29 Faces: Day 6

I wanted to try some watercolor for this one.

29 Faces: Day 2

I got started a little late today on the challenge. I decided to try something different. I painted my Goddaughter using coffee. After I got started I wished I had used watercolor paper....next time.

process:

Watercolor

Recreation of a colored pencil piece in watercolors:

Some rock practice:

Trying a jungle leaf:

Watercolor Course - Indianapolis Art Center

I finally decided to sign up for a 7 week watercolor course at the Indianapolis Art Center. I chose "Explore the Joys of Watercolor," with Irina Smulevitch.
The first class was pretty low key, going over supplies, as well as the characteristics of some of the colors in our palette. She painted a demonstration of a sky and simple landscape, urging us to practice several different skies as well as a simple landscape using only one color to concentrate on our values.

One of the main reasons I've wanted to learn watercolor (besides learning the unique effects it produces and how the medium behaves) was to loosen my painting style. I tried to paint the skies with loose strokes, avoiding overworking. 

In this value piece (used only Mars Brown), I started out all right with the sky, but then I feel I overworked the landscape. Still need to learn how to place effective brush strokes and knowing when to stop.

Watercolor with family

My grandmother is visiting. We got together with my mom and had a little "class". Even though I didn't completely know what I was doing, I took them step-by-step to paint their own watercolor scene (first tracing the image from a book). I think they did great!

Watercolor card

A friend's mother passed away recently, so I wanted to make a watercolor card. I wanted to keep it simple, so I went with an almost pattern feel and let the fluidity of the medium give it creativity.

 

Watercolor workshop

Went to a watercolor painting workshop (taught by Gayle Jones) with my mom yesterday; had a blast! She brings all the materials and pre-draws what everyone will be painting so we can concentrate on the painting techniques (she does step-by-step instruction).

Watercolor -- practice 2

I decided to practice painting a sky and water scene. Beginning by wetting the sky area, I dropped in some blues and greens and let them bleed together. I lifted out cloud shapes with a paper towel and continued with the ocean section. I used a toothbrush to splatter color and, since I haven't yet bought white gouache or masking fluid to keep areas white, I added a little white acrylic paint for the wave spray.
I still have a tendency to overwork the piece.

Watercolors -- beginning

I've been wanting to learn to use watercolors because they are so incredibly unpredictable and create so many interesting effects (which I haven't quite been able to replicate digitally --somewhat, but not completely). I want to stay away from the picture realism style and lean more towards the freeness that encourages the unpredictability of this medium.
Deciding to start with something simple, I chose tree silhouettes. After making a loose sketch I began layering on colors, letting them blend and then lifting out color with a scrunched paper towel.
I'm not ecstatic with the result, but still feel it was a good start.

Watercolor class

My mom and I took a 3 hour watercolor class this morning from Gayle Jones. It was quite enjoyable (and stress-free,  as the image was given to us pre-drawn on our Arches paper). I thought we did all right for a first try! It was a step-by-step instruction class, so mostly to see how the paint behaves.