Mood paintings
WATERCOLOR WORKSHOP
with Michele Frantz
Saturday, February 28 • 10 to 4
at Manassas Baptist, 8742 Sudley Road, Manassas
$45 members & seniors • $60 non-members
For adults, all skill levels. Using only six tubes of paint, learn simple techniques for adding mood, atmosphere and drama to your landscape paintings. Shed pre-conceived notions about color and value, and push your paintings to a new level. Work from reference materials provided by the instructor. A supply list will be provided when you register.
Download the registration form here (pdf format) or contact Laura Lavarnway, laura.lavarnway@ngc.com.
You can see more of Michele’s work at www.myarcadia.8m.com.
The Manassas Art Guild held it’s annual meeting on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008. At this meeting, all members of the Board of Directors were up for re-election. In addition, the membership was voting on revisions of the MAG Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws. The following members of the Board were re-elected to their positions:
Shane Williams – President
Laura Lavarnway – VP
Michele Frantz – Secretary
Rob Burkhard – Treasurer
Roger Frey – Member-At-Large
In addition to the BOD election, the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws were voted on and passed with unanimous vote. The “new” AOI and Bylaws immediately went into effect. Since the Bylaws changed the BOD membership to a total of 7 members, there was a vote on the 2 “new” positions. The following members were elected to the positions:
Gerry Schaeffer – Member-At-Large, will be taking over Treasurer position following transition period with current Treasurer
Terri Branham – Member-At-Large
Following the annual meeting, the regular membership meeting was held with a Watercolor lecture and demonstration by Mike Flynn, President of Art Beat and former MAG Treasurer. Mr. Flynn demonstrated his style of watercolor painting by painting a landscape. Mr. Flynn also commented on and answered questions on watercolor and watercolor techniques.
Shane C. Williams
President, MAG
Paint! Manassas wrapped up today. It was a whopping success! I’ve updated the Paint! page if you want to see some of the work exhibited during this event.
Artist Leonard Justinian was our judge. Here are the winners of this year’s Paint! Manassas:
1st place: Sunny Spot (Manassas Battlefield), acrylic by Michele Frantz
2nd place: Noon Train, acrylic by Michele Frantz. 3rd place: Sudley Manor, watercolor by Laura Lavarnway.
Honorable Mentions: (in no particular order:) 1. The Things I Love, by Maria Briganti. 2. Manassas Presbyterian, by Katherine Nace. 3. Prospero’s, by Lorrie Herman. 4. Have a Nice Day, by Laura Lavarnway. 5. Path Less Travelled, by Anita Faurot.
We also gave out a “People’s Choice” award, for which members of the public were asked to vote for their favorite piece. It resulted in a 3-way tie:
1. May, by Michele Frantz 2. Sudley Manor, by Laura Lavarnway 3. Train Station, by Rob Burkhard
posted by Michele Frantz, shows coordinator
I am back from North Carolina and not to be out done by Michele in Paint! Manassas, I am busy painting the town away, so to speak. Above is a watercolor and graphite sketch of the Manassas Old Presbyterian Church I have been messing with tonight. I started this as an 11×14 very wet-in-wet painting and then have been attacking it with an 8b pencil. After it dries completely I might go back at it with a harder H pencil and scratch out some whites. It might not amount to anything but is was sure fun to put together!
Rob Burkhard
May 10, the day of the long-awaited “paint-out” which officially kicked off our 2nd annual “Paint! Manassas.” Alas, the weather did not favor us; damp and windy. As a result, not as many people in town as we hoped. Still, about 2 dozen artists braved the chill and rain to begin their creations, and I managed to inflict about 30 flyers on unsuspecting gogglers. They all seemed happy to receive one.
Our friends from the Northern Virginia Art League (NOVAL) joined us; that’s Lorrie Herman and Mary Moon painting Center Street, above, while below left Lou Negri chats with a group of curious visitors. Meanwhile, below right, I took a stab at painting the walkway between West and Battle…..
(Click on the little images to see them larger….)
I have my misgivings about this painting, the only thing I’ve conveyed properly so far is how dark and stormy the sky looked while I stood there. (And me just recovering from a cold.) Below left, this little quick study of the Manassas Battlefield is turning out a lot better, and call me crazy, but below right may be — my next subject???? So cute!
Anyway, many thanks to all the intrepid artists who braved the raw weather in order to kick off Paint! Manassas. On to the exhibit on May 31!
– michele frantz, shows coordinator
It rained today. I started off with Selina, from the Manassas Art Guild, in Clifton Virginia and I fully intended to finish my Old Clifton General Store painting. Did I mention that it rained today? No sooner did I get my french easel set up and it started again 
As a back up plan we went to Old Town Manassas and painted en plein air under the old train station. I did a very wet-in-wet impressionist painting of Fosters Grille and other stores across the tracks. I will let is dry for a few days then go back into it with an 8B pencil to really bring out some hard lines.
Selina went to work drawing some sketches of the Candy Factory. Both of us are gearing up for the official kick off of Paint! Manassas 2008 on Saturday 
Rob Burkhard
Today I spent most of the day parked on the corner of Center Street in Old Town Manassas. From my wonderful seat I was able to capture this 18×24 value sketch (on rough watercolor paper) and add some watercolor before the sun came up and ruined my light. I did get about 3 hours of quality light.
This will be a PAINT! Manassaspainting that I plan to finish on May 10th in Old Town Manassas at the kick off. I need to get the shadows right before I go back out becausee the light shifts very quickly between the buildings and it reeks havoc with perspective, color and tone.
Rob Burkhard
Well today is the first day of my first retirement (before I go back to work next month ). I celebrated by going to the Manassas Battlefield with Michele, Maria, Selina and Mary Ellen to gear up for the spring en plien air season. I will let the paintings speak for themselves. The top on is 15 x 22 on 300lbs paper and the one below is in my ~5×9 Raffine Sketch Book with Lana Paper.
It was a great day to paint and the company was very enjoyable
Tomorrow I will go to Old Town Manassas and Thursday I plan to go back to Clifton. The rest of the days this week I plan to do some volunteer work in my kids’ school.
Rob Burkhard
MAG members Rob Burkhard, Mary Ellen Semat and myself took advantage of the glorious spring weather to “paint out” at the Manassas train station. On the left, that’s Rob and Mary Ellen (I’ll let you guess which is which) hard at work, and on the right, Rob applies oil paint to his board with a palette knife. Scritch, scritch…. we all agreed that was a beautiful sound.
After we got rid of that pesky Rob, Mary Ellen and I tried to cram in one more painting each before we had to get back to our less glamorous lives. Below, that’s Mary Ellen packing up to leave on the left, and on the right a shot of my big accomplishment for the day…. a little 2×3″ half-finished painting of Foster’s Grille. That’s three unfinished paintings for me in two days! — michele frantz
