta, Georgia artist 
who paints with a palette knife like she is wielding a brush! 

She hosted a trio of Juneau Plein Rein artists for lunch at the Gruening Cabin today. 
Maureen is one of the artists chosen for the Artist-in-Residence summer 2017 program.

(I was going to put a link to the current program description 
and the artists but there doesn't seem to be a current page for it. 
So HERE is the link to the description, 
application process and the 2016 artists.) 

 Maureen shared some palette knife, watercolor and 
acrylic painting tips, fed us soup, 
cole slaw, chili and was a delightful, talented host.

Since she lives in Atlanta, she was thoroughly enjoying the cool SE Alaska weather!

What I learned from her mini-workshop was that:
  • Mixing paint directly on your canvas is perfectly fine, rather than mixing colors on your palette first
  • A palette knife can be very expressive
  • Be aware of the four corners of your painting
  • Acrylic can be stored for a couple of hours without drying out by using a paper palette, laying another clean piece of paper palette on top of your piles of paint and folding the palette up, Rorschach-like
  • Painting with a palette knife on stretched canvas seems to work better for some artists because of the springiness of the canvas
  • Acrylic paintings can LOOK very much like oil paintings
Ernest Gruening Cabin


Maureen's paintings: a Sockeye and a King


I tried out the acrylic palette knife technique
with the painting at the top of this post and this one below:
Stop the Rain!       Acrylic on Canvas  8 x 8 inches




Me, Jay, Cristine and Maureen

We were so grateful for Maureen's kind critiques
 in this valuable and fun mini-workshop!

Thank you for peeking in to my art blog, I appreciate it!


4 comments:

Cristine said...

Nicely written Teri. I would add her techniques for old credit cards to make rocks, and edges... I'm going to dig out all the palette knives I can find. Loved the whole day, and having you and Jay along for the drive made it even better.

Teri said...

Thanks so much for commenting Cristine! I am glad you mentioned the credit card trick ... I was trying to quickly get the post out and forgot that niblet.

Chris Lally said...

What a great post, Teri! And what a great painting!!
Really appreciate those great tips & thoroughly enjoyed visiting the cabin & seeing the works of the other artists. Thanks for sharing your wonderful experience.

Teri said...

You are most welcome Chris - I wanted to get that out while it was fresh in my mind.