Watercolor Series Class: Shape, Color and Value

Our watercolor series class continues

The focus this week is shape

Here is a great value study by Paula

Caroline is hard a work!

Beautiful study by Jan

Shape and Color!

Opening Day for Artful Gathering Registration

Today, May Day (my favorite day of the year!) is the first day you can register for this wonderful online retreat.  Several years ago my students at CREATE, Irvine, asked why did I not teach watercolor classes online.  Well, the answer was simply that I had never thought about it and wasn't sure how to do it.  I have now joined with Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat and I am teaching online.
I work all January, February and March filming and editing in my studio, teaching watercolor classes just for this online retreat.  This is my second year doing this and I absolutely love it!  Many of the students that I "met" last year have become my friends.  And one is even going to Orvieto, Italy with me in September to paint (Pat!).  This is a great way to learn new things from the comfort of your home.  You pick the schedule too.  Workshops that you sign up for are available to you 24/7 for 6 weeks.  There are many fun classes to choose from.  Instructors often sign up for classes from other instructors at this online retreat.  I hope you will stop by my "classroom" and say "HI!"
Here are my two classes for this summer:
WATERCOLOR TOOLBOX (just for beginners!)

WATERCOLOR FUN!

Color

This weeks class was all about color another one of the elements of design.   I encourage my students to make color studies and make a color plan for their paintings.  We used the color wheel to pick our colors.  I forgot to take photos so check back next week for class photos.  Here are some photos of my color studies for paintings that I am working on:

The Elements of Design

One of my favorite classes to teach is how to use the Elements of Design.  The are the building blocks that make up your painting.  The ones that I like to work with are: Value, Color, Shape, Line, Texture, and Pattern.  In each class we focus on one of the elements and emphasis that element.
Value is a good one the start with.  Value is simply the lightness or darkness of colors.  Using value pens we make small value sketches of our subject.  Here is an example of a value sketch.  Notice that it is just a simple sketch using white, grays and black.  This shows me where I want to emphasis the values in my painting.
Next we paint our painting using one color and just focus on getting lights and darks with that one color.

Here are some photos from our fun value class.

The Treasure Hunt Continues

The Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat Treasure Hunt continues.  Every week you can collect new words from the teachers blogs.  Grand Prize = one free tuition!  One lucky winner will win my book!

NOTE:  You will have to be registered to have access to the site.  The registration fee is $5 and will give you access to preview all the classes.

A Treasure Hunt!

Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat is hosting a blog hop treasure hunt starting today, April 2, 2014!  Today is the first day of the treasure hunt and my blog has one of the secret words you will need to solve the final puzzle.  There are many prizes to win and the grand prize is a free workshop of your choice!  

To learn how the treasure hunt works and to see the prizes please visit Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat.  If you would like to sign up for the NEWSLETTER, you will get weekly updates on where to find the next treasure hunt words.  

This is my second year teaching watercolor classes with this unique online workshop.  You will paint along with me in the comfort of your own home with my personalized videos. 

This year I am teaching two workshops:  Watercolor Toolbox and Watercolor Fun.  Watercolor Toolbox is perfect for someone that wants to start watercolor painting.  Watercolor Fun will take your watercolor painting skills to the next level.So start your treasure hunt here on my blog page.  Look for the secret word.  I hope you have fun and will keep my fingers crossed that you win the free workshop grand prize! 

Painting Ideas

Colorful Spring! Spring makes me think of colorful flowers, bright blue skies and birds singing in the yard. What a wonderful time to do some watercolor painting! I have been busy writing magazine articles to inspire you to fill your world with color! Grab your watercolor supplies and join me as I walk you through some fun painting ideas. Watch for my upcoming articles in these magazines:

 Searching for Shapes, April 2014 Issue of  Art Journaling by Somerset Studio

A Day in the Life of - a Photo Story, Summer 2014 Issue of Studios Magazine by Interweave Press

Water-Soluble Pens in Journaling, Summer 2014 issue of Pages Magazine by Interweave Press

Black-and-White Journal Pages, Summer 2014 Issue of Pages Magazine by Interweave Press

The Colorful World of Flora and Fauna, July/August 2014 Issue of Cloth-Paper-Scissors Magazine by Interweave Press

Cover Art for Art Journaling,

I was so surprised and honored to find out that my art was chosen to be the cover art for the spring 2014 issue of ART JOURNALING magazine!

It will be on in stores available for purchase on April 1, 2014.   My article is about using shape to design journal pages.
This photo did not get into the article so I wanted to share it with you here.  Here is what I write about this page in my Patagonia watercolor journal.

One of my favorite journal pages is one where I painted a meadowlark and a vista behind him.  The meadowlarks were plentiful and darted about the brush flashing their red bellies.  I often heard their melody as we hiked.  Instead of just painting a scene with a meadowlark in it, I wanted to try a different point of view.  I painted him much larger than the vista and had him placed off to one side to help frame the page. He is looking back over landscape as if to say he is the guardian of this remote area.  

I hope you enjoy this new issue of Art Journaling!

Here is a Fun Warm-up Exercise

Here is the post that I did for this month's Sketchbook challenge.
Warm and cool colors are something that I think about all the time in my painting and enjoy playing warm colors against cool colors to create vibrate and dynamic watercolors.  Here is a fun exercise that you could do with warm colors or cool colors - your choice!  I did mine with warm colors.  You will need your watercolor paints, watercolor brushes and a Gold Leaf Pen for this exercise.
Start by drawing big shapes in your journal with the gold leaf pen.  I drew my initials JN.  Make sure you go off the page here and there.

 Then add smaller shapes within your large initials.

 Pick a color scheme warm or cool.  I chose a warm palette so I painted all my shapes with yellows, oranges, reds and combinations of these colors. The gold leaf pen lines will act as a resist to the paint.

This is my final page in my watercolor journal

Check out my Daniel Smith Watercolor Kit for great deal on watercolor paints.  If you are just getting started, this is the kit for you!  

A Time to Relax

The thing about the warm southern sun, tropical breeze and bright sand, is that it just makes you slow down, relax and enjoy.  Coming from snow and cold winds, makes it next to impossible to paint out-of-doors in the winter so I love being in this Mexican warmth and painting what is in front of me.  On our whale watching and kayaking trip I enjoyed painting the following scenes in my watercolor journal.....