Watercolor canvas demo

After drawing out my basic outlines, I put in the first wash of color on the water and the sky. Permanent rose and prussian blue.

Next i put in the distant mountains.

Third step was blocking in the closer shorelines. Prussian blue and burnt seinna for the second point, and then yellow ochre, burnt sienna and a touch of sepia for the closer shorelines and rocks.

Next I started working on the water. I scrubbed out the lighter areas and then dropped in the darker areas.Still prussian blue and permanent rose.

You can see the mountains need adjusting, the clouds need adjusting. I worked on those issues and dropped some more color in the closer shoreline.

This is where I've left off for now. I hope to have it finished by the end of the week. Today is class and hopefully we'll get the river painting done and start on something else. No class last week, snow day!

More portrait practice

I hope this woman never see's this blog! At least it's starting to look more like her.

This is still on lower quality paper. The skin looks terribly overworked even though it shouldn't. I ordered some Fabriano and more watercolor canvas so the next one will be on better quality paper. Hopefully that will let the paint flow a littler better so it won't look so over worked. Face is proportioned better, mouth is  a little off to the one side. Still much improved, I'm happy with the progress.

Watercolor canvas progress

I don't think I will be going to Missoula today for painting class, blizzard conditions and lot's of people out there that don't know how to drive in snow conditions. If this happened 20 years ago I wouldn't hesitate about going to class. Now with so many transplants from warm weather states it's not safe to head out in the first big storm of the season.  Just heard on the television, all schools in Missoula are closed, that settles that!
Here's where we left it after last Tuesday class after a little more tweaking. Marcia was going to show us how to us the air brush on it, but equipment failure put an end to that.

There is a weird reflection on this picture. I used the tripod but need to figure out how to change the lighting to get rid of the flash.

Back to a landscape

Finished this one off yesterday. Still a little blurry even though I used a tripod. I think I'll try the other camera next time. As I look at it on the screen, I think I need to enlarge the palm tree and make it hang down and break the horizon line. This was from a photo I took in Puerto Armuelles, Panama, flowering fences.

Portrait practice

Since I get bored with landscapes so quickly, I did a little portrait practice today. I did one on the watercolor canvas, already washed that off. Here's the first one,

I am not Charles Reid, I need to back off the funky color choices for now! And here's the third one, second one was the one that got washed off.

Class painting

This is what we worked on in class. Everyone is doing the same picture, we received a black and white printout and pretty much painted along with Marcia. This one really is this pink, I got carried away with the rose. It is not finished, we will work more on it next Tuesday. Still a little blurry.

I've touched up the sky, lightened the background mountain and adjusted some light areas. Not the best I've ever done but not bad for my first attempt with watercolor canvas.

Practice

Played with the watercolor canvas yesterday. I tried part of one of the lessons from the Charles Reid DVD, painted upright and wetter and looser then the balloon painting. I think this will work with a looser style. Class today in the afternoon.

Introduction

I recently turned fifty and thought to myself, so now what? We've shut the business down to almost nothing. no more fishing trips this year, no company this winter. I have time! Time to get back to my art work. For my birthday I bought "Charles Reid's 10 Lesson Course" on watercolors, lovely. Excellent DVD and I am learning ton's and remembering ton's! This is the style I think I want to work towards, so loose and colorful.

As another challenge to myself I've signed up for a class on watercolor canvas, taught by Marcia Bellowe. So different then working on paper. I'd never heard of the product until I saw it in the class catalog. It was the only painting class during daylight hours so I signed up. Now I need to figure out if I can bring that loose, colorful style to the watercolor canvas.

 

It is not as pink as it is showing up on here. Over all I'm pleased with it considering I haven't painted on a regular bases for the last 15 years.

Here's a closeup of what can happen with watercolor canvas.

It's a little blurry, more practice with the camera is needed. I had to fix the shape of the balloon, you can see where the paint lifted. Also I had some green on my hand and that transfered to the painting. I'll try to fix both issue's.