The Giant Blue

The above painting was created for an assignment I gave for my composition class. I asked them to create a flower like they have never seen before and ad a number and word or letters. It was designed to get them ready for our watercolor and collage class that began last week. I designed my flower from Fuschia and added things and decided to go giant with it. I need to do more of this. Those of you who follow my site might remember we had an assignment last year that was to create a tree like you have never seen before. You can view that here.

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Spring Sing

HAPPY SPRING EVERYONE!

New Student Art: Creative Challenge

Henn Laidroo3

Every year my watercolor students take a class titled Creative Challenge. It is the six weeks of every year we try new things and learn about the guidelines of composition. It is the one class that I try to assign interesting and challenging assignments to encourage them to be creative. We always review center of interest and the Rule of Thirds (finding the “sweet spot”) so we know where to locate the best place for our center of interest.

We review value and division of space, shape, texture, color, and line. We study ways to attract attention through emphasis or exaggeration at the center of interest, repetition, simplifying a composition and enhancing movement or color.

Here are some examples:

Nancy Longmate4

The above illustrates movement and division of space.

Melissa Scare2

The above piece was created using repetition and to fulfill an assignment where the title of the painting was to be “Way Cool Cat”.

Judy Notestine4

The above is a good example of simplifying a scene.

Linda Flatley

Sue Mendenhall5

The above paintings are examples of creative ways to use shapes in a painting.

If you would like to view other examples of the student paintings from this class click here.

Three Paintings; One Post

The above painting required some planning. I had a photographic reference sent to me from my daughter of this cat laying on his back, his favorite pose. I tried to lay it out and come up with some way to paint him that might be interesting, other than just him in paint. I finally decided on using another reference photo where there were a large assortment of overlapping grasses and combined the two. I also decided to use a sheet of masa paper to enhance the texture and maybe create more interest. I have a tutorial on how to prepare and use masa paper with watercolor here.

The above is my take on a lunar landscape.

The above painting is a gouache resist. I was attempting to create a composition using shapes. I describe how to create a gouache resist here.