Jennifer Love Artwork BLOG

Registration is open for my summer workshop "Woven Watercolor" with OSHER Lifelong Learning at the University of Utah. (For adults 50+).    Click here to register Maybe I'll see some of you in class this summer (online)! Woven Watercolor Workshop with Jennifer Love (2022) Thursdays, June 23, June 30, July 7 5:00pm-6:30pm (MDT) - This will be a live streaming class COURSE DESCRIPTION Discover a fun way to breathe new life into your watercolors! For beginners, intermediate, or advanced painters, woven watercolors are a way to add texture and dimension to your paintings. This course will teach you a few basic watercolor techniques such as wet-in-wet and dry brush, along with various ways to create texture on your paper. There will be a quick instructional on how to set up your paint palette and supplies for most efficient use. You will then learn to plan and execute a woven watercolor painting from concept to finished product. Send me an email if you have any questions abou...

Besides working on new paintings for next March's Art & Soup event and trying to coordinate the many spinning cogs and wheels of the Utah Watercolor Society as we started our 2017-2018 UWS year, I was also able to take a couple of days in early August to attend a plein air workshop in Logan, UT with the incredibly talented Brienne Brown . Now, as you know if you've followed my blog for a while, I am not much of a plein air painter. But, it was lovely to get outside for a couple of days and to spend time with Brienne and the other participating artists. What a beautiful state we have here! Here is my plein air setup and the little sketch I did for my painting on the second day (the painting didn't turn out so well!) Here is the wonderfully talented Brienne... In mid-August, I also attempted to take my family camping in a cabin at Moon Lake Resort in the Ashley National Forest. As it turns out, my husband and sons are not so into the "great outdoors...

Where has 2016 gone? Only a few more weeks until the new year. The holidays are upon us! The first few months of this year, I busied myself preparing for an exhibition at the Utah Arts Festival Gallery and finishing up my two years as the Newsletter Editor for the Utah Watercolor Society (UWS). I had been asked to take on the UWS Vice President role for the coming 2016-2017 year and, in June, I was voted in as Vice President. Since then, I have been super busy with all the duties that come with the role of VP! Over the summer, I also learned that I had been selected for another exhibition at the Utah Arts Festival Gallery - but this time for their October show! So, in addition to the VP duties, I worked hard to prepare eleven new paintings for this show. In October, I was also privileged to be the UWS liaison to Iain Stewart , the national artist that UWS hosted for our 2016 Fall Workshop. He was also the juror for our Fall Member Exhibition. What an am...

Twas the night before workshop And all through the hous e,  An artist was scurrying,  As fast as a mouse Paints and paper all packed Anticipation abounds Palette, cardboard and towels No scraps of paper left to be found (okay...maybe a few...) The hour is late As she checks her list twice Do I have all my supplies? Missing some wouldn't be nice Morning will be hurried, Make sure things are ready Tuck the kids into bed With a blanket and teddy The artist is tired She hopes all is done Tomorrow she's off  To learn from Nancy Maxfield Lund ! Paints, palette, papers all packed for workshop. This is my "empty" studio space. :) I'm registered for a two-day collage workshop with the awesome Nancy Maxfield Lund  that starts tomorrow. This is another "mini workshop" sponsored by the Utah Watercolor Society . I am super excited! Hopefully, I will have some interesting art to share afterwards. :) As always, thanks for sto...

Wife, mother, referee, nurse, cook, laundress, time-out enforcer, maid, dishwasher, lawn care specialist, gardener, research director, referee, artist, newsletter editor, primary worker, recycling coordinator, referee... As so many of us do, I wear many hats. Mother and wife are the most important hats. Research Director puts food on our table and a roof over our heads. Dishwasher, laundress, cook, lawn care specialist, gardener, etc... are all necessary to keep our household running. Referee, referee, referee...well, that's what you get with two little boys in the house! Newsletter Editor and Primary are voluntary jobs, but I try to do my best. Unfortunately, the "artist" hat, because it is my personal pursuit and not something that currently provides much benefit to my family other than "making mommy happy," often gets put on last and in the moments when I can eke out a few hours to myself. I am trying to carve out regular painting time in my life, work it...

I signed up for a mini workshop through the Utah Watercolor Society (UWS) this past Feb/March. Joyce Baron , past president of the UWS, was the instructor for this workshop that focused on planning, design, and creation of abstract paintings. Joyce is a fabulous abstract painter with vibrant colors and excellent movement and design in her work. She also creates beautiful fused glass jewelry. While I am not a full-on abstract painter by nature or intent, I do like to incorporate abstract elements for visual interest and texture in my own paintings, so I was excited to take this workshop to see what I could learn. My abstract paintings are usually the side product of test brush strokes I make while painting something else, or the occasional woven painting.  I find that taking workshops from other artists who work in a variety of different ways really helps to unlock the creative side of my brain. I try to take elements of what I have learned in a workshop (techni...

This has been a crazy, busy week. But, I was fortunate enough to be able to take a couple days off work to attend another mini-workshop sponsored by Utah Watercolor Society . This workshop was with Utah artist, Julie Rogers , who does beautiful work in watercolors and pastels. When you look at her paintings, you can see her mastery of using warm and cool colors in her composition to create a dynamic whole. They are just beautiful. My goal this year is to take as many workshops as possible...partly because it just gives me some uninterrupted painting time, but also to help me be more aware of the tools and techniques I use in my paintings (rather than just painting by instinct, and then wondering why some pieces turn out lovely and others not). With Kristi Grussendorf , I learned some techniques for creating focal point and drawing a viewer into the painting. With Marian Dunn , I set up a new palette and really started to investigate how different colors work with each other, which...

Thanks to wonderful hubby who babysat our little ones all day today, I was able to attend the second day of Luminous Watercolor workshop with Marian Dunn . We spent today talking about how to lay down washes on the paper to create beautiful skies and other background effects. I also worked on another onion painting (didn't like this one), tried a painting on Yupo support (which I haven't finished yet...takes a long time to dry), completed one little landscape painting, and started another painting which I have not finished yet either. I don't often use a wet in wet technique, and may not incorporate it into every painting of mine, but it has been good information to learn and practice. Also, Marian is just a wonderful person with lovely positive feedback to give each of her students to encourage and help. How lucky I am to be a member of Utah Watercolor Society and surrounded by so many wonderful artists who are also wonderful instructors and who actually live right here ...

I signed up for the Feb mini workshop with Utah Watercolor Society. This one is being taught by Marian Dunn and the topic is Luminous Watercolor, which is something Marian is so skilled in. Today was day 1 of the workshop. I spent most of the day setting up a new palette and creating color charts to determine the properties of the different colors on my plaette...figuring out which are transparent and which are not, what colors can be used for glazing, and how those colors will relate to the other colors in a glaze. We also practiced "dropping in" color on the paper rather than mixing it in your palette to come up with more interesting grays. All good exercises and I may do more tomorrow. However, as a preparation for our workshop, Marian had each participant bring one white onion, one yellow onion, and one red onion in order to have good subject matter to paint. Onions have great reflections and luminosity and are a favorite subject in her paintings. Towards the end o...

Follow up to my workshop post... Since my painting time is often limited by work or family demands, I am a big believer in not feeling like I have wasted any painting, even those I don't especially like or love. Typically, there are one or two areas of a painting that I really like, or sometimes love, even if I don't especially care for the painting as a whole. As a result, I have learned to focus in on those areas and create smaller paintings from them. My advice to any artist....NEVER be afraid to crop!!! The two paintings I did on day one of my watercolor workshop were definitely out of my comfort zone, but were good exercises. I didn't particularly care for either finished work as a whole, but had some favorite areas in both. So now, instead of two "so so" paintings, I have three smaller paintings that I quite like. :) Cropping makes a world of difference!

I had the opportunity this weekend to take a mini-workshop that was organized through the Utah Watercolor Society. The workshop was guided by Kristi Grussendorf , a UWS and ISA artist that I admire. She has this great ability to work with light and shadow and beautiful underpainting. So, besides just being able to focus two days on art without distraction (which was wonderful!!), I was hoping to glean a little knowledge about how Kristi achieves her wonderful paintings. The theme of the workshop was "Composition and Focal Point." We had some wonderful exercises the first day in creating floral still life paintings that were supposed to be loose, and created without a reference photo. Both things a challenge for me, as I tend to paint pretty "tight" (though I am getting better about loosening up as the years go on). And, since I paint from photo references about 90% of the time, creating work without a photo, plein air, or still life reference to look at was a real...