Student Art: Watercolor Landscape and Adv. Watercolor, 2nd Session

Sheila Boneham3

Tammy Enrietto4

Laura Nellum2

Rachel Peterson

Posted above, are four paintings from the 2018 session of watercolor landscape. We studied creating a center of interest, use of value and division of space, color, using masking fluid, techniques for clouds, skies, water and trees. We discussed buildings and learned technique for painting “little people in our landscapes. If you would like to view the gallery of all 27 landscape paintings please click here.

Jan Reche2

John Kelty2

Robert Einhaus

Ruth Karau

Linda Flatley2

The above paintings were created by artists in the 2nd session of adv. watercolor this fall. This is a group of artists who have completed all the other classes and still want to come together to learn from one another.  They are to create 3 paintings each six week session and they share and critique their work at the end of every meeting. I serve as a mentor or helper. If you would like to see the entire gallery of their work, this session, please click here.

Thank you to all of the artists who shared their work here.

New Student Art Fall 2018

Three art classes ended this past week.  I thank all of my students who have agreed to share their art on this post and within the gallery pages listed above. I am very lucky to be able to witness the growth and creativity in all of these artists.

Henn Laidroo

Cindy Guzik

Nancy Longmate

The above three paintings are from the Advanced Watercolor Class. This class is for the students who have completed the other classes I teach. They come together on Monday nights and work on paintings of their own choice. They have more time and freedom to explore techniques I have taught or research on their own and try something new. There is always a critique at the end of each class and the students share new ideas with one another. To view the Advanced Watercolor Student Gallery click Here.

Dionne Carter2

Jennifer Hope

Mary Anne Berron

This grouping of paintings are from the Watercolor Portrait class. They could work on people, animals and / or figures. They studied portrait composition, value, skin tone, measurement and features. To view the Student Portrait Gallery click Here.

James Toole
Blind Continuous Line

Joseph Quinlisk2
Study in Perspective

Elaine Lehman4
Value Study

The above drawings are from the Beginning Drawing class. They work so hard. They learn how to turn their left brains off and draw in blind continuous line and feel their way around and over a form. They learn the elements of perspective and how to make various marks for value. They practice drawing from life and from photos. They learn to grid and to draw themselves and each other. They also work on several still life arrangements. If you would like to view the Beginning Drawing Student Gallery click Here.

A Pool and a Beach

This is my second attempt of the Granddaughters at our favorite swimming place, Jury Pool. I wanted to try and capture the bright light and the feel of being at the pool in the summer. Also wanted to try and capture the landscape of the pool, people, umbrellas and building in the background. Before my advanced class left for our winter break, I asked them to create a painting with three or more people in it. They will share this painting when we start up in February.

 

The above watercolor sketch was done as a demo for painting little people in my landscape and beginning classes this fall.

Student Art: Watercolor Portrait 2017

Tammy Enrietto

Our 2017 portrait class just ended. In this class, we studied painting parts of the subject we planned to paint the first week. Students were told they could paint figures and animal portraits as well. Everyone learned to grid their reference photo and paper to assist with proportion and likeness. They studied skin tones and laying color next to color and softening edges. They studied composition as it relates to portraiture. We also covered proper placement of eyes, nose, ears and mouth as they appear on a baby, pre-teen, teen and adult. If you would like to see examples of their work click here. Thank you to all my students who took part in this class and shared their work here.

New Gouache Resists

 

The paintings, above, are gouache resists. It is a process involving the use of ink, white gouache and watercolor. I enjoy experimenting with all sorts of images when I create these. They all turn out different. If you would like to try this I have a tutorial here.

My Grandchildren have been back and forth this summer sharing all sorts of activities with me. This summer I taught them how to grid a portrait from a photo reference, size their format for proper dimensions and grid their watercolor paper to help them draw their Dad’s.

The following is what they came up with.

9 year old

The photo reference for the above portrait was from a Christmas photo.

10 year old

The above photo is the same Dad as the 9 year old’s but at a recent rock concert (making a funny face).

11 year old

Photo taken at rock concert.

I was amazed how easily they caught on to gridding and how happy they were when they saw they could see where to put their drawing lines in relation to the grid lines. They needed very little help from me. Noses and mouths were what they needed help with, but not much. We used a very simple grid and  divided the paper into 9 sections. I have described how to do this in this post. It was a great exercise in math. They were able to see how math can be important in everyday activities. Children soak things like this up so quickly!

 

Student Art: Spring 2017

Laura Butchko

Kara Morris3

Jim Wulpi5

 

Jan Reche

Diana Ringer2

Linda Flatley2

The above paintings are just a few from the spring classes in watercolor this year.

The beginning class learns about their supplies, basic techniques in application such as wet-in-wet, wet on dry and dry brushing. They learn about color combinations and value, texture and techniques to enhance texture. They learn to use masking fluid. We talk about things we need to be concerned with when painting trees, clouds, buildings and little people. If you would like to view more of the Beginning Watercolor  paintings,  there is a temporary gallery set up here.

The Watercolor Plus class worked on six different mixed media approaches with watercolor. They painted on masa paper. They worked with ink and watercolor and chose all sorts of different techniques with ink. One example using ink might be this technique. They used citrasolv collage and watercolor. They used white gouache to glaze a painting. They did a gouache resist.  Everyone painted on a textured gesso surface they created.

If you would like to view a gallery of the  Watercolor Plus class paintings click here.

Thank you to all my students who attend my classes and share their art here!

For the Birds!

My Watercolor Plus class has been working away on trying to complete a painting a week; each one using a different medium with watercolor.

The photo reference for the above painting came from one of my students. Thank you to Dawn!

If you enlarge the above painting times three,  you will be able to see

the different rice papers I used for the nest leaves and grasses and the citrasolve collage papers I used for the adult bird’s feathers.  Just another way I enjoy working with watercolor.

For more on citrasolv click here. For more on rice papers and watercolor click here.

Monochromatic, and other Watercolors

quinachridone burnt orange

paynes gray

sepia

The above series of paintings were an experiment in value. The top three were painted using only one color. It is not as easy as it looks. I had read in several watercolor books about trying this and then painting the scene in color. I did that with the desert scene. It was very helpful  for the desert scene because the reference I used for it was very blurry and mostly mid tones. It was so bad that I could not decipher colors very well. By having done a value study, before hand, the actual color painting worked out really well.

The above is a painting I did on a grunge background. I have a tutorial for this technique here.

I had a wet canvas reference photo for this laying around for about a year. I had found it in the industrial photos and have no idea what it is. It looked too difficult for me to even attempt and the colors in the photo were really dull.  I took this on as a challenge and tried to make it a little more interesting by brightening the color and paying attention to how I rendered all the different shapes.

Thank you for visiting as I have not been as present lately.

Little Bear 2

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.

Students’ Watercolor Portraits

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!