Horse of course...his name is Mr. ED

Ok he's not Mr. Ed! I grew up watching Mr. Ed and like any little girl always wanted to own a horse. It wasn't until I was an adult that I took English saddle riding lessons for almost a year. But like all good things coming to an end, so did my riding lessons. I fell off my horse and injured my already injured sciatica. So if I wanted to continue to ride I would have to get a chiropractic adjustment after each lesson. Needless-to-say I had to make a choice and said goodbye to riding.

This is my first horse watecolor I've done.

French Fruit Gateau Watercolor WIP Finished

I think I'm done. This was a rather quick watercolor for me to do. I used gouche on some of the berries, something I've never used before. Anyway, I'm pleased the way this painting turned.

French Fruit Gateau Watercolor WIP #1

I seem to be in a food painting mode. Last week I made a special trip down to Le Panier Very French Bakery http://www.lepanier.com in downtown Seattle which is located in Pike's Market. I went to take pictures of their pastries and cakes "Gateau". This little beauty caught my eye, so I bought the cake to paint. So for $25.00 you can say I'm definately into my art! I wasn't sure if it would last as I quickly sketched the Gateau.

This painting seems to be going rather quickly. I'm finding that if I have a good sketch worked out and a color swatch of the colors I plan to use, I move around the painting in no time at all. I've only worked on this maybe a total of 3 hours, considering this is a rather detailed painting.

Daniel Smith Watercolor Palette

When I took my 3 day watercolor workshop with Susie Short last weekend I could not find my box of watercolor paints. I moved last year and packed them away and have looked hi and low, but couldn't find them. I know I have them;it's frustrating knowning there in one of the boxes in garage. I must of had over a hundred tubes of paint from Winsor-Newton,Daniel Smith, Daler-Rowney, and Holbein. So for Susie's class I needed to buy new watercolor paints and a new palette. I can't complain because I love Daniel Smith's watercolors. And the fact that his store front is only a ferry ride away.

So here is a picture of my watercolor palette. I have the following colors going from right handside corner:
Hansa Yellow Medium, New Gamboge, Pyrol Orange,Quinacridona Coral, Alizarn Crimson, Quinacridone Rose, Quinacridona Violet, Cobalt Teal Blue,Indanthrone Blue, French Ultra-marine Blue, Colbatl Blue, Phthalo Blue, Sap Geen, Quinacridona Gold, Quinacridona Burnt Orange,Perylene Maroon, Under Sea Green, Burnt Sienna, Perm Brown, Raw Sienna,Yellow Ochre, and Naples Yellow.

I ran out of space...I still have 6 more tubes of paints...so I guess this means I need to go back to Daniel Smith for another palette!

Watercolors that I did at workshop

These are the two watercolors I did at the 3 day workshop.

The grove of aspens was done by masking out all the white areas I wanted to save. Then using a 1" flat brush loaded with watercolor paint I start dabbing the color in the various areas of the watercolor. After I layed in all the various colors, I went back and fine tuned the painting. The technique I used to do this painting was wet-on-wet. I'm not a big fan of wet-on-wet, but I can see how this method, one could produce a fast painting.

The 2nd painting of the Orange calla lilies was using the method of finding the different values using my value study. This painting was also done using wet-on-wet and then going back in adding the details.

Susie Short watercolor workshop .....New way to develop a watercolor painting

Last weekend I took a 3 day watercolor workshop with Susie Short.
http://www.susieshort.com
She taught the class a different way to find the different values of a photo and then paint from those values.

Using tracing paper...

1. Start with a line drawing.




2. Next find the darkest darks in photo and leave white and blacken everything else.





3. Third step is to find all the medium values of the photo and blacken everything else.





4. Fourth step is to find the lightest lights of the photo and blacken everything else.




After doing those 4 steps I was able to find the different values and to produce my watercolor.

This is a different way of finding values, a little labor intensive, but I can see how this can work.