This is Little Bear. She was a best friend to my sister’s family for years and years. I remember the first time I ever saw her. She was hanging upside down on a gutter outside the family room window and had grabbed a small wooden birdhouse, hanging there, between her front paws. She was peering into the hole in it. I laughed so hard.
I painted her once before here.
We just completed our fall beginning drawing class.
We began with blind continuous line drawing.
Audrey Schultheis
We progressed to continuous and broken line drawing…
Joel Harmeyer
…with an emphasis on cross contour and form:
Andrea Harneyer2
We studied and drew objects that had negative space that helped define their shape.
Betty Bercot3
Andrea Harmeyer5
We studied perspective and drew interiors.
Audrey Schultheis4
We studied value from still life…
Betty Bercot6
…and photos:
Dawn Amstutz 4
We practiced all our skills the last night of class using an Elegant Writer” calligraphy pen to create a line a wash drawing.
Dawn Amstutz6
Joel Harmeyer5
If you would like to view more examples of their work click here.
Thank you to all the students who agreed to share their work here!
Every fall we begin our watercolor classes with a portrait class.
Ruth Karau
Dianna Burt3
We painted people portraiture.
Beth Akey5
Cindy Guzik
We painted animal portraits.
Marilyn Bultemeier
Janet Heffley
We grunged backgrounds and painted portraits right on that grunged paper.
Discussions included facial features, skin tones and color theory, composition as it relates to portraiture, and two ways to approach a portrait in watercolor.
If you would like to see all the examples of portraits painted by these artists click here or scroll to the top of the blog and click on the page labeled Student Art: Watercolor Portrait 2016.
Thank you to all my students who share their work here!
I don’t know why I like working on a background that has marks on it already. The above two paintings were drawn and created on watercolor paper that I had “grunged” with coffee, ink, and applied gesso to in advance. Here is a post that describes the process.
It is not just the challenge of working on a surface that has been disturbed that I find interesting. It is examining the marks and finding a subject that they work with or discovering new ways of working with or around abstract marks. It is seeing that all these marks can increase the feeling of depth in some paintings.
The top painting is Teddy, my dog. The bottom one is a self portrait.
Leslie White 