How to Use This Course
Since people will come to this course with a wide variety of backgrounds, each project has
- preliminary skill videos demonstrating the essential skills for each project
- supplemental videos addressing common questions and some handy tricks for optional steps in the projects
- two videos for each project, one about the design and planning process and one step-by-step paint-along video for the project painting itself
- a collection of downloadable templates, reference photos, “cheat sheet” handouts to remind you of core concepts, and information about the supplies and materials I’m using in the videos.
Please watch the preliminary and supplemental videos to learn the techniques before attempting the project video!
The project videos DO NOT INCLUDE explanations of the skills and techniques taught in the preliminary and supplemental lessons. There is far too much material to cover all the skills for each project within the project video itself. The project videos only show how the skills and techniques you are learning might be applied to a painting.
Download links for handouts, templates and reference photos are included in the lesson where they are used, below the lesson video.
Course Content
Preliminaries
Project 1 — Crescent Moon in a Pre-Dawn Sky
Course Content
Preliminaries
Project 1 — Crescent Moon in a Pre-Dawn Sky
- Project 1 Overview & Handouts
- How and Why to Stretch Your Watercolor Paper
- How to Mix Watercolor Washes for Larger Areas
- How to Print Photos and Templates Poster-Size (Using Adobe Acrobat)
- How to Resize Rectangles Proportionally (with no calculating)
- A Less-Messy Way to Spatter Watercolor Paint and Masking Fluid
- Three Ways to Mask a Crescent Moon
- Project 1 Design and Planning
- Project 1 Paint-Along
- Working With Reference Photos for Skies
Project 2 — Dramatic Clouds at the Beach
- Project 2 Overview & Handouts
- Color Mixing for Skies and Clouds in Watercolor (Daytime Skies)
- Three Ways to Create Clouds in Watercolor by Lifting
- Working on Saturated Paper to Practice Wet-into-Wet Techniques
- Painting Dark Clouds on a Lighter-Value Sky
- Using Multiple Washes to Create Clouds Layers
- Painting Light Clouds on a Darker-Value Sky Using Negative Painting Wet-Into-Wet
- Preserving Soft-Edged Highlights with a Gum Arabic Resist
- Project 2 Design and Planning
- Project 2 Paint-Along