Color-mixing is often discussed as if the only consideration is getting “the right color”, but watercolor pigments each have their own physical and chemical properties. This video presents some activities to help you develop a more sophisticated understanding of color-mixing so you become better at choosing and mixing pigments to create the artistic effects—including perceived color—you desire.
Negative painting requires us to find shapes that are “not things”. Our brains resist! In this demo, I’ll show you a few strategies you can use to help yourself make that mental shift!
Just for fun, a quick little video “road trip” with scenes from my travels up and down the west coast in The Tiny Escape, my trusty camper van.
Sketchbook Pro is a great tool for quickly planning changes to a painting in progress, and it’s free. This video introduces the small set of features I use in my planning process, so you can get started quickly without having to go through a lot of features you don’t need.
Wild and garish? Sure, but I can always paint over it (or parts of it) later. For now, it has the same effect on me as opening a brand-new box of 64 Crayolas. Just what I needed to get me past the “winter blues”!
Considering why you are painting, in general or this particular painting, can help you create work with more impact and get more enjoyment and satisfaction out of the process.
When the Big Pile of Nope in your studio gets too big and discouraging, it’s time to go mining!
Fun and easy halloween postcard with a sense of glowing light.
30 min.
Getting light color values in watercolor works a little differently than in other mediums, since watercolor is transparent. In watercolor, we rely on the white color of the paper to give us our lighter values, meaning that a watercolorist’s main options are reserving or recovering whites. This article lists some of the strategies you can use to reserve and recover whites and light values.
An introduction to painting glass in watercolor, and a bit more practice with negative painting and soft-edged shadows to show “white” objects.
60 min.
Learn how to create the effect of big waves crashing against rocks, and also an easy way to add small figures to your postcards for scale and interest (no drawing ability required!).
22 min.
Learn to simplify the complexity of a sunrise (or sunset) to make it work for a postcard. We’ll create a variety of sunrise skies and add landscapes to turn them into finished postcards. You’ll learn about creating delicate graduated sky washes that glow with light, and capture a bit of the character of a sunrise sky without getting overwhelmed.
40 min.
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