Ellen Jean Diederich
MASTER ARTIST
Unlock Your Artistic Potential
Mentorship is the fastest way to go from where you are today, to where you want to be!
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MEDIUM: Acrylic | Mixed Media | Watercolor
SPECIALTY: ✔ Generalist
I genuinely look forward to meeting and mentoring your artistic development. With effort, I hope to help you progress on your creative journey. My primary goal is to help you discover yourself and help you grow as a painter. I have enjoyed helping numerous artists over the years and look forward to meeting you. Everyone will have different strengths and weaknesses and we can all learn from each other. Lessons build from the previous ones, starting with the power of the basic elements of art. I will provide demonstrations, critiques and assignments for each lesson that you can review with the help of your navigator. I hope to create a comfortable non-competitive atmosphere where you paint at your level and gain confidence and the skills to create your own unique compositions and paintings.
Look for my book Progressive Painting – Your Creative Journey in the Mastrius Library. Painting classes will be in Watermedia primarily watercolor and/or acrylic. In my watercolor classes we will start with the most basic techniques. Students of all levels have told me they are grateful for these and they provide excellent future warm ups. Group goals are always considered, but my most popular lessons include: using the grid, color, painting visual volume into your subjects, using contrast, and working the edges painted and unpainted, and paint quality. We will progress with compositional studies, working on choosing and building the interest area and creating supportive and attractive backgrounds. Art business questions are welcome too.
Primarily I hope to help you to love design by choosing simple specific goals. We will be finishing or working through paintings problems as we go along. You may paint any subject you like.
In 2009 I added acrylic media to my repertoire after painting almost all of the illustrations for my Children’s book “Samson’s Gift” with it. Amazingly, my Neo- Impressionistic style is displayed even stronger with acrylic. Acrylic paint can be used in a transparent, opaque, and even heavy Impasto manner and its diversity is very exciting. Any watercolor experience you have had, though quite different, is helpful. We will study grounds, techniques and apply acrylic on both watercolor paper and canvas. This class will use the watercolor design lessons mentioned above. I also continue experimenting with acrylic and welcome you to join me.
Ellen’s EXPERTISE
Listed below are this Mentor’s specialty skills. Join this group if you want to grow in these areas.
Specialty: ✔ Generalist
Technical:
Color and Composition
Technique Demos
Providing Art Critiques
where to spend
Teaching How to Self Critique
Studio Setup for Art Production
Marketing:
Shows & Exhibits
Marketing & Branding
Business:
Studio Time Management
Selling Artwork Online
Approaching Galleries
Licensing
Studio Time Management
Products, Prints & Reproductions
Running Your Business the Day-to-Day
“Mastrius is a perfect balance of accountability, community and fun.
It feels like family. Family that makes you a better you.”
~ Elizabeth, Emerging Artist
NO ACTIVE MENTORSHIP GROUP
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MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST
With the recent addition of a studio in Rancho Mirage, CA and my home base in Fargo, ND, my interest in portraying the landscapes has increased. My Neo-Impressionistic painting style developed by falling in love with a flat brush and turning it like a calligraphy pen so it was unidentifiable. Calligraphic shapes are created and interlocked which blend more in watercolor and stand out in my acrylic paintings.
Painting in North Dakota has encouraged me to explore the beauty of light on a flat plane. This experience helps me enhance what I see in my other favorite subject matters: flowers, architecture and domesticated animals.
In the design phase I focus on shapes in space, using light and contrast to add depth as they move through the picture plane. After drawing out my subject carefully, I select a dominant color theme and begin painting. My paintings are very active and it is exciting to edit them towards their specific goal.
Please sign up for my “Painting of the Week” blog to learn more about my goals for my paintings.
