Two local artists will conduct unusual painting workshops at the Tryon Painters and Sculptors Gallery during the month of July.
The first offering is a two-day collage painting workshop on July 14-15. Grace Lertora, a well-traveled local artist,will be the instructor for the first workshop. Lertora defines the project as a memory collage:  a way to organize photos and articles into a story that becomes a painting. Collage is an assembly process built around a central idea or theme, and will use glued materials of many kinds incorporated into an acrylic painting.
Lertora was born in Argentina and studied at the American University in Washington, D.C. Later she traveled and painted in Spain, Italy, Greece, England and various sites in the United States. Recently, she participated in Art Trek Tryon, and she is a member of Tryon Painters and Sculptors and The Upstairs Gallery.

The second workshop, to be held Saturday, July 21 from 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m., is entitled Batik on Paper and the instructor will be Christine Mariotti, a textile artist and watercolor painter. Mariotti said she is excited about this process because it combines painting skills with wax resists and the results are textural studies in light and dark.
Working from high-contrast photographs, the students will be able to analyze the light to dark areas and preserve them on gintaki rice paper with layers of color wash and wax. The rice paper is then wrapped on stretched canvas to make a finished piece that does not need to be framed.
Mariotti is well known for her painted silks and fabric batiks but enjoys working on paper and canvas as well. She recently returned from a watercolor workshop in Denver,  Colo., where she produced new work, some of which was exhibited at the Saluda Senior Center in June.
This one-day workshop will be held in the studios of Tryon Painters and Sculptors, 26 Maple Street in Tryon.
– article submitted by Pauline Ross