Student Work - Beach Toys

          by JoAnn     
                                             

                                                           

                                                             by Nannette               

                                                                   by Peggy

Beach Toys

We are still at the beach!!!  This is a chance to use all your colors. 

So hard to get a photo of my drawing where you can actually see anything. 

A light wash of cobalt blue (or ultramarine) for the sky, and yellow ochre for the sand.

Darker cobalt blue (or ultramarine) for the water.  Leave a little bit of white foam at the bottom.

Put a first layer of the colors on the toys. 

Add darker versions of the toy colors wherever you need them to define the subject.  Make a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna for the shadow under the pail, under the fish, and on the right of the shovel.  Make a VERY light version of the shadow color for the white part of the beachball.  Rub out a few highlights on the edges of the pail, shovel, and starfish.  Add some texture to the sand, and then cover the toys and the water and sky with a piece of paper and spatter some burnt sienna on the sand. 

Student Work - Beach

by JoAnn

by Peggy

by Nannette

We Are Going to the Beach

When you do your drawing, don't draw the beach grass, or weeds.  You will put them in at the end.  You can draw them in then, or freehand them, which is what I did.

Wet the sky down to the horizon, and put in some diluted yellow ochre.  If you don't have yellow ochre, you can use yellow, but the yellow ochre is softer and won't turn green when you add the blue clouds.  Be sure to do the next part - the pink and the blue clouds while it is still wet.

While the sky is still wet, add some diluted alizarin crimson, or whatever you have that will make pink, and then quickly add some ultramarine blue clouds.  I missed a little alizarin crimson in with the blue to make them more purply.

Mix a very pale puddle of burnt sienna and ultramarine blue to make a blue-ish gray for the sand.  It's okay if there are a few streaks.

Paint the distant land mass with ultramarine blue and a bit of alizarin to make it a purply blue.  Add some of this color where the water meets the wet sand.  Use any left over paint from the sand color to make some shadows in the sand.

Now you can either sketch in the beach grass with pencil, or freehand it.  Use yellow ochre for the first layer.

Add some grass/weeds in burnt sienna.

And finish it off with some really dark weeds/grass using burnt sienna and ultramarine blue.  You can add in some weeds with watercolor pencils if you want.

Student work - No-Drawing Bouquet

by JoAnn

by Peggy

A No-drawing Mother's Day Bouquet

This is a photo of my Mother's Day bouquet.  I started a sketch of it in my sketchbook, but my sketch looked too complicated and overworked.  I started thinking about just painting it without drawing.  Sometimes it works well for things like this.

Start with one of the flowers in the center.  It can be sort of like drawing with a paintbrush. Leave some white spaces so you can see the simplified shapes of the petals.

Work from the center out, adding more flowers and leaves.  If you have too much space between your flowers you can make them bigger, or add some green shapes between, or add some more of the little purple daisy type flowers.

Keep adding flowers and leaves.  Don't worry if you end up running out of room, or if you end up with too much space for the background - it's only a sketch.  It's fun and freeing.

Go back into the light colored flowers and add some dark shapes to make them more interesting.  I did my painting from life, and the vase looked different to me than it does in the photo.  It's sort of some odd looking blue metallic, but the photo looks more like silver.

Student Work - Abstract Birds

by Nannette

by JoAnn

by Peggy

by Sharon

Abstract with birds - Part 4 - Finished painting

I had fun with this one, once I figured out what I wanted to do, and the colors that I wanted to use.  You can copy this, do this with your own color scheme, or make up your own design.  Just have fun with it.


You will have to scroll down a bit to find Part 1, my inspiration, part 2 my drawing, and part 3 and 4 the painting.  

Abstract with birds - Part 3 - The Painting

This is where I left off with my painting when I went to bed last night.  I have a few more areas that need to be painted, and will probably darken (or lighten) some for more contrast. I wanted a mostly cool, mostly blue painting, so my colors are Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Thalo Blue, a mix of Ultramarine Blue + purple, and Permanent Rose (you can substitute Alizarin Crimson).  I was not as happy with my color selection as I thought I would be, so please feel free to use your own color choices. Will post the finished painting......well.....when it's finished.

Abstract with Birds - Part 2 - My drawing

I chose to use the last one for my drawing, and added a circle around the birds, and some curved lines and a couple of smaller circles.  

You DO have my permission to copy mine, or you can use one of the above silhouettes to make your own design.  

It is well past my bedtime, and I haven't finished my painting yet, but I will finish and post it tomorrow.  In the meantime, you can start your drawing and decide on colors.

Abstract with Birds - Part 1 - Inspiration

I have been following an artist named Karen Knutson for a few years.  She does a lot of abstracts with birds as the theme.  She works mostly in mixed media and collage, but I found a few that are mostly, or entirely watercolor.  I'm posting these to give you an idea of what we are going for.  These are for inspiration only.  PLEASE DO NOT COPY HER WORK.