New Workshops

Sandie Bacon
sandra-bacon@sbcglobal.net
(847)668-1503

Join me for upcoming workshops. Available for private lessons(at your studio or mine), book small groups, or sign up for one of the many new exciting workshops:

The New Collage for painters and photographers,  April 25-26th, Tall Grass Gallery, Park Forest, 

Discover the exciting process combining images printed on any variety of surfaces 

incorporated into luscious layers of Golden mediums and gels.  Saturday- making paint skins and

backgrounds,-Sunday printing unto surfaces(using an ink jet printer) and combining them into a suitable for framing collage. Come for one or two days. All paints supplied by Golden

see: www.tallgrassarts.org/sandra Bacon or contact me  

Acrylics A-Z: The first in monthly workshops at Dick Blick Schaumburg

May 30th, 2-4:00, email sandra-bacon@sbcglobal.net for details. This workshop offers a chance to work with making a small painting from each of the 4 kinds of Golden acrylics: OPEN, High Flow, Fluids and Heavy Body. From the long open time and printmaking capailities, to impasto, to sketching in fluids and the creamy "High Flow" acrylic ink" an awesome chance to try these sumptuious colors. 

ReInvent Gallery Lake Forest, www.reinventLF.com for details. From: "Painting and Collage on Plexi" to "Intro to Williamsburg Paints" e-mail me for a whole list.

More venues and classes coming soon.

The Painting of a "Cool Globe", 7 years and 2 continents later

 2007
"Ripples"- 
6' "cool globe" painted for the
Clinton Climate Initiative, displayed at Navy Pier, Chicago








2012
After traveling across the United States from Los Angeles to
San Francisco, the Cool Globes travelled to Europe:
Geneva, Copenhagen. . .
This is the same globe in Amsterdam, 2012



2014
The same globe  now across from the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
Notice how intense  the color remains after 7 years of travel, across 2 continents, and in all kinds of weather.
A testament to the quality of Golden Paints.

Recent Work: New Orleans- start of a series

swamps, alligators, rusted gates, mystery
sazerak, Irish car bombs, music, steamboat
Golden artists-swirling with color
studies in all the media

QoR Watercolor on Duralar, 12" X 18"

above: detail/  Golden acrylic with glass bead 18" X 36"

below: Williamsburg oils, 8" X 10"

RECENT WORK: Seadrenched: studies in color and light

                   The  coast off Monterey, California is rugged, full of pounding waves, jutting  rock formations and teeming with marine life :waves with otters , porpoises and dolphins, whales in the distance.. The sky is full of birds- forming deep vees as they fly in formation, or

Seadrenched, 24" X 36"

Turquois Wave, 30" X 36" oil

Rose Wave, 24" X 36"

crows and seagulls casting shadows across the sand. Full of mystery, and the promise of what lies beneath, what lands lie across the ocean. Heavy air of fog of paynes grey/titan buff wrapped in sea brine, to powerful cerulean blue skies, to tide pools with transparent layers of greengold and sap greens.

Of Cowboys and Kestrels

                Of Cowboys and Kestrals : Keeping up the spirit of Johnston

                     Perhaps it was the quote from Charlie Russel(a “cowboy artist) on his reasons for painting the vanishing Old West, ”You might lose a sweetheart but you will never forget her”. This was to describe a series of classes for children on “cowboy art”, and it was fun to present the mysteries of smoke signals, the gold rush, infinite possibilities and the freedom of exploring on horseback unknown territories. Several of my old classmates from Johnston  responded to this post, but it brought out the humanitarian in Bion Howard. Perhaps it is the “cowboy “ in him- who could ever forget the stories in the dorms of adventures on the trail accompanied by the guitar and songs of Stan Richardson. Even today, Bion embraces that energy- blazing trains with his motorcycle .

                        Last month, I taught a series of classes that was sponsored by Bion in the Waukegan elementary schools on birds(through the Visiting Artist Program). Experiential in every way, we brought in a scruffy lot of taxidermied birds lent by Volo Bog: a kestral, woodcock, duck, cardinal, finch and a pheasant.

                        “Are those real? Are they alive?” They stimulated curiosity. I challenged the kids to use their intuitive knowledge- betting them that each kid in the class could name a different kind of bird- and sure enough they did. I also said “bet you Ican just draw a c couple of shapes and you can guess what bird this is- and yes! A circle over an oval becomes an owl, an “s” line is either a swan or a flamingo, a swooping “v” is of course an eagle- - -(all those years of gesture drawing come to mind. Use your eyes not what you think, observe) and from there we went into observation- the keen eyes, sharp beak and claws of the kestral makes him a bird of prey, the rounded beaks and webbed feet surely belong to a water bird, and we guessed from just observation what the finch and cardinal ate and where they live. . .

                        Half the kids in the class watch “animal Planet” after school, and we all observed all the birds we were seeing and hearing – the hint of the spring to come.

                        This kind of interdisciplinary art/nature class reaches children in so many ways, even those who are not academically savvy. Observation, relating to the environment, learning drawing skills from gesture (this is key with 4^th and 5^th graders who developmentally often lose confidence in art skills because of the ability or inability

to draw well realistically. It is important to emphasize the spirit, and the gesture-- -as a background for which to build). It is also an opportunity to reinforce the importance of preserving the natural world around us, because if we failto protect it, it may disappear.

                        The kids and I thank you Bion for your support, and because of this opportunity we have inspired other opportunities to come.