Painting in Italy, 2018!

Join me on this fun adventure to Orvieto, Italy! 

I am very excited to present my watercolor workshop with Adventures in Italy Painting the Italian light and color!  One of my favorite things to do is to teach how I create visual journals of my travels using watercolors.  Orvieto, the charming Italian village perched on a rock, is the perfect place to spend our week together.  We will enjoy colorful painting time, tasty food delights, wine tasting, exploring the rich culture and history of the area, shopping, and relaxing in the quiet gardens of our Italian home.  Umbria is rich with sights, sounds, and colors – all wonderful inspiration for developing your artistic eye.  

on this fresh morning

"it is a serious thing
 just to be alive
 on this fresh morning
 in this broken world"

― Mary Oliver, Red Bird

So here is beauty to add to your fresh morning!

"There are things you can't reach" by Mary Oliver

“There are things you can’t reach. But

You can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of god.

And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around
As though with your arms open.”

by Mary Oliver

New Watercolor Palette Loaded and Ready to Paint!

I finally made the choices for 40 colors on my new watercolor palette!
I made a color chart for each color.  I always recommend making a color chart of the colors on your palette because sometimes you can't really tell what the color looks like sitting there in the well.

On my chart I list the manufacturer as well.  Then I get the chart laminated a Staples so that it will hold up and not fall apart if it gets wet.  I abbreviate the manufacturer names as follows:
Daniel Smith = DS
Winsor Newton = WN
Sennelier = Senn.
Holbein = HB
Schmincke = Schmin.
I hope you can read the chart that I made shown in these photos. 

Working my Way Around the Color Wheel

I am using my color wheel to pick my colors to go on my new palette.  I went from my yellows to oranges, reds, purples, blues and now finally greens.  I weeded out lots of colors that are too similar or that don't interest me by using my little color swatches that I painted (see previous posts).  It is time to start laying out the tubes of paint in the order that matches the colors on the color wheel.

More About Yellow Watercolors

I like to make a color swatch of each color.  This takes some time but it is fun to do!  You can learn a lot about your colors this way.  I start by cutting pieces of watercolor paper 3" x 1.5".

I write the name of the color and the manufacturer of the paint on the back side of the paper.  Then I wet the front of the paper and paint it.  I try to have lay the color on thick and thin to see how dark it can get.  When it is dry I write the name of the paint on the front of the paper.

When I decide on a color, I start to lay the tubes of paint around my palette to see where they will go.

Yellow

Starting with the color yellow, I took a look at all the tubes of paint I own.  I have a lot of tubes of paint!!!

New Watercolor Palette!

What a treat for me to get a new watercolor palette!  People often ask me what colors I use and how do I set up my palette.  I want to share with you the best way to set up a new watercolor palette.
This is the biggest palette that I have ever bought.  This is the Mijello Silber Nano Palette.

It has room for 40 colors!  Yippee!!!

Now the fun part is to decide which colors will go where.  I always use a color wheel to figure out where to put my colors.

The first thing to do is to pull out the tubes of color that I want to add to my new palette.  This will take some time and careful thought.

Jacqueline Newbold DVDs

Good Colorful Morning!  

Are you new to watercolor and not sure how to get started?  I have just the DVD for you!  It is Watercolor Toolbox One offered for sale through Artful Gathering Online Art Retreat.  

I take you step-by-step on everything you need to know about painting with watercolor.  Exploring techniques to get you started on your artistic journey, you will learn the correct way to set up a palette and care for your watercolor art supplies.  

You will also learn a variety of basic watercolor techniques.  All your examples can be put into a file or journal creating a toolbox for future reference.  This workshop on DVD is the perfect introduction to watercolor painting! 

Using Black Gesso

I wrote an article for Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine a while back about creating a very interesting journal page using black gesso.  It is a favorite technique of mine and love the look of it in my journals!

Jeannine Stein blogged about it at the Cloth, Paper, Scissors blog.
Here is a little of what she had to say:
In the article “Black-and-White Journal Pages” in the same issue of Pages, Jacqueline Newbold has a fantastic technique for prepping art journal pages and turning them into paper art. Start by painting a watercolor border on all sides of the paper. The beauty of this technique is that even if you’re not that familiar with watercolor, you really can’t go wrong. I sprinkled table salt on some areas of the wet paint to get a textured effect.