Crystal in Sepia II

For those who have followed my blog for awhile, you will recognize this as a sepia crystal bowl I did in either 2008 or 2009. I did this as a demo painting for my watercolor class yesterday. I usually don't like to paint a painting more than once, usually the excitement is spent the first time. But, I enjoyed this one as much the second time as the first. Maybe that is because it was such fun seeing the expressions on the faces of the students when I lifted that bowl shape out of the brown background. They had an equal amount of fun and wonder when they did their own paintings of this bowl. It was a good day!

I wish to thank Vicki once again for being such a good friend that she did a variety of set-ups using this bowl, photographed them and sent them to me to choose the preferred reference photo. All of this just because I asked her pretty please! ! What a friend!

Rooftop Splendor

We had another super-dooper sunrise this morning and I just have to share these. I shot them on the sunrise/sunset setting on the camera, but did not do any post-enhancements...it was just this vivid!

I hope these clouds on the horizon hold for tomorrow, when we can go out on the desert and shoot the sunrise. Shooting sunrises over rooftops doesn't quite get it!

Rainbow at Sunset

We have had so many cloudy days here for two weeks, and yesterday was no different. We did not get any rain in this part of the valley, but clouds all day long. My hair has "flippies" all over now! Last night at sunset, Tom went out to check the mail and came in to tell me about a two-part rainbow over the northern and southern skies, to our east. I grabbed the camera and took this, the southern part. The whole center of the rainbow was obscured by heavy clouds.

I will post photos of the paintings I am working on this weekend. I have two I am reworking and one I will be finishing after the intermediate watercolor class today. Fun.

Blue Moon

I painted this Blue Moon painting for one of the January projects for the Watercolor Workshop. It is 11 x 14 and painted on Aquaboard, or mine was so old it was still called clayboard for watercolor.

Candied Apple

This is a candied apple, a project painting for the Watercolor Workshop. I decided this needed to be painted on Yupo, but after seeing all the wonderful candied apple paintings on watercolor paper I am not so sure. This has been a fun project, with many participating this time.

Misty Morning Final

I finished fiddling with this and will get it matted and wrapped before the next watercolor class. It is okay for a demo painting, I always think I could do better with more time than three hours to demo a painting.

Misty Morning Demo - WIP

I have been asked again to teach a watercolor class at my community Art Club, this time for intermediate watercolorists. Yesterday was our first class and it went well, was a lot of fun, and hopefully inspired the eleven students in the class.

Since this was the first class and they arrived without drawings already on their paper, I wanted to show them they could paint without any drawing at all, just draw with the paint brush. Some were doubtful, and missed their detailed drawings, but all finished with acceptable paintings and, like I said, had fun doing it. That is one of my main goals, to get them away from the frustration and find the fun!

Before next week's class, I plan to ponder this one and add a few things. For one thing, I want to have a few more elements in the misty middle ground and add a darker value, still, in the foremost foreground.

More later...