In The Studio: Several Demonstrations from Class

The following pieces will represent some of the classroom demonstrations I painted during the last session.  All of them are painted in about 30 minutes and specifically addressed a lecture topic which I will try to explain under each piece.  I hope you enjoy them, these are all transparent watercolors and were painted from a value sketch not a photograph.This painting was all about trying to capture the feeling of cooler weather and to address how to get the smoke to work.  Which was lifted with a damp paper towel and then enhanced with some white paint with a little grey added to it.In this piece I was trying to capture the early morning light and with soft close together values.  I tried to keep the details simple and approachable, while still giving the class something to work with.  A few simple figures help create interest and a couple of scrapes and highlights inside the doorway give it a nice focus.I really tried to keep this painting super simple and focus on the calm undulations of water in the early morning.  Although it was all pretty basic stuff I made each piece have variety and movement to keep it from becoming boring.  Simple paintings are sometimes harder to pull off because there is not as much drawing and detail to hide behind.  The pieces of white in the water are cut around spots and the little boats are lifts.  As a note I really never use masking agents I either lift the whites or cut around.In this demonstration my goal was to work on getting the feeling of light on a very sunny subject.  I keep all of the brush work very crisp and lively and made sure that I really got the light on the objects right before putting in the shadow colors.