In The Studio: Three Demonstrations from Thursday

The 3 class schedule on Thursday is hard for me and I have been doing this routine for about 10 years now, phew.  I also teach 3 different classes so the demand is for separate and distinctive demonstrations and lessons.  I am posting the 3 paintings I did for my classes with some description, if I had the images I used for the pieces I would post but they are on my other computer and I would have to pull them up on a family server and this morning I am not doing it.This was a lesson on using the white paper to move the viewer through the painting and to slow the movement through the painting by breaking the white shape with texture, edges and shadows.  I think it works well for the lesson although color wise the painting is fairly ho hum, not exciting but Demonstrations in watercolor are always a one shot and done process in  a three hour class.  I spend about 45 minutes on the lesson and the demonstration.  Entertain the viewer with good brushwork and lively application of paint, and no matter what do not start without a specific plan not just the image on the ipad.This demonstration was all about keeping color shapes the shape value and trying to achieve a feeling of distance and perspective with the simple tool of overlapping shapes.  I was pretty happy with the finished product although always there are things I wish were handled better.  I painted this wet in wet without a hair dryer and the board upright to keep the water flowing down the paper,  and keep you pigments moist, and use lots of pigment and less water as you proceed through the painting.Pretty straight forward idea here, make the figures the center of interest and design good light and shadow.  I think this works pretty well.  I kept the figures dominant as they should be and over emphasized their shadows and minimized the movement of the water, edit your images to make your compositions strong.