Sea Shells

This is one of the still life paintings that I started last month at KAGS.

There was a wide range of shells, coral, sea fans, sponges, shell and coral jewellery and a string of pearls in the display.














I chose to do just two of the seven larger shells and will probably paint in a few of the smaller shells once I decide how I want the wave rolling on the beach.

I will post this painting at a later date once more of it has been completed.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my artwork and I hope you will return often.

Pansies, Poppies and Hibiscus - Four Works in Progress

These are the four paintings that were used during the final watercolour class I taught at KAGS on the 26th last month.

My students had been told the week previous to bring in one piece of paper with a drawing of poppies and that they were to be masked out.

On another they would have drawn pansies.

Purple Pansies

The first thing I had them do when they arrived was to mix a yellow and a red in two separate containers and wet a piece of paper.

Then they poured the two colours over the paper and rolled the paint around to mix the colours.

The result was a peach colour and then set it aside to dry. 

Field Poppies

I demonstrated how one petal at a time is worked and then the next petal to be painted is not touching the first petal so the colour does not bleed into it.

Next I demonstrated how to paint the colour patterns on the pansy petals and that the lines need to curve in order to give the illusion of shape.













Hibiscus 1

Next I gave each student a piece of torn paper to use as a template.

They were shown how to paint around the template with mixtures of red, yellow and blues and allow it to mix on the paper

I quickly showed where to place the stamens and the direction of the curve for the lines in the petals.













Single Poppy 1

After letting them work on their own paintings for a little while, I had them come back and did a demonstration of how to work on a poppy.

I painted in the dark centre first and then added a few of the darker shadows.

Next I worked on the poppy petals showing how the creases have shadows, lights and highlights.

I will post these paintings at a later date as they are completed.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and enjoy the artwork. I hope you will return often.

Morning Skies and Misty Backgrounds - Three Works in Progress

These are some of the paintings I demonstrated at KAGS last month while teaching the "Basic Watercolour" class (see posting on13 November 2013)

For this class we changed our blue from French ultramarine blue to Antwerp blue for most of the paintings and added alizarin crimson for a red.













Pink Sky 1

After wetting the paper we washing in alizarin crimson into the sky leaving some areas of white and with horizontal strokes brushed it into the snow covered area.

Using a wash of Antwerp blue we brushed a little of it into the still wet pink of the sky and into the snow. 

Antwerp blue and a little burnt sienna were used for the background treeline which was painted in without a lot of detail.

Using a slightly darker mix of Antwerp blue and burnt sienna the closer foreground trees were indicated.












Dawn 2

For the second morning sky we painted in first a wash of alizarin crimson and then adding a little more colour painted in the darker red into the bottom of the sky.

Using Antwerp blue with a little burnt sienna to grey the colour slightly, the lighter clouds were brushed into the sky. As the paper was drying a little more burnt sienna was added to the pale grey wash and darker stronger coloured clouds were painted into the top of the sky having a little more substance than the lighter clouds.













Out of the Fog 1

For the final painting we changed the blue from Antwerp blue to Cobalt blue for a fog scene. The trees were drawn in lightly and eventually a very pale wash of cobalt blue will be brushed onto the paper.

I will post these paintings at a later date as they are completed.

Limited Palette Paintings - Three Works in Progress

These are some of the other examples I used for my first "Basic Watercolour" class at KAGS (see posting on 05 November 2013).

The three colours we used in that class were French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and raw sienna.













Grey Day 1

The second painting was of sky distant shore and water using the blue with a little burnt sienna added to "grey" the colour and gives a lovely blue grey.













Grey Day 2

In the third painting more burnt sienna was added to the blue grey mixture to give a neutral grey and the sky and water were painted in and set aside to dry.













Cloudy Morning 1

In the fourth painting the paper was wet and a pale wash of burnt sienna was put in areas of the sky and snow, then the blue grey was added and finally the neutral grey. With each colour layered over the one before it, this created a whole range of colours on the paper.

I will post these paintings at a later date as they are completed.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and look at the artwork. I hope you will return often.

Dockside 1 and 2 - Two Works in Progress

Today I am sitting the Winter Delights Art Show at KAGS.

It seems every time I try do some work on these two little pieces I have a lot of people come through a show that take me away from working on them (see postings on 16 October 2012, 09 February 2013, 20 May 2013 and 15 August 2013).

Fortunately that was not the case and I did get to do more work on these pieces and hopefully will get them completed shortly.

Dockside 1

On the first one I completed the two larger gulls; then drew in the rope onto the one post.

Next I worked back and forth between the paintings first putting the under paint on all of the posts.

The time consuming part was getting the more detailed top layers down and completing that part on two of the posts.

Dockside 2

I will post each of these paintings at a later date as they are completed.

Still Life - A Work in Progress

Since it is cold and snowing again today,  I did a little more work on the painting I started last Tuesday when I took my first of two workshops at KAGS with Margaret Tough in basic pastel.

It was a very informative class with a lot of information on the various types of chalk pastel, the different types of paper and ways of handling pastel.

It was interesting to see the differences between the sanded papers and the regular papers and how they held the pastel. The colours on the sanded papers seemed to have more of a glow to them.














I hadn't realized that many pastel artists use either water or alcohol on the under paint of pastel and "set" it on the paper before applying the "top" coat of pastel.

Another thing that many do is to use watercolour as the under paint and then apply the pastel on top.

I will post this painting at a later date once more of it has been completed.

Morning Lake 2 - A Work in Progress

Last night I heard that I had sold a painting and I would like to thank new purchaser Joan McBride of Peterborough, Ont. on her purchase of my painting Morning Flight (see posting on 27 June 2012).

So today I just felt like splashing a little bit of the colour pink around on a piece of paper and not doing anything serious.













Who knows, perhaps I will add a few seagulls into the painting when I post it at a later date.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and enjoy the artwork.