Loosen Up Your Watercolor Painting—Here’s an Exercise to Try
Every time I lead a class or workshop, more than half of the participants mention the goal of “loosening up”. Here’s a skill-building exercise to help you move in that direction.
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Planning a watercolor, part 2: Using subpaintings
A subpainting is a small excerpt of the larger painting, used to solve a problem in isolation, make stylistic choices or try creative alternatives. Think “Crop, don’t shrink!” It’s also a great way to find a quick and easy postcard idea inside a more complex image.
Union of Opposites
Often, we mentally place two qualities, choices, or even people, in opposition. Then, we conclude that more of one (or for one) must necessarily come at the expense of the other, without even thinking to ask if the two people/ideas/paths are really opposed. How might your thinking change if you considered whether these two things could be like the warp and weft of a piece of fabric, both valuable and necessary, both contributing to its strength and beauty?
What Makes a Good Painting?
That pesky inner critic! I don’t know about you, but simply telling her to sit down and shut up doesn’t work for me. Oh, I can get her to leave me alone. It just doesn’t lead to paintings I’m happy with. I need my inner critic. We all need time to explore, experiment and follow…
Planning a watercolor, part 5: Am I working with the medium’s natural tendencies?
Save yourself some headaches by choosing subjects and creating designs that work with the medium.
Postcard Paint-Along—Dragonfly
A simple dragonfly postcard, suitable for all experience levels.
Please Print
I got a new art toy recently. It’s called a Gelli plate, and it makes gelatin monoprints sooooo much easier than in the past. Instead of explaining how to make a gelatin plate for printing, I’m going to point you to a great tutorial on The Sketchbook Challenge site, because there’s also a ton of…