PROGRAM MAY 1, 2013 - MARLENE STEELE
Today’s Program - Marlene Steele - A personal Approach to Materials and Composition.
Marlene teaches around the community. She has also won many awards for her portrait paintings.
Marlene likes to work with live models. Her palette is organized by putting warm colors on one side and cool on the other. She also feels it’s important to use one brush for cool colors and one for warm. The type of palette she uses is by Robert Wood, with deep wells and lots of room for mixing.
When painting a portrait she starts with a light drawing. Most the time she uses a pointed mop brush for painting since it’s not only good for big areas but also for details. She started this painting by doing the background first, however, not every painting she does is started that way. The colors Marlene uses for her skin tones are either Cad. Red light, Naples yellow, Cerulean blue or Alizarin , Cad. yellow light and Cerulean blue. Marlene feels that what’s more important than color is value.
Shadows are done by using raw sienna and cerulean blue. An important thing to remember is that when painting watercolors that they will always dry lighter. She noted that when painting portraits you are painting shapes within other shapes and that lips have no hard edges except for in the middle.
Marlene continued to paint a copy of a painting she had already had completed as she talked . Telling us stories relating to her painting and other valuable information.
She ended the program by quoting a fellow artist, “ Isn’t it great to be an artist”.
The club would like to thank Marlene for a very interesting program.
Minutes by Kathy Kuyper
