A Blue Whale, Bateleur Eagle and some “Little People”

The above painting began as an abstract. I applied alternating color washes and torn pieces of rice papers, allowing each layer to dry. After each layer dried, I rotated my board and looked for something realistic in the patterns that were created by the washes and papers. When I located the whale, I began layering and painting to bring that imagery forward. It is one of my favorite ways to work. Here is the one I did last year.

The above painting began with a detailed drawing of the Bateleur Eagle but took several layers of watercolor and rice papers to bring the image to completion. The head feathers, face and yellow beak are watercolor. The wing and back feathers are torn pieces of rice paper with watercolor painted into them. I thank wet canvas for the reference image for this collage painting.

I love painting “Little People” !

New Student Art: Beginning Watercolor Sprin 2016

Beginning Watercolor class ended this week, too.

Jane Coffee

The first week included an explanation of supplies and how they were to be used. We practiced wet-in -wet, wet on dry and drybrush applications. We talked about how to create darks and that a solid color is always more beautiful if more than one color is allowed to mix on the paper rather than the palette. We discussed allowing the water to do the work and become our partner.

Megan Mills2

The second class was devoted to learning the color wheel and the basic color combinations. I taught them how to crop and then grid a photo reference and their watercolor format for the difficult perspective paintings.

Marilyn Bultemeyer4

The third week we talked about different ways to render trees. I introduced and demonstrated the use of liquid friskit, salt, saran wrap, scumbling, Pointillism, sponging and using a rigger for tiny branches.

“Kat” Franke4

Dawn Amstutz

The fourth week we talked about buildings, their perspective, how they are put together with shapes and to look for their cast shadows and how the foliage may fit around them.

Betty Bercot5

The fifth week was devoted to learning to paint “little” people to insert into our landscape paintings.

On the last night of class, I introduced the “Elegant Writer” Calligraphy pen and how it could be used with watercolor.

If you would like to view other examples of their work click here or scroll to the top of the page and click on the Student Art: Beginning Watercolor spring 2016 page.

Thank you to all the students who participated and shared their artwork here.

 

 

 

 

 

New Student Art: Citrasolv, Rice Paper and Watercolor Collge

My watercolor and collage class just ended . This is probably the most time consuming, creative and experimental class I teach.

Susie Covitt

Laura Lindsay

The above collage paintings were created using watercolor and Citrasolv collage papers that we made from treating National Geographic photos with Citrasolv. If you would like to know how to make these papers, click here.

Midge Wallace5

Next we created abstracts by experimenting with the different textured rice papers we had purchased and layering watercolor and rice papers, one atop the other. We payed attention to elements of design as well as attempting to create a center of interest. The purpose of this assignment was to get used to the use of the papers, pigment and glue.

Jan Reche4

Cindy Guzik3

The next week we began much the same way with layers of pigment and rice papers and searched our compositions for something representational and developed it to portray what we saw. Both of the first exercises were free of any reference material until we saw something begin to appear. If we needed a reference, it was only to be used to help us bring what we saw forward.

Dianna Burt2

Beth Akey6

For the final week, we created something realistic with watercolor and rice paper collage.

If you would like to view all the watercolor collage paintings created by this class, click here or scroll to the top of the page and click on the page Student Art: Watercolor and Collage.