Evening Rendez-Vous, Original Watercolor by Jacqueline Newbold

A romantic and colorful cafe scene, “Evening Rendez-Vous” is an original watercolor painting by Jacqueline Newbold.    Framed size 15”Wx18H”, Image size 5”Wx10”H
This painting is available to purchase:  Evening Rendez-Vous

Drawing Lesson - Part 2

The Finished Painting in my Journal - notice that I combined the 2 rocks in the background 

Now that you used your pencil to size up what you want to draw, you have some great information about the dimensions of your landscape (see Drawing Lesson, Part 1).  What I love about organic structures such as mountains, trees and flowers is that you can manipulate them to work for you.  They can be enlarged, made smaller or even moved to different places in your painting.  Man-made structures are a little bit trickier.  Buildings, people, and animals need to look proportionally correct or they may give your painting an odd look.

This is what I did with my drawing of the views I had while on the Oregon coast.  I actually drew and painted this journal page while recently on the plane  to Maine for our family vacation.

The Proportions are still the same.

Using my pencil to measure the rocks

Here is one more helpful hint about using a pencil to get your dimensions correct:  you can divide or multiply the size depending on how large or small you want the objects to be in your painting.  For instance, if I had wanted to increase the size of those rock off the Oregon coast, I could have drawing them twice as big using my pencil to help with the measurement.  Or I could have made them 1/2 the size.  If you do this, make sure to treat all the elements in the drawing the same.  So if I doubled the size of the distant rocks then I would have also doubled the size of the little house as well as doubled the size of the nearer rocks.

Daniel Smith/Jacqueline Newbold Watercolor Kit Update

For those of you that have already ordered my new Daniel Smith Watercolor Jacqueline Newbold Traveling Kit, Daniel Smith just contacted me to let me know that they sent out the wrong size zippered case.  They are willing to send you the correct one for free and you can keep the first one they sent.  Leave a comment and I will get you in touch with the right person to fix this problem.  Thanks for all your support and hope you are enjoying the kit!

A Drawing Lesson -Part I

I am always surprised when someone compliments me on my drawings.  Twenty-five years ago, my art world started when I arrived at a watercolor class only to find a still-life set up on the table. The teachers said, “Draw this.”  What!  I thought this was a painting class!  I did not know how to draw or even where to start. 

Here are a few great drawing tips that I have learned over the years. 

I use my pencil A LOT!  Not just for drawing but for measuring and comparing.  So grab your favorite pencil (mine is a Ini OC-Gel  HD 0.5) and let’s get started!

Here is a lovely ocean scene at the Oregon coast near where I live:

The first thing I do is the hold my pencil vertical and stretch my arm out so that my elbow is locked.  All my measurements are done with a locked elbow so that the comparisons will be the same.  

How big are the rocks?  

With my thumb, I measure from the bottom of Haystack Rock to the bottom at the tallest part.

Now I measure how wide the rocks are.

At this point, I would make pencil marks on my paper using these measurements.  

Here I am using my pencil at a slant to get the correct slope of the rock.  Carefully bring this angle down to your watercolor paper.

If I want to add some of the ocean cabins, I measure how tall they are.

Here is how tall the nearest point of land is compared to the house and the other rocks.
Now that I have all my measurements and comparisons the next step is to do my drawing.
How about you practice drawing something using your pencil to measure and compare and let me know how it goes.