Markers

Found still life photo
by Michele Cooper

I was taking a walk around the block in downtown Seattle yesterday when I found the perfect autumn still life right there on the sidewalk.

When I make my painting, I think I will call it "Markers", since fallen leaves are a sign of the season....and they just happened to arrange themselves like this around one of the geological markers on the sidewalk.

November Studio Open House Postponed

Section of "Apples and Lilacs"
Original watercolor by Michele Cooper

This November would be the 17th Annual Studio Open House at Michele's NW Studio. I regret to announce that this occasion will be postponed until further notice due to uncertain circumstances regarding family obligations.

We will welcome you all at another time in the next several months.

How to Rebind Your Moleskine Sketchbook

I'm participating in the 2012 Sketchbook Project. The paper that came with the official sketchbook is too thin for me to use with watercolor, so I replaced it with Fabriano Artistico and used a simple binding method to make sure it holds up to many (I hope) page turnings.

Here's the method I used to bind my sketchbook with watercolor paper. Watch on YouTube if you want to see it full screen.

If you think you'd like to try this project, see my other posts regarding the Sketchbook Project. Please let me know if you have any questions....or send me a link to your sketchbook. I'd love to see how it's coming along so far.

House Portrait

8x10" Original Watercolor
House Portrait Commission
Sold

June is such a busy month! I KNEW it would fly by with so much to do.

Above is a commission I finished on Friday for a client. There are a few things added that weren't there and quite a few things edited out of the original reference. I gave them nice big pots of flowers, judicious pruning of the existing foliage and lots of warm, homey atmosphere.

Sketchbook Project in Seattle this weekend

Here's a link to the project in Seattle on vimeo.
The pages on the left are from the theme "In Flight" by Julia Jandrisits.

We were there on Saturday and it was a crush! The owner, curator, of the gallery said there were 120 visitors on Friday and probably around 250 expected by the end of the day Saturday. We were there around 1:30 and there was a line out the door, people reading and sitting on the stairs inside and on chairs and ledges outside.

One of the co-founders, Steven Peterman, was at the door while we were there and told us how the books were transported from city to city.

Read the article in the Seattle Times with a few photos from the show. Just saw something on the Project website that reports 1,000 viewers over the 3 days in Seattle.

If you missed it, there's a digital library where you can view the ones that were digitized so far. I'll be reading a lot of these, since I didn't get my fill at the gallery.

(I have mine rebound with empty pages ready to go for the 2012 tour)

The Sketchbook Project

Art House is an online art community that offers projects for artists and enthusiasts interested in showing their work in a gallery environ-
ment.

One recent project, set to tour the U.S in the coming weeks, is The Sketchbook Project.

This past year they sent 28839 artists from 94 countries blank sketchbooks. Just under 10,000 books were returned completed — all of which will be on display.

The tour started February, 2011. It's coming to Seattle, June 10-12 at:

Form/Space Atellier 2407 1st Avenue Seattle, WA 98121

Plenty of time to sign up for the next one! Go to http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject for all the info.

Late Bloomers

Original Watercolor
Class Demo

The tulip festival in Mt Vernon was half over before the actual tulips bloomed this year.

This was a demonstration I did for recent watercolor classes using some of my famous "tricks and cheating ways".

For an example of some I actually painted on location see here and here.

"Group photos" from Class

Here are some of the handmade mini palettes that my students made.

Many of them have been used already en plein aire.

It's been great fun seeing the individuality and creativity that has gone into these travel palettes as well as the paintings that came from them.