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As usual, you guys are pretty kind to me.    As I went on my small watercolor tirade the other day, no one told me that I really didn't know what the heck I was doing, that might have been the problem!!!  Thanks so much for not ripping me down. I have to tell you that I am so glad I am taking this class.   We are on week 7 and I have, in my mind, paid for the course.  I have already learned a lot of things, and now I realize, with watercolor, you got to know something.   Seems that so much comes down to what kind of paper, how you hold/use the brush, the colors used, what order color is applied, etc, etc.  It truly is its own parallel universe to any other kind of media.   I have also learned that you have to approach watercolor in a totally different manner than you do either oil or acrylics - and let alone disregard anything you knew from colored pencils and pastels. So here is my first watercolor lesson.   Yes, the thing about watercolor is that it still takes a heck

женщина What, you might say?   Well, I am playing with you.  Don't ask me how to say it, but this mean Lady in Russian.   Why Russian?  Well you sure have lots of questions, don't you.   I am using this term because the photographer Russian, on PMP, Viacheslav.  If you are interested in still life he has some marvelous photos.  I grew up during the "cold war" and never could have imagined that one day we would be able to have Russian friends and speak with them very easily.  Social media really has revolutionized the world. Anyway, since Sheila has been helping me in GIMP I have gained more confidence, sort  have been playing around and going a little crazy feeling like I won't break anything.  I felt like I wanted to do something in non-traditional colors, actually looked up some of the 2019 colors and decided to play around with the curves setting.  When I got to the fuchsias, turquoise and blues, I knew I found what I wanted to paint today.  By the way

Freckles Well the more I work with watercolor I realize why it isn't my particular favorite medium.  The main reason is that in order to get cleaner washes (less mud) you need to let each layer dry.  I find that rather off putting.  Ok, I got in line twice for hips and skipped getting patience as a virtue!!  Seriously though, I don't think it allows me to get into a flow.   When I am going with it is about the time I have to stop so it can dry.  Guess that is why between acrylic and watercolor I will always lean towards the blendability I can get with acrylics since I can continue to develop areas without having to wait 15-20 minutes for it not to lift.  Plus I guess I have gotten spoiled with being able to change the look by glazing, something I haven't mastered with the watercolors. I did do some color charts for watercolor skin tones as well.   Need to work on that more to be able to get more variations with the correct shadows.   I pretty much was mixing colors,

One of the things I hoped when I started Let's Face It  course was that I would get shoved out of my rut.  I wanted to do something different, but didn't necessarily have the tools to get there on my own.  Now, for me, working in watercolor is something really different.   I have to throw out all the "correction tools" that so many of my favorite media provides, and go with what I get in one or two strokes.    Today I threw caution to the wind, and put down bolder brush work and colors.  I also am working on hot press watercolor paper and it seems to take the liquid and handles it better.  I had lots of errors here, paint where I didn't necessarily want it, but in the end I think I got a more watercolor-like look.   Thank you my friends for calling me on one of my issues - too critical.  I realize after looking at more watercolors that the effect is so different than acrylic and pastel - it is clear, clean, translucent - I think I got close to that he

Rose and Gold I know this will probably shock you but sweet little old me has a stubborn streak a mile wide.  My hubby will concur.  So, k knowing that I have a whole watercolor segment coming up I decided I better try to tackle it.  So tried to mix both watercolor/color pencil/hot pressed watercolor paper together to do some preliminary portrait practice.  I also actually practiced some restraint and tried to let it really dry between layers. Since Sheila has opened some of the mysteries of GIMP to me I went in and changed the color tones on the reference photo and made her be more reflected in the golden late afternoon light.  I also tried to add a little opaque gouache to this just top see what kind of effect it would have for highlights.  Although I came close I lost a bit of the likeness and think that happened in the mouth/chin area.  But overall I think this has a bit more clarity than my last watercolor attempts.   I realize I am drawn to vibrant watercolors, not th

The saga continues.   I tried again to really do this lesson with watercolor and colored pencil.  What I discovered, or should I say confirmed, is that with watercolor I am really good at making at making mud - as a matter of fact, I seem to excel at it.  All I can say is it is wonderful to be really good at something.   However, we got a whole segment coming up on watercolor so guess that will be a lot of weeks of pain.  So, for those of you that really do watercolor and do it well, you have my undying admiration!! Anyway, I used acrylic on a cheap watercolor paper, got to try it on hot press to see if I get improved results.  This time I build up the layers slowly, but still get the harder edges.   And also got a lot of buckling.   Wet the back and pressed it for a while hoping it would unbuckle enough to get a picture. Had another GIMP adventure using this piece.   Learned how to scale and adjust color using the curves - so little by little it is coming together. Not sure wh

Well the best laid plans, etc, etc, etc.  This is lesson 6 and isn't anything at all like lesson 6.   It was supposed to be watercolor and color pencil - what it ended up being was acrylic, pastel and colored pencil.   But that's ok. One of the under riding thoughts teachers have had in this course is that it is ok to just let go, be free, change to go with the flow and be outside the lines.   That is what I accomplished with this piece as I was salvaging it.  I know it sounds pretty funny, but I have had a big break through, it is like I have given myself permission to just try new things and find the way ..  make it work. Trying to be smart, I put gesso over the sketchbook page because I knew I was going to use liquids and that the paper would really buckle.   However, when I tried using the acrylics, watercolor style, because I didn't want to be able to lift color layers, with the gesso coating, it lifted anyway.   So I ended up with very splotchy skin tones, I cou

phone varnished untouched Phone untouched Camera GIMP Scanned Well this is Lesson 5, and it was something I would have never tried or even thought of.  This is done on a birch wood panel.  Ok have tried painting on them, but not successfully, so that is why I had some.  First was stain it with diluted acrylic inks.  These start out looking pretty dark and gradually lighten as the paint sinks into the wood.   I tried several colors as I knew I wanted green and pinks in the background and also wanted to see how transparent the colors were.  Then it's painted over it with color pencils, used both prismacolor and polys. so both wax and oil base work.  Yes, it does show the grain and yes the grain definitely affects the way the pencil goes on.   You would have seen more grain in the background if I would have had the stain darker and didn't cover with pencil.  You can erase pretty easily, even the stain comes off somewhat.   But you really can't get a

Eric Gorges Today is the next lesson and before I go another direction I wanted to try one more time to see if this softer technique could do a male.  I realized that I really don't paint many men, don't know why.  So I decided to wrap a little man, fan art and all the facial hair, etc into one person, Eric Gorges.   Only thing I didn't get was all his tattoos.  Eric hosts and produces one of my favorite shows, Craftsman Legacy, where he visits various craftsmen/artists.  I don't know how/where he finds these folks but, the 30 minutes show feels like 5 minutes.  He also is a master craftsman, creating handmade motorcycles - previous job was wall street which he walked away from as he says, "it almost broke him". I think this technique works regardless of whether you want sharper/softer lines.  I tried my working a couple more hours after I thought it was finished, so I think even the camera is catching more shadows, but graphite still doesn't photo

Well, wanted to see if I could do another portrait in the same technique I learned this week.   I have had this reference for a bit and wanted to be sure that I could keep her very soft to try to keep her childlike, and not age her.  This is a layer upon layer technique and takes me at least two days to complete.  You can see the first overall layer in the small picture, eyes have several layers.  I still am not sure that I am taking them far enough.  They photo so poorly, it is actually darker and whiter in person.   I don’t want them to get dirty looking. Again made use of my new Tombow zero eraser, I really love it as it takes things on Bristol almost back to pure white.   It takes off what the putty can’t move. I also decided to try to see if I could do bokeh in graphite, just to liven up the background a bit.     I dabbed a little color pencil on her, but the camera couldn't pick it up as it was pretty subtle.   The developer behind us just came by and took tha