Bracelets by Melissa Manley

The Golden Gallery is currently showing a selection of bracelets by Melissa Manley. There are bronze twists bangles, sterling cuffs, and embossed bronze cuffs. We also have Melissa’s Viking knit bracelets in sterling for both men and women. First developed in ancient times by the Etruscans and Romans, Viking knit gets its common name from its popularity in ancient Scandinavia. It appears in Viking “hoards” or caches of buried treasure dating from 700 to around 1100AD. The true name of this type of wire weaving is “Trichinopoly”.

Crystal Pier

John W Golden began exhibiting his scenic photography nearly 25 years ago. He has chronicled the southeastern North Carolina scenery as some of it has become memories only. Crystal Pier stood at the south end of Wrightsville Beach as the hurricanes gradually destroyed it. This photo is an iconic view of Crystal Pier in its glory. The Golden Gallery has more than 20 views of this pier through the years.

Autumn glow

When I opened the Golden Gallery in 1977, my father bought a 35 Mm camera and began to take pictures for me to paint from. In his work as a timber farmer, he saw wildflowers and old barns and houses that I might never see. Many of my paintings are seen through his eyes and his memory remains alive in The Golden Gallery. Autumn glow is beautiful in the autumn light.

Day of the Race by Phyllis Tyler

Near the entrance to the Golden Gallery you will find a portfolio of spiritually guided paintings by Phyllis Tyler. Beautiful abstracts created in colored markers that begin as a blank surface and finish as amazing art. Day of the Race combines watercolor and marker in a composition that reminds you of a sailboat race.

Read A Book Series

Read A Book is part of a series of more than 60 "signs" that John W Golden created, after realizing that there are some things every parent says over and over again. Then he realized that many of these parental mandates are good rules for adults to live by too.  These images have been used in One Tree Hill nurseries and offices for adults. Teachers and librarians love Read a Book.

Japanese Maple Seeds Midnight Blue

There is only one example of bokeh in this photo, but the early evening photo when the sprinkler had been running is filled with lots of sizes and shapes created by the water droplets reflecting back into the lens. 

Japanese Maple Seeds Midnight Blue

These are the ones that made me realize that the photographs stood alone far more beautifully than I could ever paint them. I am still painting in watercolor because I love the process and love to see where it will lead me, but I also get excited with the images that fill my camera when I point it toward the light and keep on clicking.

Japanese Maple Rainbow

When I bought a Nikon D3000 camera, I was amazed at the color in photographs that was not in the subject. My favorite early Japanese Maple seed photograph entitled Japanese Maple Rainbow was blessed with a turquoise green that does not exist in my front yard.

Photographic Bokeh Watercolor

I have been fascinated with photographic bokeh since an ice storm in the 1980s that filled the 35 mm photo I took with hundreds of tiny hexagons.The Japanese word boke or bokeh is attached to the blurred areas of a photograph created by a very narrow depth of field. Loving the telephoto lens as I do, I fell in love with bokeh before I ever knew that name.. I liked to recreate the effect in watercolor by cutting hexagonal stencils and lifting areas from the watercolor background of a painting like my Gingko.

Indie Artisans

I am excited to be a Resident Artist on IndieArtisans, an amazing group of creative folk.

LOC Design Studio: Trees

LOC Design Studio: Trees

Serendipity

Serendipity is a word that I, as an English major, have always loved. It connotes the happy "accident" that develops into something beneficial for you. Of course, I have since learned that there are no coincidences, but all is as it is meant to be.

Once upon a time a long time ago while creating a watercolor "pour" in a workshop, a hair fell into the wet paint creating a frosty looking line in the color. Knowing better than to try to fish it out, I let it dry and was fascinated by the textural effect. I learned to enhance the texture with sea salt and to uncover images by painting into the dried surface. I first incorporated it into a "frost on the window pane" image and gave it to my hairdresser.

The curves of the hair then suggested to me underwater vegetation and shells and thus began a series I named "Fantasea". "Broken Angel" is a detail from a larger painting that is "Fantasea #51". The pour is created with no image in mind..just an intuitive dropping in of colors onto wet paper followed by the hair and then the salt. I love watching what happens next. The salt dissolves a little in the water and slows the drying time so that the wetter areas push into the drying areas and make lines that would be considered blooms in traditional watercolor but make exciting patterns in a pour. The saltier paint is guided along the hair and bleeds in a non traditional way into the whites and other colors. What happens is always a surprise. Sometimes the painting is complete when it dries. There are only a few brushstrokes in "Garden Trio." It spoke to me of chairs with very little work.

Fantasea #51 was a beautiful pour, but there was a large very dark area that stymied me until I was looking through photos from a trip to Edisto Island when the shore was being eaten away and sea oats had fallen across the darkened soil of the edge of the sound. There is not much of that area visible in "Broken Angel" but my painting involved a lot of serious scrubbing with a toothbrush to get back to the light shades of the oat stalks. The shells themselves started with negative painting to bring them out of the pour and then a few painted details, mainly in the angel wing.

I tend toward realism in much of my work, but was serendipitously pushed beyond my limitations by a single hair dropping into wet paint..such a little thing to expand my horizons and create a watercolor technique that I have never seen suggested in a book. I am grateful for the medium that pushes me to react and accept change and "go with the flow."

Amazing work

Check out this site for some beautiful handmade items.

http://independentartisans.blogspot.com/p/our-resident-independent-artisans.html

Melissa's new heart jewelry

Taking Flight

This painting grew from remembering a technique I had seen demonstrated in 1977 by Zoltan Szabo. I wanted a dark but interesting marsh background for the egret rising from the ground.

First I sketched the bird on Arches 300 lb coldpress watercolor paper and applied masking fluid to the the head, body, front wing and the center of the back wing which I wanted to try to depict in motion by lifting the feathers along the edge.



Next I wet the entire piece of paper and applied a couple of staining colors, sap green and winsor violet. I primarily use non-staining colors so that I can lift them, but in this case, I needed stains. I tried not to fill the area I planned to lift with these colors and I also dropped in a bit of non-staining cobalt blue for a hint of sky that might or might not be visible through the grasses. I let the painting dry completely.




Next I used various combinations of French Ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, ranging from brown to deep blue and stroked them vertically and at an angle across the entire masked underpainting. Only small areas of the violet and green remained and the stains gave many hues to the overpainted areas.



Next I lifted carefully marsh grasses from areas where the staining colors were strongest and scrubbed a bit harder on the feathers of the far wing of the egret. When this dried, I carefully removed the masking fluid with a rubber cement lifter, which has now become a tool for lifting masking fluid.

I wet the neck and head and added cobalt blue mixed with rose madder genuine for the shadow. Then used the same color to define the feathers on the front wing..dropped into wet paper..tricky but make the color a bit dryer than the wetness of the paper and it will work. Continued to lift more grass shapes from time to time.



Went to the lower left corner and lifted flat ovals to suggest water..then lifted drops which might have shaken off as the bird takes flight.




Painted the legs a black mixed from French Ultramarine blue and burnt sienna..this color will lift completely, so is great for very dark areas that might need lifting.




Painted the eye yellow and the bill a combination of indian yellow and cad orange with a highlight lifted on top and a shadow underneath with a bit of cobalt/rose madder mixed.




Looked very carefully at my photo with a magnifying glass and painted a dot in the eye and the med darks around it with a tiny brush and a mixture of cobalt blue and burnt sienna.




This is a scan of the finished painting. I have added a bit of yellow and burnt sienna to a few of the grasses and you can see the detailing of the feathers. I had made the farthest feathers fuzzy to suggest movement and lifted a highlight on the black legs. The colors are truer than in the photos preceding and the painting has turned out more striking that I had imagined it. In painting watercolor, there are always nice surprises and you must be ready to wait for them to happen and incorporate them into your original idea...with grace and ease.

The New Romantic Market

I have joined a new market on 1000Markets and we are planning a a grand celebration!

Gala Opening is Celebrated With Villeta Inspirations





The doors of The New Romantic Market are officially open for business. To celebrate our opening, we're creating works of art and artisanal items that are inspired by the photography portraiture of Adrian Villeta.

http://www.1000markets.com/blog_posts/6974

To add to our celebration, we've invited 1000 Markets CEO, Matt Trifiro to judge our Inspiration Artwork. He will select the piece of Villeta inspired art that best captures Adrian's elegant romantic style. The artist whose work is selected will receive a recognition gift, provided by 1000 Markets store, le enchantement.

You're invited to join The New Romantic Market artists

June 2nd at 7pm (cst) here:

http://www.1000markets.com/forums/444

for a live online opening party and announcement of the Villeta Inspirations winner.
Join our party, raise a glass of bubbly and help us cut the 'opening our doors for business' ribbon.

See the 'Villeta Inspirations' entries here:

http://www.1000markets.com/groups/newromantic/c...

Be sure to check back as the entries continue to come in and join us for the winner announcement on June 2nd.

New Blog Feature

I am excited to be featured on Blue Canyon Arts' blog about the New Romantic Market's opening.

http://www.bluecanyonarts.blogspot.com/

New Blog on The Boardwalk

I was honored to be featured today on The Boardwalk Blog at 1000markets.

Meet The Boardwalk Artist Series ~ Featured Artist ~ Mary Ellen Golden... Watercolor with Grace and Ease


Watercolor is considered a difficult medium by many people. My goal is to create a space in which it happens with grace and ease. My very first art teacher was Margaret Cooper in Rose Hill, North Carolina. I studied oil painting with her from the age of 10 until I went off to college at 17. She gave me an absolute love for the process and an innate color knowledge that has made my path what it is today. I hope that I can pass that on to all my students.

I have been painting in watercolor for more than thirty years. The medium still holds the same fascination that it held for me the very first time I carefully wet the paper, applied a small amount of color, and instantly blotted it with the tissue clenched in my left hand. My students to this day say that when the left hand goes in my pocket, the painting is going well.

That first watercolor lesson was in 1975 in Charleston, SC. The teacher was Virginia Fouché and I am very fortunate to have known her. She had asked me to help her teach her high school art class macrame and when we finished said "how can I repay you?" I told her that I was having trouble with an acrylic painting I was working on and she invited me to her adult class that night..We gathered in an old building in the old village in Mt Pleasant and painted in oils and acrylic..She told me if I would come to class, she would have me painting all the time...and she did.

When she attended a master class in watercolor at Rangemark in Maine, she returned and taught us all watercolor! Hallelujah! That was my media..and the brushes haven't dried out since. She immediately brought Jeanne Dobie and Christopher Schink and Ralph Smith to Charleston and we received wonderful instruction very early in our watercolor journey. Many of those in that class are among Charleston's premier artists today and I love to go back and see what they are doing...

After 4 years in Charleston, my husband John transferred to Wilmington and I opened a tiny gallery in the Cotton Exchange in 1977. When my son John grew up, we added him to the lease and grew the gallery to include his photography. He became a graphic designer and animator and has become well known online as John W Golden, digital artist.. He has shown me the delights of online marketing where I met Beachy Rustica and have been guided by her to 1000 markets and The Boardwalk. She has been an amazing mentor for me and I would like to thank her for leading me here



Many thanks to Mary Ellen for such a great bio! Next week another Boardwalk artist will be featured - so don't forget to stop by!

First Class of 2009

I started my first class of 2009 on a cold gray, rainy morning so I decided to paint a pair of cardinals on the bare redbud tree outside my kitchen window. I sketched them in last night and lo and behold they actually made a brief appearance in the trees and rain during class this morning!

After I sketched in pencil, I applied the Pebeo masking fluid with the brushes I save for using masking fluid. I soap the wet brush and remove any excess suds with my fingers and then dip it in a small amount of masking fluid in a separate container from the large bottle. this makes the larger bottle last longer and protects it from contamination.