Watercolor Friday 04/13/2013

Popular theme this week as we painted the flowers in a old wooden wheel barrel. When looking for a photo to steal off the internet this week for my demo I came across several painted images of this theme. This painting kind of came together in the end as most of the students started to question my talent. In the end it turned out to be a nice little painting.

Watercolor Fridays 04/05/13

 Well I did not post this painting last week because I did not like it and wanted to see if I could
improve on it. Well I tried and feel like I failed. I hate to ever have to show a failed painting but here it is. It has a few nice parts but is clearly overworked, easy to do with watercolors. I could try some mixed media and turn it into something special perhaps!! Maybe I will try that next, onward and upward.

 I had a better time this week as I think this little painting turned out as planned. This week we focused on editing the information in front of us and simplify it. Take out any hard details you feel you can not pull off, like the details of the house or taking out a tree or two. In my plan I try to make big shapes and eliminate all tiny details. This was still lots of information to design and paint in the 3 hour class. And I painted the demo in half that time!

Watercolor Fridays 03/21/2013

     Thanksgiving is in the air and so we painted a bunny this week. I added a few white flowers and
created some warmth. Using Red and Green as complements I achieved harmony. I ended up working on this a bit after the class left that day. Until next weeks watercolor adventures!!!

Friday Watercolors 03/15/2013

   Something about a bridge that really speaks to me as an artist. I like the way the structure creates a frame for the landscape. This week I worked larger than usual at 10x15 inches. It slowed me down for sure. More information to put in at the larger size. I talked about overlapping shapes with in the landscape to create dimension and space. We worked on changing the image to make are own, with the use of color and reshaping the composition. Great fun for sure.

Watercolor Friday 03/01/2013

     So everyone loves a palm tree! This week I did my demo at 11x15 inches on a 140 pound cold press.I little large for the 1 hour and 30 minutes that I had to complete it. I usually work at half the size when doing a demo in this time frame. Working from a photo I got off the internet I decided to add some life and created a few people along the shore line. I never paint palms because I never get to places to get such great pictures of this kind of stuff. But when working with a class I feel it is not all about me and my pictures and the emotions of what I want to paint, so I often use pictures that are not mine.
     The lesson in painting the palm tree, was to simplify the tree into large shapes and not paint everything you see. And control the values to draw the viewers attention in the direction of the focal point. We also use complement colors to give harmony to the painting. Great fun, most people did not finish there paintings in class because of the size of the paintings were much bigger and that equals more work.