Saturday, October 20, 2012

Mary Todd Beam Workshop

A couple weeks ago, I attended a workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatllinburg Tennessee. Our instructor was Mary Todd Beam. What an inspiration this lady is! In her 80's, she still gets excited over every brush stroke and surprise mingling of paint. Mary is a contemporary watermedia artist, and loves to share what she has learned over the years. We observed and practiced her techniques over the span of a week in the beautiful setting of Arrowmont. Mary even invited the class to her cabin in the woods where we got to see her gallery and many of her wonderful paintings.

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This is Mary doing a demonstration with her hubby Don looking on.

These are a few paintings that I did that week. The ones that I like anyway!

These two are "Strata", layers of different acrylic mediums and tissue paper.


The two above are an experiment with clear tar gel medium.

This one involves scraping paint across paper.

 And this one is a Trash Painting. It's a collage made from things we found in our trash bag by our painting tables.

If you ever get a chance to take one of Mary's workshops, go for it! You won't regret it.