Studio Open House

Trying something new! I love visitors, I'm working at home anyway so thought this would be some holiday fun and a nice way to wish folks a Merry Christmas.

Hello friends,

Join me if you can for my very first studio open house. Drop in for a cup of hot cider and maybe a baked treat and shop for a unique gift of art for special people on your Christmas list. (Maybe for yourself!) 

I’ll put a sign out for you. Click here for directions

Notecards, prints and originals available

Put your name in the pot for a free giveaway while you’re here! Tis the season for some fun!

Can’t make it?  Email cdlemp5@gmail.com or message me for an appointment to look for something you have in mind.

Another option is to check out the Facebook shop page:

https://www.facebook.com/christyswatercolors/app/309028460694/

Thank you always for your support!

Signature Member

I'm very excited to announce I have been selected to be a signature member of the Central New York Watercolor Society. I received my certificate at the 36th Annual Meeting of CNYWS. It is a juried process where six members judge the consistency and quality of your work before acceptance. It's gratifying when your hard work is recognized-I will strive to continue to paint pieces that are worthy of this honor!  Also looking forward to new opportunities and directions for my paintings, and working with more watercolor artists in the area.

As an added bonus, I won this painting by Mark Mehaffey! He is an internationally acclaimed instructor who did the workshop for the group this year.  A good Karma day!

We are working hard on a one day holiday shop with local artists for our faithful local customers!

This is the show we used to have at Betsy's house, now expanded with more room, more vendors, and convenient parking. It'll still have that homey cozy feel with refreshments, and a raffle to benefit Baltimore Woods. http://baltimorewoods.org/

They constantly work to intertwine nature and community!

Skaneateles Life

Whoo hoo I'm a cover girl! 

Our local magazine Skaneateles Life works hard to connect neighbors and businesses.  I play tennis with one of the writers, who was always interested in hearing about my painting and various lessons and workshops I was doing. That resulted in this article. Had no idea it was going to be on the cover!

Watercolor Workshop at Imagine Gallery

I must say I'm quite enjoying introducing people to watercolor.  There are so many people that want to try and have been afraid.  Why is it we are afraid of something that can't possibly hurt us?  Performance anxiety? Fear of failure? Egos?  Whatever it is I hope these workshops dispel those feelings somewhat.  We had all day fun practicing washes, getting pigment to flow, lifting, splattering, a bit of masking and other techniques to be loose and have fun.  We actually ran out of time before finishing the last birch tree masking exercise-everyone was so enthused!

One huge thing I learned was how student grade paint just doesn't cut it for washes-they were grainy and dull.  Probably fine for color mixing experiments if you have them already. I get it-why spend a lot if you don't know if you'll continue?  The reality is you probably won't continue if you get frustrated with your results.  I always suggest artist grade colors to get, but next time will be more insistent.  I'm working harder on finding good deals for beginner sets.  Even three tubes of good quality is better than 10 student grade.  Will post here with recommendations when I find them!

Little Elephant

I love this little guy. Glad I took a photo because he has been recently purchased and living in a happy home.
Several sketches of elephants were done at our local zoo, (so fun to do animals there!) then I came home and experimented with doing light wash backgrounds first, leaving lots of white areas.  Practiced doing eyes and started with that first.  Over a couple days I gently added layers and lines, just enough to add features and stopped there before overworking. That is the hard part-knowing when to stop!

Wild berries

Every July our yard is full of wild black raspberries-free breakfast!  I love when the berries are all different colors in their stages of ripening.  Played with a bunch of different colors trying to capture the juiciness. I used Alizarin crimson, Winsor violet, and Quinacridone lilac, with a spritz of orange here and there to warm it up.

Watercolor class

The first series of watercolor classes at Imagine Gallery has concluded.  We were trailblazers-the first time classes have been held at the Gallery.  The owner developed the idea to bring in more traffic during the winter months. We all configured the back section into a "pop-up" session each week and it worked out well.

We endured two snowstorms that delayed the beginning, and the end we were missing 5 who couldn't drive through it.  I wanted to post the last class photos at the bottom of this entry so they can see what we did.  We missed you!

The over all theme was about loose techniques for either beginners or experienced painters.  It was a great mix of ages and levels, men and women.
The first two classes were spent learning variegated washes, and a variety of things you can do with pigment-lifting, hard and soft edges, negative painting, splattering paint, (a favorite!) and a bit with texture using salt and cling wrap.

The third class incorporated variegated washes and splatter.  We did "galaxy" paintings, used a hair dryer to speed up drying so we could splatter the stars with white acrylic.  Lifting a moon out if desired.  Added some simple impressions of trees.

The last class used masking with painters tape and salt for texture. The design is birthday candles. This ended up being great fun and presented lots of possibilities for  colors and designs.  Everyone has friends, children or grandchildren who would love a card painted just for them.

Masking off the candles and flames

Variegated wash on wet paper. You can sprinkle salt on wet paper for texture if desired. Let dry, then remove salt.

You can use any color for background. Mask off cake too if desired!

Remove tape and paint candles and cake.

Have fun with patterns on candles. This student did a light yellow wash around the flames to illuminate that area.

This couple came every week and had a blast!

A batch of lessons

I'm doing four basic watercolor lessons on loose techniques at our local Imagine Gallery in February.
It's fun to get ready because it makes me sit and just play with colors, and what a mood booster they are!  The class is maxed out so they're taking names for a possible future workshop.  So nice: people are so busy these days it's great they're taking time out for themselves to learn and have fun.

2017 Activities

This was a year of many-some may say scattered- activities.  I stretched myself with art shows, demos, workshops and local exhibitions.  There were commissions too of pets and gardens; one project I'm especially proud of was the "Houston Pet Project". When the first hurricane hit Houston there were many displaced animals, so I put out a Facebook post saying the first 10 people to send me a picture of their pet would get a 5x7 watercolor portrait for $50, donated to the Houston SPCA.  It was a big hit and resulted in $500 sent to help pets.  It was perhaps a small thing but it felt good to help out. It was scary for me as I haven't painted a lot of pets, and never that many at once! However I found out a challenge sometimes makes you move faster and get organized. :)

Dickman's Va Va Bloom Show

Some of the Houston Pet Project portraits

                                Flash Paddle-I did a piece to promote a paddle fest to celebrate Skaneateles Lake. It was used for a poster and T-shirt design. (The paddles in this picture weren't finished yet.) This scene is available at Pixels.com/ChristyLemp as prints, mugs, shirts, etc.

                                                                      Paint Out-our annual John D. Barrow paint out that I help organize in June.  I set up in our local park by the lake and painted this scene.  It was purchased by a local resident. Love knowing when paintings go to a good home!

Another fun thing;  we started a local chapter of Urban Sketchers! I had a retired architect come to our Art Guild meeting to demo how he does travel sketches. He looked up from his drawing and asked if anyone wanted to join him sketching at a local coffee shop sometime.  A bunch of us said YES! and we started meeting monthly in various locations. We started out known as the Syracuse Sketchers, then he applied for us to be a chapter to the national group Urban Sketchers. And that's not all!  A young woman from our area that now works for NBC wanted to do a story on us, so a crew came out to film everybody.  That was SO exciting!  The link below shows the piece.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/this-organization-is-turning-drawing-into-a-social-pastime-1141734979947

So, yes, many activities-didn't even include how many family things went on- and now the first month of 2018 is almost over already.  Time to ferret out the favorite things to do art wise and and maybe get a little more focused. Ya think? Perhaps?!  We'll see!