Morning Glories by my Students

This photo shows the wonderful Morning Glories that my Level One students painted recently. I think they did a great job!!!

They are learning how to work with their water to pigment ratio and how to control soft and crisp edges in watercolor. It is fun to build the illusion of three dimensional shapes with varying edges and values.
New classes are starting up in February in both watercolor and drawing. You can visit my website to learn more:  http://watercolorworksart.com/Classes.htm.

Student Work: Level 1 Watercolor Class

My Tuesday morning watercolor class has been working on mastering some brush strokes that create both crisp and soft edges. For this project we worked on morning glories from a photo reference that I brought in.

Ruth, Mike and Judy all have worked hard and the results are really beautiful paintings.

My snowbirds are leaving for the summer, so they will finish their pieces when they get home, but I am confident they will turn out great!
Nice work, guys!

Hibiscus Lesson Number 8

Sap Green, Aureolin Yellow, and New Gamboge combinations are used in light glazes to enhance the leaves. Glazing over the blue underpainting begins to soften the blue into simple, visual shadows of the top glaze of color. This glazing helps to unify the piece as well.


I have added some Burnt Sienna here and there in the background where stems appear and in very thin glazes on some of the leaves. This adds a bit of warmth to the entire area that surrounds the wildly warm flower.

I have also added another very light, watery glaze of Winsor Red to the flower head. I didn't cover every area, only those areas that needed a splash of warmth, especially in the shadowed areas.

Hibiscus Lesson Number 7

Continuing with the Hibiscus lesson. If you would like to see the previous posts, just visit them here on my blog!

The leaves: I used Permanent Sap Green and Hooker's Green to develop some of the initial glazes in the leaves. By using varying strengths of color and different colors I have created a variety of underglazes for building the next layers of color.



The variations help to provide luminosity and keep the piece from becoming stagnant, and boring. The different colors of cool and warm greens also help to pull some leaves visually forward and others draw back.

I added a glaze of Permanent Rose to the flower head, preserving a few white areas here and there. I added some Winsor Red to the pollen on the flower.

Hibiscus Lesson Number 3

Time to mix up a puddle of Aureolin Yellow. Apply this wash to any areas that will catch the light in your piece. I focused on the highlighted areas of the leaves. Vary your edges and values to add interest and depth to this underpainting glaze. The flower should be all warm, red and pink tones, so don't add yellow here. We'll save the flower for pinks. If you add yellow to the flower the next layers will turn orange.

If you would like to see the initial stages of this painting, please visit the previous postings.

New Lesson for This Weekend!

This piece, Pink Hibiscus, will be the next lesson here on my blog. If you would like to paint along, please visit my etsy shop (http://watercolorgirl.etsy.com). Click on the icon for the Online Class. For $5.00 I will send you a pdf of the drawing and photo reference. Then, you can visit back on a daily basis, or whatever is convenient for you, to paint along!
This piece was painted on a full sheet of watercolor paper, 23 x 30 inches, but you can also paint it smaller, if you like. The reference will be sent in a small format, which you may enlarge to full size.
Hope you can join us.

Hens and Chicks in Watercolor Number 3

I am now adding some greens and yellows to some areas where the sun is shining on the petals of the Hens and Chicks plant. I used Lemon Yellow, Aurolean Yellow and Permanent Sap Green. Again I used the same method of creating soft and crisp edges as in the last two applications.
I like to glaze colors and these first few glazes provide the foundation for the values of the entire painting.
My parents are visiting from Michigan and we have been having a lot of fun. I will be back to more daily painting in a few days when they head back home.