I started my 5-week class at a very nearby community arts center yesterday. I don’t like the set-up as much as the fancier arts center where I took my first watercolors class in the fall. The room is nice and sunny, but it’s quite crowded and no sinks. You have to use the restroom in the hall to get water and rinse your brushes.
The people seem nice. It’s a similar vibe to my first class. Lots of retired people who re-register each semester because they like the teacher and have gotten to know one another.
The difference is that we all paint the same subject each week, with the teacher giving a demo for each step. It’s not exactly a recipe for developing one’s own unique creative voice, but I’m sure I’ll learn some stuff by painting along with a pro.
It’s surprisingly hard to make a chick’s face look “not mean.” I think the spotted Easter eggs help a bit.
In case you didn’t hear (because you were at work or something), those of us in the U.S. without jobs were faced with an Olympic dilemma this afternoon. We had to choose between watching the US v Canada women’s ice hockey Gold Medal game OR the women’s figure skating long program finals. They occurred simultaneously. So, if you wanted to watch them live, you had to choose.
Truth be told, it was not a hard decision for me. There is no world in which I would choose to watch a hockey game over figure skating—even a women’s hockey game. I mean, go hockey girls, but I’ll take spins and jumps and rhinestone-covered costumes over slashing, bashing, and hitting the boards any day of the week.
Even so, I was reluctant to get too invested in the women’s figure skating finals after the gut punch of the men’s. I was able to watch the first group of skaters live at my daughter’s house and was heartened that my favorite American skater, Amber Glenn, redeemed herself after a bad short program. (Still, it was highly unlikely she’d get a medal.) After Amber, I had to drive home and was on the road during several of the top skaters performances, including Alysa Liu. But by the time I got home and turned on the TV, Alysa was in first place with only two Japanese skaters left to go. The Japanese skaters weren’t perfect and Alysa held on to the top spot and won the GOLD! The free spirit from Oakland with face piercings and crazy Zebra-striped hair came out on top. SO COOL.
I later watched her performance on the primetime version of the Games and it was awesome. She skates with such wild joy and abandon, crazy hair flying. She’s really the opposite of a traditional ice princess. (It almost made up for the Quad God fiasco.)
Definitely look up Alysa’s Gold Medal skate, if you didn’t see it yet. And her backstory is just as good as her skating. Check out the piece 60 Minutes did on her here.
Almost done with my Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon.
“Lady Monstera” and her little dog 🐶
Berries and Cyprus
I painted the center flower as one big wet boundary, but I think it might’ve looked cooler if painted each petal separately. Would’ve taken longer though!
OK, so my artists pens came and I was able to outline the designs. I intentionally left some small edges unpainted as highlights.
Round leaf eucalyptus
For the next one, the workbook offered two options. Leave the leaves and stems unpainted:
Foxglove
Or wash them with three different colors (slate, sage and stone):
Foxglove
My husband says the first one looks unfinished, but I kind of like it better. Do you really need to have every bit of the surface painted to give the vibe of a certain plant?
I’ve run into a bit of a problem with my Watercolors Workbook. The book is designed to have you ink the outlines of the various botanicals before painting. I did that with my pen and ink set, but too late discovered that my ink is not waterproof! The ink went everywhere once I hit it with the watercolor paint. I decided to try inking AFTER painting but I don’t love the result:
Long leaf eucalyptus. You can see that the ink was hard to control in some areas.
I then tried one without inking at all. It’s OK, but I decided to go ahead and order some waterproof black artists pens, as the author suggested.
Dahlia
I like some of the techniques I learned doing the eucalyptus and the dahlia: leaving some areas white to highlight; darkening petal bases with wet in wet color (dark into light); and layering over dry paint with a different color for a cool, translucent effect.
As I posted about (a lot), I took a watercolors class last semester and really enjoyed it. I got a lot of nice feedback, both in person and from the very supportive readers of my blog. I put a couple of my paintings in frames (frames that I already owned—not new ones), and my daughter even hung one set of 5x7s on the wall in her living room.
I decided to register for another watercolors class this semester, with a different teacher. Even though I liked my teacher last semester, I wanted to try someone else because I feel like you learn different things from different teachers—especially in the arts. But, lo and behold, the class I chose was canceled due to under-enrollment. So, lesson learned: some arts teachers have followings. If you choose one who doesn’t have regulars (people who re-enroll each term), your class might get canceled.
Rather than scrambling to find another class, I took the refund.
But, I do want to keep going so I’m doing a watercolor “workbook” that my very thoughtful daughter gave me for Christmas.
It focuses on botanicals (which is a sub genre of watercolors, like landscapes) and is fairly structured, compared to the free spirit teacher I had last semester. I’m sure I’ll learn some new things. First step was to swatch out all my colors and then mix new colors according to the author’s recipes.
Phew – I mixed all her colors using the paint set I already own. Most came out pretty close.
Yesterday was the last week of my 8-week class called “Loosen up with Watercolors” at our local (amazing) community arts center.
Against advice from the teacher, I attempted to paint a portrait of someone I know and love: my granddaughter. The reference photo (taken by my daughter) was from last summer when my granddaughter was 9 months old. (She’s walking now!)
I had the idea to use wine bottle webbing in the background for her playpen siding.
I had fun doing this, but I get why the teacher said not to paint family members as a total beginner. You’re too attached to the subject!
I want to learn how to make smooth skin tones, but I was too afraid to experiment on her adorable little face. I will try a stranger again next time, like that random chef from a magazine, which was my first ever watercolor portrait.
After my frustrating experience with complementary colors and sunsets, I made some gradients to try to better understand my color options.
I have no pink. Alizarin Crimson can work as pink when diluted or mixed with Purple Lake.
I decided I do not like Cadmium Orange and will avoid it in the future.
Today the teacher gave a dog portrait painting demo (something she earns money doing) and then everyone worked on whatever they wanted. I decided to go back to my rail trail painting and see if I can make it better by adding more layers. A woman loaned me a sea sponge for applying paint to get a certain effect (like fall leaves), so that was fun. I hope to finish that painting by the last class next week. I also want to try one more portrait before the end of the session.
Although there are definitely some shared techniques in watercolor painting (like lifting paint to lighten areas), a lot of the learning seems to come from trialanderror. Our teacher is self-taught and she swears she learned everything she knows (and she knows a lot) by just trying it. As she says, “it’s just a piece of paper.”
These are her top tips:
Painting Progressions
Light to Dark
Loose to detailed
Big to small brushes
Tealike to Creamy
90% to 10% of surface active painting to observing
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Update:
Here’s my “Rail Trail” with the additional layers. I do like it better now.
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