Charioteer I: ii

Watercolor and Swarovski crystals on paper

This is the newest painting in my new Arcadia series. I will use it for my upcoming 2016 solo exhibition at the Korean Cultural Arts Center of Chicago.

Drawn to Books

This is the first time the beginning drawing class had an opportunity to exhibit their one-of-a-kind artist's books at Milner Library here at Illinois State University.  That is thanks to Art Librarian Kathleen Lonbom who made a special presentation of the Special Collection of artists' books to my classes and who offered to exhibit the student work.  Here are three.

Memories of the Stunning Smokies

Who wouldn't want to paint such magnificence?

We used our full palettes outdoors.

Great fellow artists to share with.  Great scenery and weater.  

Great food at Arrowmont's legendary dining room. 

What a wonderful week at Arrowmont and my "Power of Color" watercolor workshop.  The artists who attended really made it special.  What a great group.  every day we worked outside on site, we had great sunshine and moderate temperatures.  The day by the river was best.  No one wanted to leave.  The sounds of the rushing water, ever-changing images of rocks, sunlight on water, ripples and deep underwater shadows all made for a stunning day of painting.  The week whizzed by and now we are all home, on diets.

What lush scenery to paint.

The Power of Color

Art Friends: Join me at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains, at acclaimed Arrowmont, nestled into the landscape by Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a week of wonderful watercolor painting. If you have never taken a class at Arrowmont, treat yourself to this wonderful experience.  The camaraderie, inspiring location, fantastic facilities and total immersion in learning and having fun is what Arrowmont is about. Contact me if you have any questions!
Put the “COLOR” in Your Watercolors
http://www.arrowmont.org/component/redevent/details/515?xref=514
This class helps you define or refine your own color sensibility. You will use your existing colors and discover which colors in your palette work well together. No tricky colors
to buy that you only use once! Every day we use new watercolor techniques — from better wash techniques to learning the best way to use frisket to mixed media additions — a touch of crayon or gouache, and so on. We begin in the classroom with still lifes, and then find color in nature as we explore the environment around Arrowmont and in the Smoky Mountains. All days will close with an in-depth critique of the work done that day. All levels.
COURSE FEE: $515
Cynthia M. Kukla is a studio artist who teaches watercolors at her university and in workshops throughout the United States, in Europe and Asia. Her paintings have been exhibited on four continents.
http://www.arrowmont.org

ArrOWMONT SChOOL OF ArTS ANd CrAFTS is a place for people who
seek meaningful and energizing art experiences. It is a place for people of all ability levels, ages and backgrounds. It is a place where ideas and skills, seeing and creating come together in amazing ways.

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts is a national art education center. The School offers weekend, one- and two-week workshops for the beginner to advanced artist, taught by national and international practicing studio artists and university faculty. Students work and learn in professionally equipped studios on a 14-acre residential campus in Gatlinburg, TN. A series of weekly classes are also offered for residents of the local community. Workshops and classes are offered in ceramics, fiber, metals/jewelry, painting, drawing, photography, warm glass, woodturning, woodworking, mixed media, books and paper.

Early registration deadline 10% OFF Workshop FEE February 1, 2014

Educational Assistance program Application deadline
March 1, 2014

Scholarship Application deadline

March 1, 2014 for most; some have a rolling deadline

This demo shows a finished watercolor on the left and the 

color layering techniques in-progress for the rose on the right.

Summer Rose

"Summer Rose" is currently on view on my solo exhibition "Near, Far and Farther" at the Danville Art League. The exhibition is featuring my travel watercolors I paint on-site.  "Summer Rose" began as a painting of a real rose which I began at the Southern Illinois Art Workshop.  Carol Garver of the Danville Art League was in attendance at the workshop and she invited me to have a solo exhibition at Danville.

I always have 'in-progress' paintings so students can see how I develop a painting. It is important for students to see the stages of a painting, that you don't finish a detailed, layered painting in one frantic session. Mostly, it is important to let a watercolor wash dry completely before adding another layer of paint.  Working on a second painting while the first one dries is a great strategy for getting more done and not picking away at a painting you should let rest!

You can see that in the August 'Watercolor Explorers' Club' workshop at the Ewing Manor in Bloomington, "Summer Rose" was not quite finished. After the workshop, in my own studio, I finished the painting.  Primarily, I emphasized the background, darkening and defining the leaves that surrounded the rose.  I also brought some of the pink tones (permanent rose) into all the petals to create optical harmony.

Two of my paintings being viewed at opening reception of
"High Bridge" at Korean Cultural Art Center of Chicago

A Tale of Two Exhibitions

This summer my paintings and mixed media drawings were included in two curated exhibitions. 

The first exhibition, "High Bridge" was co-curated by Kim Massey at the Korean Cultural Arts Center of Chicago which opened June 1.  Two of my large-scale paintings were selected and placed prominently in the exhibition space. It was a joy to see the entire show which included two of my former MFA students Sigrid Wonsil and Davida Schulman. Featured above are two paintings of mine and the opening reception.

"High Bridge" has real meaning-connecting among artists of different cultural and geographic backgrounds.  Interestingly, I took Sigrid Wonsil with me to Estonia where we were guests of the Estonia Printmakers Association when I gave a master class to the Academy of Art in Tallinn, Estonia during the "Mana Propria" international drawing exhibition.. Several years later, Sigrid took Kim with her as a fellow artist as guests of the Estonia Printmakers Association.  Sigrid was born in Austria, emigrating to the US as a child, Kim married an American who was overseas in Korea, so all three of us journeyed through artistic friendship to Estonia.  Many bridges indeed.

The second exhibition "Faces and Figures" in the Cincinnati area was curated by Danny Brown and featured thirteen artists. I had twelve paintings and mixed media drawings in the show, especially my latest Sphinx and Marilyn painting. I am pleased three works were large-scale drawings (similar to ones curated into Mana Propria) since I am mostly known for my paintings. Below are three views of this exhibition.

My Ostraka:History IV watercolor at
Faces and Figures exhibition

 Watercolors painted in Greece at
Faces and Figures exhibition

My Ostraka: History I drawing at Faces and Figures exhibition

www.kccoc.org/ Davida Schulmanestograph.ee/

Our May Watercolor Explorers' Club Event at Ewing Mansion, Bloomington, IL.

It was a great morning exploring a spring color triad.

How to make a rose bloom

My best-known rose paintings were done in graduate school and people have asked me to do a rose painting demo many times over the years. I start them at workshops and finish them at home or at other workshops.  I think it is very important for artists to see the stages in making a painting.  We can be in a hurry and want to make everything perfect all at once. 

These pictures, showing three stages helps you see how to develop a painting start to finish.  I cover pigments you should use and how to mix them and get started in my watercolor workshops.

Small statue at Temple of Isis ruins at Dion, Greece

My dear friend Xenis drove me to this site where his daughter had done some archeological work and he knew I would like the site.  He was right. It was mesmerizing. I went back for a day of painting, taking 3 inter-village buses to get there. It was worth it.  The place was silent but for the song of birds and frogs who began singing after I settled into my painting. I was alone with the ruins and the small statues. The site was filled with six inches of fresh spring water, adding a beautiful blue to the scene.

This painting was exhibited first in the "Virginia Woolf and the Natural World" exhibit at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky along with three other Greek watercolors I did on site. It was also seen in my solo exhibition "Journeys" at Quincy College, Quincy, Illinois. 

My Ostraka:  History II: xiv  

70 x 140 inches

Nefertiti has haunted me since childhood-seeing a replica in our best neighbor's house in Chicago.  David Salle made a reference to this stunning masterpiece. Salle wrote about Alex Katz in March T & C. Katz apparently started his list of favorite artists with "jackson Pollock and the guy who made Nefertiti" (who was court sculptor Tutmose.

I lost count of how many paintings of mine use her image and I do not tire of attempting to replicate her stunning beauty.  This is a large sumi ink and gouache painting also done in my Cincinnati studio.  It measures 7o x 140 inches.
The studio was mercilessly cold in winter, since I was the only tenant other than my son's rock band that practiced there.  The isolation and lonliness probably fueled lots of "what ifs?" such as positioning the seductive face of Nefertiti between two seductive archaic Greek vase designs.

Special thanks to Owen Jones's 'Grammar of Ornament,' a book which has been in my collection since graduate school.  He set me on a rich path of discovery of ancient designs and symbols.

Watercolor Explorers' Club

You are cordially invited to participate in the inaugural session of the Watercolor Explorers' Club.  We have an auspicious beginning: the Ewing Cultural Center has invited us to premier at the Ewing Mansion, so save the date: 

Date/Time: Friday, March 22, 10 AM to 12 Noon.  

Location: The Ewing Cultural Center is on the corner of Emerson and Towanda Streets 
in Bloomington.

Morning's Itinerary: Executive Director Toni Tucker will give us a short tour of Mrs. Ewing's watercolor collection.  Following the tour, we will paint at Ewing, in their spacious conference room.

Topic: Choosing subjects that have meaning to you.  Please bring family heirlooms or mementoes from your travels. I will make a group still life to which you add your special heirlooms or mementos. We will paint from our specialized still life and I will review watercolor and composition basics and my demo will focus on mixing vivid colors.

Cost/reservations: All Watercolors Explorers’ Club events cost $25 per session.  An optional 1/2 hr group mini-critique will follow for anyone interested. Future watercolor sessions will mostly alternate between Friday mornings and Sunday afternoons at various inspiring locations once a month. Please call ahead or email to reserve your spot.  I am happy to answer any questions you may have.  

309-661-2537.

Ms. Kukla received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Cynthia has exhibited her paintings, watercolors, works on paper and sculptures on four continents in over fifty solo shows and over two hundred fifty curated or group exhibitions. In 2006, Cynthia was inducted into the Watercolor Honor Society which has only two-hundred members nationwide. 

Knossos, Crete

Three on-site watercolors made at the 

famous archeological site at Knosos, Crete.

I will be sharing my Greek watercolors with you I made in my 2006 sabbatical since I return in my 2014 sabbatical.  Lovely Greece is on my mind.

The bull fresco pavilion (featured here in 2 paintings) is heavily restored.  I am researching these ancient bulls, called aurochs, now extinct.  Polish nobility kept them alive into the 1700's on a special reserve in Poland but viruses from domiesticated animals brought about their demise.  Aurochs were enormous, fierce animals, the stuff of ancient legends, cited by Julius Ceasar himself.

Recently, I archived all my watercolors done on site in Greece, Crete and Istanbul, along with watercolors I made in my studio at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.  I used Fabriano watercolor paper for on-site work because the paper allowed for the paint to dry quickly.  Sometimes I would be running to the exit gate at site closing time, holding up the wet watercolors like a waiter holds trays of food.  Luckily, no watercolors got damaged in the late afternoon sprint.

Acrylic painting Workshop at Quincy Art Center, Quincy Illinois

Sponsored by the Quincy Art Guild

In November 2010, I gave a watercolor workshop during my solo exhibition at the Gray Gallery at Quincy University.  We had a dynamic experience with a very dynamic group of painters, and the group loved my acrylic paintings in the exhibition, so they asked me to teach an acrylic workshop.

It is always a wonderful experience to share what I know with dedicated artists and those who aspire to learn more and become better artists.  I learned how much is missing in the teaching (or lack of it) when it comes to acrylic paints.  There is so much more than just sticking your brush in some paint and water and trying to paint!  So we had a great day learning and sharing.  Besides, since it was fall, there way a bountiful harvest to paint and share thanks to secretary Liz.  Big thanks to my hostess, Ann, president of the QAG. Her house and garden are awesome.  I'll come back anytime to Quincy!

Magical Thailand

Here are a number of small watercolors I did on site at various temples and ancient ruins in Thailand when I was a visiting professor there in 2011.  These works were seen first in a solo exhibition at Quincy University shortly after I returned. In June, 2012, I showed them at Main Gallery 404 in downtown Bloomington.

Thailand is magical.  Buddhist statues, especially from the Sukothai era, are profoundly beautiful.
A colleage, Pimol, took me to a special locak temple with a particularly beautiful Sukothai Buddha statue.  The temple was not on the tourist route, rather, it was an important local temple.  I painted the Buddha there for two days.  I was pleased to see that the monks of the temple noted my discipline, painting for hours on my knees in the temple.  We spoke and I gave one of the monks one of my small paintings.  These are treasured moments and nothing we do alone in our studios compares to painting or drawing on site and having interactions such as these.

Teaching a watercolor workshop at the 
Southern Illinois Art Workshop in May

Upon request from students, I demonstrated how to paint a rose.

This three-day workshop focused on understanding color and color mixing. Boy, did I have a great and savvy group of dedicated painters, coming to SIAW from the borders of Indiana to the borders of Missouri!  During the workshop, several students admitted to being confused by what different workshop instructors suggest about color and different colors of paint to buy. I completely understand their concerns and confusion!  

Understanding color is not about following someone's pet palette of colors, or trying out some of the new, appealing colors, fun that it is to try out new colors.  It is about the basics: understanding triads, cools and warms and specific qualities (properties) of each color.

For example, to experiment and show the class about specific qualities of each color, I chose Opera pink for the pink blush for this quick rose demonstration. Opera pink sunk right into the paper, being a quinocridone pigment.  I pointed out there was no margin for error and little chance to move the color around.  So I opted for our traditional and hard-working alizarine crimson. It is a delicate pigment and will float around on the paper before settling in, giving you time to add a touch of another color for a subtle admixture.  It can also be lifted if applied too heavily.  Everyone was encouraged to do color tests, or color meditations as I call them before embarking on their paintings.  I will show some of their wonderful results in my next blog.