Still Life Lesson

Lesson Description:

This lesson starts with a still life of red roses in three glass containers. Karlyn will draw the composition with a Kimberly watercolor pencil and share some techniques for free hand drawing.
1. She will use a different watercolor pencil drawing for her painting. The painting starts by wetting both sides of the paper with a hake brush. Slowly pull water over the watercolor pencil lines to activate the black color.
2. Color is then charged onto the wet surface. A sprayer is essential to keep the paper wet and the colors moving. Color sanding may take place while the paper is wet.
3. After the under-painting dries, colors may be enriched and adjusted. Be careful to not lose the loose wet into wet look.

Make Your Own Collage Papers

We are going to make collage papers to use in creating an abstract painting on canvas.  Making your own collage papers is fun and if you want to enter shows, it is now necessary.  A bonus lesson shows you how to prepare your canvas for this lesson. We are going to use acrylic paint to make our collage paper and watercolor to finish our painting.

Many art shows do not allow “store bought” collage papers so this technique is invaluable for making your own papers.  Finding the right paper was my first goal.  Most deli papers are waxed and not suitable for use with watercolor.  After a lot of trial and error, I found unwaxed deli paper  through Amazon Prime.  These papers are fantastic.  They are transparent and glue layer over layer with YES Paste.  You can use any acrylic paint.   You will find 50 sheets of these special papers in your gift box so you can try this wonderful approach to start an abstract painting.  We are going to start by making our own stamps and stencils using a glue gun and glue sticks. Gelli printing is a very popular way to make mono-prints too.   Many quilters use Gelli printing as a way to print unique designs on their fabric.

Semi-Abstract on Canvas

Semi-abstract rocks on canvas. This lesson shows the versatility of using textural devises on canvas.  For example, wax paper makes “rock-like” textures when placed on the color and allowed to dry.  Using small pieces of ogura and pieces of unryu, you can easily create darks.  Using a 100-grit sandpaper and sanding watercolor pencils over a stencil will create a beautiful texture.   Dry thoroughly and wax surface with Dorland’s Wax.

Pen Drawing and Focus of Light

How to draw with a pen and how to create a focus of light using a triad of primary colors.
This lesson shows the entire drawing of this dilapidated old barn in pen and demonstrates several useful pen techniques.  Karlyn also demonstrates several primary color triads.

Negative Painting

This painting starts with a drawing on Arches 140# paper using an HB pencil, (in your gift bag).  The paper is then wet on both sides and colors are selected that do not move in water.  I used  Aureolin yellow, Permanent rose and manganese blue.

When dry, draw in more shapes and paint around your drawn foliage with a mid tone green color, I used quinacridone gold and Antwerp blue.

When dry, draw in more foliage shapes and paint around these shapes with a darker value green using Quinacridone burnt orange and Antwerp blue.

Paint flowers by wetting half of the flower and adding quinacridone rose and French Ultramarine  blue.  Move the color so it mimics the shape of the flower.  When dry do the other side.

At the very end, paint in some positive shapes.

The entire focus of this lesson is negative painting by layering transparent watercolor.

Abstract and Wine Party

A group of artists who have painted together for 34 years gather every year in February in the cold north woods and paint together.    Over the years, an amazing bond of friendship has developed.

My lesson is a new variation of an abstract style of painting. Sit back and enjoy our enthusiasm for art, our love for each other and hopefully some ideas that you can turn into a beautiful painting.

Atmospheric Perspective

Each successive layer of land is a different color.  The distant layers are  grayed down blues, then reds and purples appear and finally close to the foreground are the yellows.  These colors illustrate the way atmospheric tempering causes some colors to disappear from our vision.

Portraits

Portraits are not that difficult. I have formalized a simple process for painting a successful portrait. In your gift bag is a plastic that defines the facial features. This is one approach to drawing your own portrait. I have also enclosed a step by step listing of how to paint a portrait.

Please follow along with this hand out as I paint Fritz. As you paint your own portrait, reread each step before you proceed. There are proportions that are similar in every person. For example, this scale is great. I included a sheet of lined acetate for you to follow along. There are certain relationships in portraits that are almost the same in every person. The eyes are in the center of the head/. The eyes are one eye apart. The ears start at the eye line and nose line. The lips are as wide as the center of the eyes, etc. Put the clear plastic over Rachael’s face and show proportions.

I learned a different way to proportion a head. I divide the head in half and divide the lower half into thirds. This is the proportions I used to draw my friend Mary Beth. I place the eyes in the center of the head and then divide the lower half into thirds. The center of the nose is one third below the eyes. The center of the mouth is two-thirds below the eyes. This has worked for me forever.

Waterlilies

Clip or tape your painting onto a board.  Wet only the front of the paper.  Paint in a ladder of primary colours, leaving a white space between the triad of color.  I used Windsor yellow in the middle, Quinacridone rose on each side and cobalt blue out to the edge if the paper.  Spray a light mist starting at the yellow and moving that color to the edge of your paper.  Then spray the blue and have that move towards the centre of the paper.   Keep tipping and balancing out the movement of the colours.  Add darks under the lily pads but not the buds.  Best of all, draw some connecting darks horizontally through the composition to tie the shapes together.

When dry, remove the masking.   Wet the scrubby brush and gently soften any areas missed by the masking.   To make the water droplets, wet the shape and drop in color similar to the area surrounding the droplet.  When the droplet dries, paint in a very dark elliptical shadow under the droplet.  Use a razor blade to pop out a white highlight.

Fall Landscape

On dry paper, drop a pattern of a primary yellow and quinacridone gold to form patterns of yellow foliage. Be sure to zig and zag the shapes.  Try not to go in a straight line.  Then drop another pattern of scarlet lake orange and quinacridone burnt orange.  Add Antwerp blue to create dark greens.  Be sure to drop some collage onto the ground area to become fallen leaves.

When this dries, paint in the tree trunks between the foliage patterns.  I used quinacridone burnt orange and French Ultramarine blue for the dark brown.

Paint the foreground foliage in shadow colours, such as cobalt blue mixed with Windsor orange..  This provides the contrast for the “finger of God” light coming through the trees.

Be sure your painting is bone dry when you attempt to create the “finger of God” with a toothbrush.  Place your painting under slowly running water and scrub the light out with a soft toothbrush.  Slowly allow the color to exit your painting.  Use restraint when lifting the shapes coming through the trees so it does not become a perfect pinwheel.

One Point Perspective

Karlyn will draw the white houses of Frigiliani, Spain and explain one-point perspective.

The shadows of the white houses were painted with a gray tone made by using cobalt blue and Winsor orange.

The grays were varied by the amount of water used to dilute this mixture.

Guest Artist Barbara McFarland

Barbara is a wonderful artist that prepares her own colorful collage papers.  She combines these lovely papers with Caran d Ache watercolor crayons. Barbara will take us through her process to create these colorful papers and then apply crayon lines to her image of a bear.  We will also tour her lovely studio on a sunny winter’s day.

Grapes

Painting grapes is a fantastic lesson to share with a friend or grandchild. You should pick the grape leaves and freeze them until just before you need them. This makes the leaves more relaxed and they make betterstamps. These leaves can remain frozen for a long time and still be effective.

Grape Lesson 1
Fold wax paper like paper dolls and cut out many round or oval shapes of grapes at a time. Start by wetting the paper on both sides.
Design soft warm colors in a path onto the wet surface. Using a flat brush, apply Windsor yellow, quinacridone gold to the veins on the back of the leaf. Press the leaves firmly onto the wet surface with a tissue paper. Continue until you have placed all the leaves onto the wet surface. Place a few grape shapes over the wet surface. Paint a circle of your desired grape color and place the wax paper circle on top of this color. Continue until the grapes are designed into hanging grapes. Stretch gauze over the leaves and the grapes to form branch-like shapes in the background. Paint in a path of dark through out the painting. The addition of ultramarine blue around the leaves creates a lovely dark outline. Add salt near the white areas. Spray metallic gold into the gauze lines if desired.

Grape Lesson 2
Using a HB pencil, draw some vines for the leaves and grapes to form an attachment. Using thinned YES Paste for glue, I designed in some light-toned collage papers. Be sure to overlap some of the papers and to keep the papers close to the vines. Cut out some round or oval shaped grape circles to use for the grapes. Leave the paper dry and apply quinacridone gold and Windsor yellow on the veins on the back of a dry leaf. Place on the paper and press with a dry tissue. After you have completed stamping the leaves on the dry paper, wet the entire rest of the paper and apply some pure warm or cool color ( I used quinacridone burnt orange) in a path to start your painting

Add additional pure complementary color (I used Antwerp blue) next to your first application of color. Be sure to use a fine mister to keep the paper wet or touch the edges of the color with a wet brush to keep the edges soft. Stretch the gauze behind the leaves and through the grapes to suggest branches and vines in the background. Place the cut circles of wax paper onto the wet paper. Add additional color if desired before applying the grape circles. Add salt if desired. Place a stencil over the wet surface and sand watercolor pencils into the stencil using a 100 grit sandpaper. Spray with a fine mister to be sure that those watercolor particles really melt onto the surface. When completely dry, remove the grape circles, gauze and leaves. With a HB pencil, draw in shapes to enhance the composition. On dry paper, paint in the shapes and negatively paint around other shapes. To complete the painting, I lifted out the grape shapes with a stencil of the grape shape cut out of acetate and a damp Mr. Clean magic eraser. Lastly, I added green Caron D”Ache crayon over some leaves and on parts of the background. I also added more collage paper using thinned down YES Paste. I also sprayed gold marbleizing spray.

Northern Lights

Northern lights   THis tutorial shows two different approaches to painting wet into wet, saturated night scenes of the Northern Lights.

The first approach uses non-staining colors and that will lift out the movement of the shapes on the wet surface.  Check out the color chart included with your free gift box and you will notice that all my colors indicate which colors are staining and non-staining.  Choose only non-straining  colors for this lesson.  Use a one half inch flat brush to lift the color.

The second approach can be painted with any color.  This lesson depends on saving the light shapes by painting around them.

Alcohol Inks with guest artist Wei Lan Lorber

Wei Lan lives near the gallery and has been part of my summer watercolor workshops since 2005. She now teaches her own classes at the gallery and in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. She has an enthusiastic group of followers. She loves nature, flowers, landscapes and abstracts. We have co-hosted an International art trip to France together. Wei Lan is retired from a busy career as a chemistry teacher in the public schools. She has designed a fantastic range of unique techniques. You are going to love watching her approach to painting realistically using alcohol inks on Yupo paper.