This article is the fifth in a series about creating paintings with more emotion, power and personal meaning. Here are links to the first four: Is My Painting Done? Are You a “Photocopier”? There’s a Better Way The Lazy Way to Build Painting Confidence Painless Watercolor Planning, Part 1: Exploratory Drawing I’ve broken up my…
This article is the fourth in a series about creating paintings with more emotion, power and personal meaning. Here are links to the first three: Is My Painting Done? Are You a “Photocopier”? There’s a Better Way The Lazy Way to Build Painting Confidence I know that taking the time to do some planning would…
This article is the third in a series. The preceding articles are: Is My Painting Done? Are You a “Photocopier”? There’s a Better Way In response to the last article, a reader made a couple of excellent points about why it’s sometimes difficult to deviate from a reference photo: lack of confidence, and the planning…
This article is the second in a series. To read the first article, “Is My Painting Done?”, click here. In the next few articles in this series, I’ll introduce some ideas you can use to help you plan paintings that are more expressive, powerful and meaningful to you. What do I mean by being a…
This article is the first of a series on creating more powerful, personal and expressive paintings. When I teach watercolor classes or workshops, there is often a moment where a student comes up to me, thrusts a painting into my face and demands: Tell me what’s wrong with it. What do I need to fix?…
Even if you do as I do and have a “(home)base palette” of 8 or 9 colors, there are times when you want to bring in other colors for a particular painting or series. Here’s how I do it to make sure I still have color harmony.
Some strategies I use to manage the overwhelming amount of information when painting on location, so sketching enhances my enjoyment, instead of raising my stress level. And so I have a better chance of coming back with photos and sketches that I can actually use to create satisfying, personally meaningful paintings.
Some tips for creating bold, lively florals in watercolor.
I demonstrate some of my favorite mixtures for grey, including a secret for mixing greys to create a sense of warm light glowing behind the edges of clouds.
Several different options for light, packable watercolor sketching kits, and a few tips for selecting a manageable subject from the sometimes overwhelming wealth of options when working on location.
So many of us are over-busy, stressed and fully occupied with just getting a few more things crossed off our to-do lists. Deep down, we know we need a way to keep our thinking creative and flexible. We need a way to recharge and get back in touch with our dreams. But we get stuck on the “not enough time/space/skill” stumbling blocks. Creative Energy Journaling is a collection of the activities and practices I use and share with my students to keep my creative energy flowing even when life is biting me in the butt!
In the last post, I offered some tips for mixing natural-looking landscape greens, the first of which was “avoid tube greens involving phthalo green”. So, what do you do with the phthalo green (and mixtures using it) you already have? The secret is to tame it a bit so it works for you instead of…
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