Previous Meetings

January 14, 2012
Preparing Your Digital Image
for Submission to a CPSA Exhibition

Greg Holtz will walk us through the process of preparing our images for the International Show.

If you plan on submitting your artwork to a CPSA Exhibition, you will need to create digital image files and upload them to the CAFE (Call For Entries) website.

His plan is to discuss image file preparation and submission as described in the CPSA Prospectus.

The CAFE website has descriptions for preparing image files. This will allow people to see how the file is manipulated to fit the specifications before they try doing it themselves.

Although most people think of using Photoshop or the less expensive program Photoshop Elements, there are free software packages that can do the job. These programs are recommended by the Cafe website.

Greg also offers to reformat images for people who bring him their large image files. This will work best if you are able to bring a USB flash drive with your images on them so he can save the formatted copies. If you bring a CD (or he runs out of time during the meeting) he can email you the formatted images later.

Meeting notes are available for download.

November 12, 2011
Annual Pot Luck Brunch Food, Glorious Food!

Our annual brunch blowout! Bring a dish to share. Make it something easy to eat with a fork or fingers --unless you plan to bring an omelet station with chef. Bring your appetite. Slurp! Plates, forks, spoons, beverages provided. There will even be napkins for those who suffer from being neat challenged, which includes most of us.

Also on the docket:

OPPORTUNITY DRAWING

Bring cash for tickets. Bring your new or gently used art items that you don’t want and are willing to contribute to the chapter. Someone else will love them, and the chapter will benefit.

DRAW A CARD! PLAYING CARD PROJECT KICK OFF

For next summer’s international convention, our chapter DC202’s project will be a deck of wacky playing cards. At the meeting, you’ll get to blindly pick a card and a piece of paper to draw it on. You’ll also get a list of specific instructions. Not to worry, these are oversized cards. There are 45 of us in the chapter and this deck has 54—yup, two jokers—so those who are having way too much fun with this can do more than one. But wait until January to make sure those who aren’t here in November get a chance first.

BRING your latest for our drag-and-brag gallery wall…if you still have room to lug in something else!

WEAR your name tag.

Oct. 8 and 9, 2011
Expand Your Options Workshop
presented by Betsy Holster
at Marina Village on Mission Bay

How to get there: http://marinavillage.net/contact/directions/

Marina Village map: http://marinavillage.net/property-map/
(This map is oriented facing west toward the water as if you were in the parking lot. You can see our room E-12 right off the parking lot.)

September 10, 2011
WORKING MEETING

This month we'll have a chance to get some artwork done for a change….when we're not looking at what everyone else is doing, catching up on gossip, paying dues, signing up for the workshop, you know how it goes. But bring what you're working on and all your stuff anyway. Sometimes we learn a lot from seeing what other people are doing. It's a chance to get some questions answered, too.

August 13, 2011
Brain Strain (with a chuckle)

Bring your brain to this meeting. Yes, your brain has a part to play in your art. And it can be fun, so bring your laugh, too.

This month we'll delve a bit into how the creative brain works and do some crazy things with it. Karen Rhiner will be our facilitator, and we all know she has a screw loose. Be ready to work with other people and to write, scribble, and draw things in a sketchbook and report to the gathering and to loosen up the screws in your brain.

July 9, In Balboa Park
DRAWING IN THE PARK

The library has pre-empted our meeting space for July, so we’re moving to the historic Marston House in Balboa Park for this month only.   http://marstonhouse.org/

June 11, 2011: TOOLS ROUND UP
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

What materials and supplies do you use in your drawings that work well for you?  Which ones don’t?

Bring them to the meeting, and we’ll help each other out.  We’ll set them all up on a table or two, and we can share information.

Some things to bring:

Be prepared for people to try out your stuff, including paper and pencils.  If it plugs in, we can do that.

May 14, 2011: Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Watercolor Pencils, by Carolyn Kenny

Our own Carolyn Kenny will give us a demonstration of how to use watercolor pencils.  Carolyn says they are great for backgrounds and for covering large areas at one time.  She also knows some great tricks that she’ll show us. She’ll bring some of her work in which she’s used watercolor pencils.

Carolyn has earned the right to use CPSA after her name because of all the international CPSA exhibitions her work has been in.

April 9, 2011: Kathleen McCord

Kathleen McCord is a children’s book illustrator extraordinaire who works largely in colored pencil. She has illustrated over 50 books for children and taught a course entitled "Illustrating Books for Children" at UCSD extension for 22 years.  Along with Bill Kelly (Brighton Press) and the late Barney Reid she helped found the San Diego Print Club, a gallery focusing on limited edition prints. She teaches art and design at Southwestern College and film studies at Miramar College. Kathi is a proud member of the West Coast Drawing Group.

She’ll show us some of her work and how she goes about developing her illustrations.  For a fun preview, take a look at this:    http://www.bookmakersltd.com/gallery.php?gallery=McCord

March 12, 2011: Your Camera, Your Photos
With Greg Holtz

Not everyone has an expensive camera, but knowing more about some basic concepts of photography can help artists capture an image to be used as a reference for an artwork.

Greg’s plan is to demonstrate as he sets up two photo-shoots: a portrait of an artist, and a table-top arrangement for a painting. The camera will be connected to a laptop and projector so everyone should be able to see the view through the camera lens. We will discuss lighting, backgrounds, and exposure using photographic terminology with definitions in a glossary handout. We will also discuss settings available on most cameras that will help capture the image desired.

If you wish to participate, bring your camera, the camera’s manual, and a tripod, if you have them. It might be fun to compare images of the same setup, if you are willing to have them posted on the website.

You can download a copy of the slideshow (PDF).

February 12, 2011: Working meeting.

Please bring your current project and art supplies.  If you are not working on a project, bring an idea and art supplies and we'll help you get started. This will be a good problem-solving session with one-on-one help.  Bring your questions!

January 8, 2011: Artist Clayton Llewelyn on drawing surface

Clayton Llewellyn has made a name for himself in San Diego as a popular adjunct professor of art at Cuyamaca. Southwestern, and Mira Costa Colleges and for his mind-boggling drawings. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2006.  Since then, he’s had several solo shows in San Diego, including one at the Earl and Birdie Taylor Library gallery in Pacific Beach and at Device Gallery downtown.  His latest foray is into the art of tattooing.

 In the past few years, he’s been altering his paper surfaces—using stains, rust, tea, coffee—and time.  He’ll tell us why and show us how.

In the meantime, go to http://www.westcoastdrawing.com find the thumbnail of one of his drawing on the home page, and you can click on his web site.

October 9, 2010: Pastel Artist Susan E. Roden

Pastel artist Susan E. Roden will do a Power Point presentation about the two weeks she spent as Artist in Residence in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, an honor she won in 2009.  She’ll talk about her landscapes and demonstrate one for us, plus she’ll bring along some of her actual landscapes for us to drool over.  If you are interested in color, this one’s for you!

Check out her web site for an advance peek:  http://www.susaneroden.com

Susan was as a professional middle eastern dancer with performances in the U.S., Mexico City, and Honduras for 18 years before getting her degree in art and working as an editorial graphic artist in Texas and New Mexico.  As she began to devote more and more time to her pastel works, she showed in more than 110 juried and invitational shows winning numerous awards, including the New York's Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club's Medal of Honor in 1994 and in 2002 a Merit Award at the Pastel Journal's Third Annual Pastel 100 in New Mexico.  Her work was featured on the cover of Pastel Artist International Magazine in 2002 with an accompanying article on her technique.

Since she moved to San Diego in 1998, Susan has solely pursued her fine art. Her range is from the figurative to traditional landscapes and contemporary still lifes. In all she seeks to impact all with the beauty of life in all it's simplistic, expressive moods.  Susan is a member of the California Art Club and the Pastel Society of New Mexico with juried membership in the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, NY, NY and the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild.

September 11, 2010—Matting and Framing

Steve Bergstrom, owner of Frame It Yourself in Kearny Mesa, will demonstrate and talk about how to mat and frame your drawings. Blade, our vice president, will bring in one of her drawings which she and Steve will work on together to get ready for hanging. Steve will be able to answer your questions about how to select mats and frames.

Frame It Yourself is located at the intersection of Clairemont Mesa Blvd. and 805. It offers a selection of mat boards and frame mouldings plus work stations for customers to assemble their own frames and save money. Bergstrom provides the mats, frames, and glass cut to size, or the customer can have Berstrom assemble the whole thing.

See his web site at http://www.frameityourself.net

August 14, 2010—Crazy Drawing

They say that drawing is 80 percent looking, 20 percent drawing.  (Or 90-10, depending upon which they is talking.)  We’ll do some fun and nutsy exercises to prompt our eyes to really look.  This will not be a contest to see who can draw the best, because everything will look TERRIBLE!  Maybe it will be a contest to see which one of us can laugh the hardest at our own humble efforts—or do the best job of embarrassing our neighbor.  Karen Rhiner will lead us down this weird path.

July 10 2010—FLORA AND FAUNA OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

We’re doing little drawings of plants (animals, too) indigenous to Southern California for our chapter’s display at the national convention at the end of the month.  Time to work on them at the meeting.  We’d like each member to provide two cards—with drawings on both sides. 

So, take a photo of something in your back yard or a nearby canyon, cut a piece of your favorite paper 2.5” x 3.5” (more available at meeting) and draw away.  Our distinguished President Bobbie Bradford will bring the cards that have already been done plus the branch they will hang on so we can see what’s up.  Each chapter will provide a display promoting its artists and section of the country for the convention’s hospitality room, and this will be ours.

June 12—WORKING MEETING

Find out how everyone else does it!

Bring your current project plus whatever you need to work on it.

You’ll get a chance to:

Working meetings have been popular with members in the past, and new members have received lots of help and encouragement.

May 8, 2010
Free and Simple Digital Image Editing with Google's Picasa

edit and Share your photos

Greg Holtz, the DC202 webmaster, will discuss using Picasa, the free image-processing software from Google. This demonstration and talk will focus on using Picasa to do simple edits and send the digital files by email. Although this talk is designed for people with few computer skills, we will demonstrate how easy it is to post photos on the Internet to be shared with friends and family.

We will also briefly discuss marketing our artwork using social network services on the Internet. Examples of these social networks include photo sharing web sites, like PicasaWeb or flickr, or social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace.

If you have tried Picasa or another image editing software and have questions, please contact Greg (gregholtz@msn.com) before the meeting and he will try to help.

For more information on Picasa see http://picasa.google.com/

To see the presentation, download the Acrobat file (925 KB).

April 10, 2010

CP 102 TEXTURES WORKSHOP

Presenters will be Deb Gargula plus our chapter’s two CPSA Signature Members Bobbie Bradford and Carolyn Kenny.  Learn from the best.

Materials fee:  $10.  We will provide:

Please come prepared by bringing:

For more techniques and money saving suggestions see the flier (PDF file).

March 13, 2010

Burnishing Flower Petals and Creating Water Drops

Lori Sutherland, who has amazed us all with her incredible flower drawings will show us how she does it.

BRING 

Lori will supply demo sheets and paper to draw on. 

DRAW SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FLORA

Please bring your completed artists trading cards of Southern California flora or fauna to the next meeting.  It will be fun to see them all.  It’s also not too late to start on one if you haven’t already.

Each year, each chapter of CPSA presents some kind of a display in the hospitality room at the National Convention, which will be held in Los Gatos, California, this summer.  Prez Bobbie Bradford will attend and will haul our display with her.

Our project is artist trading cards with drawings of the flora (and fauna) of Southern California on them tied to a tree branch.

Cut a piece of paper 2.5” x 3.5”, the standard size for these art trading cards.  Find a plant that’s typical of our area and draw it on the card with colored pencils.  If you’d like, you may broaden it to include Southern California fauna.  (The cat people in this chapter pushed for this one, we think.)  Do one on each side of the card.  Easy!  The cards are small enough that you can experiment, and if you blow it, you haven’t lost much.  It’s a good time to try other kinds of papers, too.

February 13, 2010

“Working Meeting” on Artists Trading Cards.>

Every year the CPSA sets up a Hospitality Suite at the CPSA Annual International Exhibition & Convention.  All District Chapters are encouraged to present some kind of colored pencil display.  This year CPSA is celebrating its 20th Anniversary, which will be held in Los Gatos, California.  Our project will be Artist Trading Cards (ATC) with drawings of the flora and fauna of Southern California. We plan to secure the ATCs to a tree branch (eucalyptus).  We’re going to get you started at our February meeting . . . so bring your supplies and creativity.

Here’s what you do:

January 9, 2010

Mini workshop on color theory with Karen Rhiner

Down the COLOR THEORY Rabbit Hole

In this hands-on mini workshop, Karen Rhiner will lead us down the color theory rabbit hole and bring us back out mentally intact from the mad tea party, our pencils ready to do marvelous things with color and us all grinning like Chesire cats. If you’ve already studied color theory, this will be a good review—and keyed to our medium, not paint. If you understand what’s going on with color, you’ll be able to use it to your advantage. So bring your watch and don’t be late.

BRING

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Holiday Party and Pot Luck

Saturday, October 10, 2009

SABATO FIORELLO
Shows us
How to Paint a Picture in an Hour

Sabato Fiorello has been a professional artist all his life. His first solo show was with the Laguna Beach Museum of Art in 1969. He has shown his work throughout the United States and Europe, and is represented in many private collections. In 1970 he became affiliated with the Orlando Gallery in Los Angeles and showed there until 1985. He made his living working with the film industry for over 24 years and, after retiring as a dialog editor, became a florist, working in some of the best restaurants in LA. He was a fine arts commissioner for West Hollywood until he moved to San Diego in 2001. He worked with Eleanor Antin on all of her projects as art director and set designer. He has been teaching at the Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual Transgender Center in Hillcrest for more than 4 years.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Icarus Technique
presented by Ester Roi

Ester, a member of our chapter, is the inventor and developer of the Icarus Drawing Board, a heated drawing board she uses to produce the beautiful flowers that we all ooh and ah over. It works by softening or melting wax-based media such as wax-based colored pencils, artist crayons and oil pastels.

This is a great opportunity to be part of a free, hands-on mini-workshop supervised by Ester and aided by her own personal video clips. There will be several Icarus Drawing Boards throughout the room so that everybody will have a chance to take turns and work with one.

Ester will provide most of the materials including pre-printed papers with outlines of progressive exercises, new media to test for a “surprise project,” and special tools to share. Hand-outs will include technique overview, list of Ester’s favorite materials, Icarus Drawing Board brochure, and a rebate coupon.

Please bring these supplies with you if you own them. Ester will have extras to share.

You can read more about the Icarus Drawing Board and see Ester’s work and the work of other artists who have used it at http://www.icarusart.net/