Livermore Art Association/Pleasanton Art League April Meeting
Tonight’s combined meeting of the Livermore Art Association (LAA) and the Pleasanton Art League (PAL) featured Joyce Faulknor demonstrating her dark-to-light approach to painting glass and a reflective subject (such as stainless steel) in watercolors.
It may be because I don’t paint, but frankly, I was blown away. Joyce first lays down the darkest values to create a foundation for the painting. The demonstration illustrated how to capture the glossy texture of glass and the shining facets of sterling silver. Joyce became a full-time watercolorist in 1991 and developed an interest in painting cut crystal and glass in 1999. She looked for instructional material on the subject and, not finding any, began to teach herself. In the process of teaching others, she formulated the steps for painting these objects.
Joyce’s artwork has appeared in “Splash 8” and “Splash 10.” She has written articles for Watercolor Magic and American Artist Magazine. Joyce is the author of “Stunning Crystal and Glass” published by North Light Books, along with a DVD companion to the book. She has appeared on “The Painting Gourmet” as a guest artist and is a cohost of an instructional TV show entitled “Art 2 Art.”
Tonight’s program was amazing. I think that a pivotal moment for me was when Joyce applied a lighter “glaze” to the foundational elements of the painting, transforming these structural backbones into a representation of a 3-dimensional object. Wow!
I wish that all of you could have been there, but the room at Almond Avenue School in Livermore would have been too small (since it was already “standing room only)!
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
