"Birds & Brushes" Watercolor Workshop Series

Press Release 

Rockland - Catinka Knoth will lead a "Birds & Brushes"  watercolor workshop on painting spring migratory birds, starting Saturday June 6, 10-Noon, and continuing Tuesdays 10-Noon, June 9, 16, & 23, in her studio, #2  Lincoln Street Center, 24 Lincoln St. The series of four workshops is $100, or $30 per class. Materials are available if needed. Contact the artist for more information 207-596-0069 or visit www.catinkacards.com.

Students will work in the studio creating from either their own or provided reference photos. Each week will focus on a different bird, such as cardinals, finches, warblers, hummingbirds, herons & egrets. Knoth will demonstrate exercises and painting techniques such as sumie style calligraphy, working with washes, creating textures with wet-in-wet and drybrush,  direct painting, and using negative spaces to create white shapes. Students will learn skills of observation and expression that will enhance their future study and enjoyment of birds.

Posted by Catinka Knoth at 11:05 PM EDT

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From a recent letter to old friends:

..Perhaps you remember the little cat in the sea storyboard of thumbnail sketches I showed you so long ago. It has been languishing hidden away in my storage boxes for years and years. Occasionally I pull it out and look longingly at it. ( I always associate you two with this set of sketches for some reason.) Initially after doing that first plan, I had drawn up a few images and turned them into cards which have been favorites with people all these years.  But, I had learned back then, that children's stories were just not supposed to end with "and then he woke up." No 'it was all a dream' stories. I never could figure out what to do with the ending of the story, and so the project remained unfulfilled. It was stuck for years, though two of the images have gotten plenty of mileage. People always ask if they are part of a children's story and I must confess how I just got stuck with it.

The other day, perhaps even prompted by your initial contact, I came across the sheets of thumbnails again. (I was actually in search of something else.) This time it hit me - I could just scan those thumbnails, rough as they are, and make them into a very loose type of book. And, in such a rough form, this ending can stand as it is - or - alternate endings could be created by readers/viewers. (And, after opening my mind to this solution, I did get a slew of other ideas for stories with this cat character as well as endings for this story.)

I've now scanned all the thumbnails as enlargements. I'll either put it together as a little booklet myself or use one of those POD printers as a simple production. I want to have this as an object in my hand which can be passed on/shared if desired. Even more basic and elemental though, which also just came to me, is that stories used to be only oral. I would love to use my story in that way as a companion to my kids drawing classes. It is good to realize, once again, that prescribed ways, are not the only ways that things have to be!

I'm attaching the sheets as they've been all these years. They're reduced in size but I think they're big enough to look at. Boy are the thumbnails rough. I think I was experimenting with some 'brush' marker. I hate the squared off edges those strokes make. A real brush would have been so much better in being able to form less fractured backgrounds. But I want to put it together anyway, just to bring the germ out to the light of day in a whole form. The prospect of this is gives me such ideas...

In Catinka's Animal Notecards for Cat & Dog Lovers you can see the two images that became cards.  

Posted by Catinka Knoth at 5:29 PM EDT

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Make a Mother's Day card from my Mother's Day  coloring page.

Posted by Catinka Knoth at 3:57 PM EDT

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Mother's Day cards and May baskets, migratory birds, marsh life, and Memorial Day are some of the themes for this month's children's drawing classes led by Catinka Knoth at Rockland Public Library. Children ages 6 and up
follow along with Knoth in drawing a variety of motifs. Children age 10 and under should be accompanied by an adult.

May is also American Wetlands Month. Children will explore marsh and wetland habitats by drawing such animals as egrets, frogs, and beavers. International Migratory Birds Day is another May celebration and a chance to draw Spring warblers and other migratory birds. Knoth leads participants in step-by-step drawing instruction for the day's theme. She encourages adults to take part in the classes with their children and discover that drawing is
for everyone.

...from recent press release. 

Step-by-step demonstration drawing of egrets and ducks. You should be able to see it develop, if your browser lets you.

Demonstration drawings prepped for you to color or draw from: 

Beavers building a dam coloring page

Herons & ducks in a marsh coloring page 

Furling Flags to draw for Memorial Day 

Posted by Catinka Knoth at 4:02 PM EDT

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