I'm Back

 Hello,

It's been a long time since you've heard from me. No, I didn't retire. No, I didn't die. Just got really sick (and at times I FELT like I was going to die). It's a long story but suffice to say, it had to do with  my colon and my bladder. Such fun. So below is very own service bear, named Ouch. He looks as bad as I feel.  :O)

This all started in September and as I got worse, I had to cancel classes until finally I found out what was wrong with me. I had surgery in January and I'm just now back on my feet (well, as best as I can). I just finished one session of classes and now I would like to open it up to other students.

Acrylics II

We're studying acrylics. Last session, we went over the basics and learned more about color mixing and blending. This upcoming session we will discuss more color theory with the CMYK  (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) palette, brushwork (washes, dry brushing, stippling, scumbling), more blending, learning how to use mediums and explore how to express oneself.

 

Interested? See announcement below.

If you interested, please drop me an email message and I'll send the registration.

Preview of Fall Classes

This fall I will be exploring the art of Cezanne and Van Gogh, both post Impressionists. In the meantime I wanted to give you a preview of the upcoming classes, starting September 17th. Hope you can attend.

 We'll be enjoying a different medium each week, we'll also:

• Study artists in the Expressionist movement,
• Learn to draw quickly within three minutes, 
• Hone our drawing skills.

You can expect full art discussions, demonstrations and expert advice on your drawings. The students in class are very liberal minded, fun loving people. Be prepared to laugh, love and live in real time. Register at jjgoodell@gmail.com.

Doing art during tough times

These are not easy times. Headlines are screaming. People are hiding from masked characters. Prices are climbing faster than we can keep track. People, who have no criminal record, are being placed in concentration camps. And the list goes on. A lot of us feel helpless and hopeless. There's not much we can do except go on an occasional protest march or write/call our congress representatives. Simply said, it's scary.

But what if I told you that there is something you can do to recapture your joy again, and it won't require taking a magic pill. Plus, it shouldn't cost you much at all. What is it you ask? It's ART. Not only visual art, which is my specialty, but it also includes writing (creative/journal/mindful), music, dance or any number of things that bring you joy. 

Why art?
I used to think that the time I took to draw was frivolous. Something I would do as a pastime. Nothing serious. Well, that's before I made visual arts a full-time job. Now it's time well spent. Remember, I owned an advertising agency--super stressful and often not fulfilling. My goal was to make money. Business is business. Today my goal is totally different. Don't get me wrong, I like an income, especially at this stage of my life. But what brings me joy and purpose is putting pencil to paper or paint brush to canvas. 

Art brings joy.
This summer I worked on a painting project that completely knocked out the bad news and delivered happiness. It's a floor mat. I bought this floor mat at Costco because it had cushion and a non-slip feature. Unfortunately, within a month or two it started to wear. So, I got my gesso out to prep the mat, pulled out my acrylic paints, and painted what I call, "My Humble Garden." See below.

This is no masterpiece. It was just fun with no expectations. What happened though was it became my escape place. Whenever I read or heard about something really dreadful, I would find myself out in the garage working a bit more each day. It took about month to complete--a little at a time, bestowing some grace upon me.

What do the professionals say?
So what do the experts say about doing art in challenging times? Here are a few statements I found:

• Art helps express difficult emotions.  (Yes, I get this, maybe more in my writing than in painting.)
• Art gives you an emotional release, even helps to process trauma.
• One can find solace, peace and insight from participating in art.
• Art becomes a coping mechanism, helps to manage stress and anxiety. (This is absolutely true. I cannot draw or paint and concentrate on the negative. I'm in a different zone.)
• Art gives you a sense of control, especially if you don't have a perfectionistic goal (more on that later).
• According to the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, art increases serotonin levels, blood flow to the brain and can foster new ways of thinking. 

Perfection
One of the biggest stumbling blocks in art is perfection. I like what Michael J Fox once said, "Perfection is God's business." Exactly. What's holding you back? Not thinking you can draw or paint or play an instrument or dance? Regarding visual arts, it only takes a pencil and some paper. Scribble. Doddle. Play. Use a variety of tools--markers, crayons, color pencils. Have no goal, just let yourself go wild. In time, you'll want to do more. You can always go over to my YouTube Channel and learn how to draw a sphere from a simple circle. It's a good beginning. There are other lessons you can try as well.

But whatever you do, get going and make art. It helps, ALOT

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Fall 2025

All classes are closed for the rest of the summer. Next set of classes will begin Wednesday, September 17th and go through October 15th. The second Fall session will run from October through early December. Here's the schedule:

Back to Basic Drawing
September 17-October 15, 2025

Beginning & Intermediate Acrylics
October 29-December 3, 2025

The above classes are currently in the planning stages, but if you are interested, please let me know at jjgoodell@gmail.com. I'll make sure to contact you when everything is put together. Our Wednesday group is a great place to feel safe, encouraged and loved. 

May/June Newsletter

 Working with Walnut Ink

We've all played with colored inks. They are so much fun. I love Indian ink because it's permanent and the acrylic inks are great because you can use layer upon layer. See my Pen and Ink article from October 22, 2015 for details on using inks in general.

But have you ever used walnut ink? For years I've work with Tom Norton's Designs, which sells walnut ink in several different bottles. And I have been greatly impressed with it. That is until I spilled almost the entire bottle--what a mess, on my clothes, floor and drawing table. Very easy to do--not a fun cleanup. I still have about 10 ml left. 

Tom Norton's Walnut Ink

So of course, I thought it was time to buy a new bottle. But instead of the Norton brand, I opted for an entirely new ink from Hickory Hill Arts. The description really captured my interest--made directly from walnuts and triple hand pressed (sounded good) and made by artists. However, I was a bit disappointed when I used the Hickory ink with my dip pen and found it to be fairly light in color as opposed to the Norton brand. So why was there such a difference between both inks.

This is when doing some research can help with a decision. Subsequently, I went up to Google and found the difference. For one, Norton's ink is not made from walnuts but is basically a watercolor ink with pigments that have the look of natural walnut ink. Hickory Ink is made completely made from the green outer husks of walnuts. The tannins in the husks create a brown color. 

However, natural walnut ink is NOT acid free. The acidity in the walnuts can cause the ink to cause some archival problems. Although, Leonardo de Vinci and Michelangelo worked with walnut ink and their works are still with us, time has seen some fading and paper damage.  

Interestingly, pure walnut ink has a tendency to etch into the paper, whereas the non-walnut inks sit on top of the paper. Natural ink is also water soluble. Norton's ink seems to lay down darker and is water soluble, although it's made with synthetic materials. Here's a blurb from the Norton brochure that explains the acidity problem.

"Rembrandt, Da Vinci and Van Gough are just a few of the artists that used walnut ink in their drawings! 

 

Unfortunately their inks were made with real walnuts, which are highly acidic, causing their incredible drawings to fade and the paper to deteriorate over the centuries. Tom Norton's Walnut Drawing Ink® is made with artist grade pigments, not walnuts, and it is both lightfast and acid free."

So how do you use this ink? First off, I use a dip pen but you can easily use your paint brush. I wouldn't recommend using it with a fountain pen, although the ink doesn't contain shellac (the Sennelier brand has shellac, which makes it permanent). Since both Hickory Hill and Tom Norton's are water soluble, you can definitely "play" with the product as soon as hits on paper. This past week in class, we worked on mushrooms.

Mushrooms using Tom Norton's walnut ink  

I drew both mushrooms with my dip pen and then took my brush and spread the ink to create shadow, as well as color in the mushroom on the left. BTW, you don't have to use more ink, just a tad of water will do the trick for spreading.

Finally, here's a link to making your own walnut ink. It takes some time, but I think it would be fun to try. 

What's new in the studio!

Any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at jjgoodell@gmail.com

March 2025 Newsletter

Drawing our feathered friends

This past session, we studied drawing and painting birds. Although I've taught this subject before, I found this time around, I actually learned more than I taught. Part of the reason why is I again returned to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology anatomy page. As you can see in the screen shot shown below, this interactive page helps you learn the different parts of a bird, including the skeleton.

While I don't consider myself an expert at drawing and painting birds, I did find that this site helped a great deal by giving me a deeper understanding at how everything works. Click on the above link to see how interesting the site can be.

We also covered some amazing artists this session (I always highlight an artist each week). Especially interesting is Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593), who is famous for his serial paintings. One in particular is The Four Elements: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. (He also created a series called, The Four Seasons). In our class we were  interested in his use of birds in the Air panting. Granted, it's a little different because his whole portrait is made up of birds. Just incredible. 

Air by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Lastly, after spending four weeks of drawing/painting birds, we ended with breaking all the rules and going with an abstraction/cartoon-like drawings the last week. It was fun. Here's an example of some fun characters.

A great project created by student Darlene Van Luvanee:

And some from me...

 Using a method called atmospheric painting.

 Just having some fun.

I really enjoyed this session and am looking forward to our next session, which begin April 9th. See below for details!  

February 2025 Newsletter

Reflective Colors and Light

During our last on-line session, we covered light, shadow, shade and reflection. It was a good lesson, not just for the students, but for me as well. It's good to review the basics, such as: 

• chiaroscuro (sounds like kyaro skooro), meaning the treatment of light and dark,
• the anatomy of a shadow, 
• shade vs. shadow; there is a different,
• Notan (Japanese approach to light and dark),
• and lastly reflective color and light.

We also studied five separate artists that offer great examples of light and dark, including Johannes Vermeer, Gerard van Honthorst, Francisco Goya and so on.

I was surprised at how much I forgot and how much I learned as well.  But the most fascinating part was the last class when we covered reflections. We usually attribute reflections to water (trees, buildings or boats reflecting on the river) or on shiny objects (coffee pots, glasses, etc.). But there's more to see than that.

Have you ever really looked at a reflective object that's not necessarily bound by water or a shine? For example, here's an orange on a white surface.

Underneath the orange, what color(s) do you see? That's reflective color. What about the bottom of the orange, is there a lighter color there as opposed to the rest of the orange? That's reflective light. They are both influenced by the light bouncing on the paper and/or the orange.

Let's try another. 

What do you see, reflective light, color and maybe more? How 'bout the next example. Where is the light bouncing? Instead of looking, try really seeing.

Speaking of which, in my classes, we don't just study the medium or theme for the day, we also review:

• A weekly artist
• "Seeing instead of looking" exercises
• Three-minute sketches 
• Commentary on what we are studying
• A choice of projects.

It's more than a drawing or painting class, it's an art class that expands your knowledge and skill.

So what's up for the rest of the winter? 

If you're interested in these class, please contact me at jjgoodell@gmail.com.

See you soon.

Jill Jeffers Goodell

Glastonbury Studios

 Neurographica® art

Happy New Year!. I thought I'd start the new year off with a discussion of Neurographica® art, developed by Russian psychologist Pavel Piskarev in 2014. Last issue I quickly touched upon the subject by stating that it's a great meditative form of art, while also a boundless way to maintain mindfulness.

To give you some background, I tumbled this past summer and have post-concussion syndrome. This artform is supposed to help with your brain neurons. I can't say I'm getting cured anytime soon, but I do find that my brain seems a bit more relaxed after a neurographic workout. 

Here's a step-by-step process.

Step 1--draw lines from the edge of your paper in all directions.

Step 2--add circles if wish and then go to each intersection and curve it out.

Step 3--complete with color (watercolor, colored pencil, gouache and so on).

Here's a video with more details.

I love this art form. In fact, I'd say I'm a bit obsessed. I already have filled an entire folder with pieces and tried my first on my new iPad (a gift from my son). Here are some examples

One of my first tries.

Another try with a tree.

Playing with a spider web.

Even created Christmas card.

Finally...first try on my iPad.

Take a few minutes, pull out some paper and try it yourself. But be warned, it can become addictive.

Fall II 2024

 Wonderful Watercolor from Ukraine

A few months ago, I saw a paint box called Rose Gallery. It was new to me and looked interesting. The rating on Amazon was through the roof and best of all, it was affordable. Noticing that the paints were made in Ukraine, I thought why not. This could be my way of supporting the country. Besides it was only $20.

Of all paints I have (I have many), this watercolor set offers the most brilliant and intense color I have ever used. In fact, the colors are so full-bodied you could mistake it for gouache without the chalky binder.

Below is a Neurographica piece I did recently using Rosa paints. I expected the paints to lose their brilliance once they dried, not so with this brand. 

Tree of Chaos 

However, there is a disadvantage to painting with heavily pigmented medium. Since we're all used to paints that deliver faint colors, which we have to bring to life with several layers, Rosa doesn't perform that way. So it requires a learning curve. 

In other words, instead of approaching the paint as we would typically do, we have to first dilute the paint more so than usual. I'm still big on layering, so I greatly water down the paints before I place them on the paper. From there I can layer or let the paint stand on it's own. Notice, in above piece, the flowing river (light turquoise) in the lower right hand corner. This was done by diluting with water, no layers.

I am so impressed with this brand, I actually bought a larger set. I would highly recommend Rosa Gallery watercolor paints to anyone. They are a fun experience.

Note: Next issue, I will talk about Neurographica art (see above), which is a great meditative art form . It's a great way to maintain mindfulness. To give you some background, I tumbled this summer and have post concussion syndrome. This artform is supposed to help with your brain neurons. I can't say I'm getting cured anytime soon, but I do find that my brain seems a bit more relaxed after a neurographic workout. More next issue.

What coming up in the studio?

The second half of the fall class session will begin on October 23rd and only costs $99 for five weeks (around $20 per class). As this is student-driven program, the students have come up with the following topics:  masks, haunted houses, abstract trees, turkeys and pumpkins/corn stalks. We'll be doing mixed media. Sounds like fun!

If you're interested in attending, please email me: jjgoodell@gmail.com

That's all for now!

Be careful who you trust, for even the Devil was once an Angel. Bianca Scardoni

Fall 2024 Newsletter

 Pan Pastels. A unique alternative

As I write this blog it is hot outside. I am soooo looking forward to fall. I like the cool, crisp mornings and sweater weather in the afternoon. Besides, my flower beds are reaching "spent-hood," so it's time to put in some autumn plants and decorations.

Last summer I wrote an article on soft pastels, providing lots of information regarding drawing (painting) with pastels, including how to work with pastel sticks, pastel pencils and even the best paper (ground) to use. I touched upon a fairly new product called Pan Pastel and how it serves as a good alternative to working with traditional methods.

The pans
The biggest difference of Pan Pastel is namely the pan where the color lies. Made of the same ingredients as the stick and pencil, Pan Pastel comes in fairly good-sized pan, packed with solid soft pastel (some refer to this as chalk). See below to view one such pan.

Normally, when creating a pastel painting, you use your stick to lay down the color. I may also use cotton swabs or a blending with my cots covered finger. However when using PanPastels, you use applicators.

I like the intensity of the colors. Using applicators also seem to give me more control. But best of all, I don't have pastel dust building up on my picture. If I do, it's minor and I simply take my ground (paper) and tap it against a slip sheet I have below.

The color palettes

The pastels come in a handy pallet that I can use immediately. There are several themes: basic colors (see below), sketch & tone, earth colors, metallic, skin tones, designer color and more.

Completed Project

Just recently I created a still life with an apple and some cherries. It was fun and easy to create. I would highly recommend this product. BTW, you can see a demo on this on my YouTube channel.

What's Coming this Fall (2024)

Students have selected an autumn theme, so we will be covering leaves, gourds, landscapes, sunflowers and holiday cards, using graphite pencil, colored pencil, pastels, watercolor and charcoal. It should be fun. 

Classes will be conducted within a five-week session. The session fee is $99. Each class within the session is $20 (give or take a dollar). Individual classes (taken separately) are $25 each. See details below.

Identifying colors

I have covered color mixing before in this publication, Studio Muses (see a treasure trove of color ideas in my blogger log). This past class session we again covered color theory and mixing in depth, including the Isaac Newton and the CYMK* color wheels as well as how to make greys and browns from complementary colors, color temperature and so on. 

One of the most common mistakes I think people make when they buy a new travel tin of watercolors is not identifying the color cakes in the half pans. Very often knowing the colors you have are very instructive, which one has more red it in, more green, more blue. Don't believe me? Here is a picture of my Lukas half-pan set and the color swatches I've created to truly examine what each color offers.

The primaries are lemon yellow, magenta, cyan. 

Below are the swatches. While our computer screens can distort color, I want you to take a moment and really "see" the colors below. Notice how red in the cadmium red is as opposed to the magenta or alizarin crimson. Look a the blues, the ultramarine blue is more of royal blue as opposed to the cyan or Prussian blue. The burnt umber is far more reddish leaning and darker than the raw umber (do you see the green in the raw umber?)

So why is this important It really makes a difference in color mixing. I personally like working with cyan, magenta and lemon yellow. While the chart above doesn't show how reddish cadmium yellow is, it can make a difference when mixing. So, just for grins, I'm offering the following chart. I took cadmium yellow, lemon yellow, ultramarine blue, cyan blue and mixed them. The greens seem to be the same but when you look closer, there is a difference. I've also include mixing black with yellow to make olive green and mixing burnt umber with ultramarine blue to create a dark gray. 

Why not try this yourself? In fact, I challenge you to see what happens when you mix your colors randomly. Does anything change? Maybe take notes to remember what you did. This is definitely the fun part of color mixing!

*C=Cyan, Y=Yellow, M=Magenta, K=Black (the same colors that appear in your color printer

What's coming up?

2024 Summer Session

Newsletter: Drawing with an ink pen

Let’s draw with an ink pen WITHOUT using a pencil first. 

Some of you may say I'm crazy. You want me to draw with only an ink pen? Yeah, I know this is scary stuff. I can hear the questions now.

• I can’t draw with an ink pen?
• What if I make a mistake?
• How do I correct mistakes?
• I feel more comfortable starting with a pencil and then using my ink pen.
• This will be nerve ranking for me.

This past class session in my studio (via Zoom), I taught my students how to do something they thought was impossible: draw with only an ink pen. It's been four weeks now, with the last class this week, and I must say the students have done a remarkable job, even outstanding. In this newsletter, I want to share some of the nuggets I passed on in my classes.

For years I've been teaching students to draw with pen and ink. In fact, I hold workshops on the subject. However, I always told everyone to start with a sketch in pencil, getting things just the way you want it, then add ink. If you want to add watercolor, erase the pencil marks and add color. Most people did a pretty good job.

From the outset, I was a bit trepidatious about this method myself. Not only did I have the same fears and questions listed above, I also was afraid I couldn't teach it without making a complete fool of myself. But as they say, I carried on.

Perfection is not attainable, 
but if we chase perfection,
we can catch excellence.
Vince Lombardi

Perfection is overrated.

I think the hardest part of drawing with a pen—any kind from fountain to technical—is fear. For myself, I have always drawn with my pencil first. My biggest fear was, “What if I make a mistake.” There are a whole slew of other fears as well. It’s sort of funny, because I’m one of those teachers who encourages students to “throw it out” and begin again.

But working exclusively with ink to create your sketch is just learning another skill. Remember when you started out, the hard part was even putting pencil to paper. Then little by little you learned a new skill. The same can happen here.

Here are some advantages and/or reasons to use ink alone. 

• Sloppy is good. Really? Just ask some of my travel workshop students about using sloppy copies. It’s a great way to just let go and sketch.
• Wobble lines are good; they create lively ones and are more expressive.
• Creating a line without a ruler is a skill and well worth the effort.
• Increases creativity.
• Fast and fun.
• Somewhat representational and full of life.
• When you start, ignore the mistakes and don’t sweat the details.
• Once you begin to master this type of sketching, you discover a whole new sense of freedom.
• Go with shapes first, details last.
• You’re responding to the world around you; it’s like a narrative of your life.
• Learn to “restate” your lines. There are no mistakes, just lines to be restated.

For this article, I will cover fountain pens and technical pens. If you want to learn more about dip pens, please go to this link at my YouTube channel to see a two-part series on dip pens.

The Fountain Pen.

There are all sort of pens available today: ballpoint, rollerball, gel, felt tip and so on. I especially like fountain pens. What?? Didn't that go out of fashion in the 1950s when the ballpoint pen was invented. Well, yes but that doesn't mean the fountain pen is not a good drawing tool. I like how the ink flows out of the nib, making it easier for me to draw and even write. Speaking of nibs, there are also different sizes that help when drawing a line. They come in extra fine to fine to medium. Not only that but the Platinum Preppy comes in point sizes: .02, .03 and .05. 

While a complete review of fountain pens can be covered in another blog article, I'd like to share a few products with you today. The two disposable pens I use the most are the Pentel's Tradio style sketch pen made in Japan and the Pilot Varsity made here in the USA as well as France and Japan. My favorite non-disposable fountain pen is Platinum Preppy from Japan (you'll notice Japan is mentioned a lot because they make some good stuff, along with Germany). These pens are also rather affordable at just a little over $5 a pen. If you get further into this subject, you will find that some fountain pens are extremely expensive. The most expensive pen, the  Fulgor Nocturnus by Tibaldi, has a gold nib and studded with black diamonds which recently fetched $8 million at auction.

The Technical Pen/Fine Liners

Rotring originally offered the Isograph techincal pen. Architects and commercial artists used them for their detail work. However, these pens can be persnickety with ink drying out often and then having to clean them often. In years since, the technical pen has been replaced by fine liner pens that have a nib size as small as .003 to .08, basically the same size of the Rotring brand. My favorite is Micron with Copic pens coming in a close second.

Ink

What's nice about these fine liners is their varied nib sizes and the ink is usually permanent. Fountain pen ink has traditionally been water soluble, which has always been a negative for me. The reason for this phenomenon is that the permanent inks have been India ink (which contains shellac) and acrylic ink. Both of which will clog the fountain pen. 

But there's good news! During the past few years, some ink companies have developed permanent products: pigmented and carbon inks. Both are supposed to be permanent. Two of which I can totally recommend are: Platinum's Carbon Ink and Sketch Ink. There are others but these are the ones that have worked for me.

Do NOT put India or Acrylic ink 

into a fountain pen as this will ruin the pen.

One last pen: Fude

I ran across the Fude pen last year. It is a funky looking pen, and I just had to have it (of course, I'm addicted to art supplies--better than alcohol!)

Here's a photo of a Fude by Sailor:

Notice the nib, it's lifted a bit. In fact, it may look like it's broken but it isn't. The lifted edge makes wide lines. For smaller lines, just turn the nib around and draw very nice fine lines.

Notice the fine lines and then the bold. I used watersoluble ink, which I could use as a nice wash. It's a fun pen. By the way, you can find lots of videos on YouTube on Fude pen.

That's it for the time being. I'll cover more next month, such as continuous drawing and paint first, ink second.