Watercolor Lessons

My fellow artist 

Carlene Dingman Atwater

provided my watercolor instructor

John Preston

with the reference photo for the first of these paintings.

Carlene asked how it turned out so I decided to post it.

Although I don't always post my paintings from class, or rather,

paintings done under supervision.

This is the best way for me to paint in watercolor.

Here are some of the more successful ones.

John provides the reference photos and 

does a demonstration of how he would paint it.

 Then his victims, er...students, paint it themselves.

 It is a great class and because he is such a patient teacher

all of his students learn something new about painting 

and themselves

in every class.

I will not be posting the clouds from our last class...

I completely crashed and burned!!!

St. Leonard's Church in Lipnica

I did this watercolor as a birthday gift

for my sister-in-law.

We visited Poland together last fall

with our husbands.

They are brothers.

But we are more than sisters-in-law.

It was a blast....

St. Leonard's Church in Lipnica

This beautiful church is one of the oldest 

Gothic wooden churches in Poland.

The first story is made of logs and the interior

walls and ceilings have

scenes from the Bible

 colorfully rendered from the 15th to the 17th century.

We visited this

 church with our husband's Polish family.  

Their grandfather grew up in the town of Lipnica.

It was our second visit to Poland

and we found the country and it's people just as

enchanting this time as we did last time.

Day 27 - 30 Paintings - La Tour

I was thinking about Paris today.

So I painted the Eiffel Tower.

I included a watercolor that I painted sometime in the last year as well.

First the underpainting.

Then the intermediate version

Then I wanted to work on the sky

 that is always so moody and colorful.

And the little watercolor.

Day 21 - 30 Paintings - Waterworks

Today I was back in my regular watercolor class

with John Preston at the Fairfield Art Association.

He gave us a real challenge with this view of

a rocky stream in Colorado.

 "Waterworks" watercolor on paper 

John's photo

His demonstrations are invaluable

in helping his students learn how to handle

the elusive medium of watercolor.

I may make another run at this one over the next few days.

Day 3 - 30 Paintings in 30 Days - Frost Field

We were on the road today.

I love the beauty of the frosty fields.

From the warm car...

I played with the Paper 53 app again while we were driving.

Then at home I played around with the watercolors again.

I think that the digital painting conveys the feeling of how cold it

was today better than the watercolor.

Maybe I will actually get into the studio tomorrow

 and break out the oil paint.

Frost Field

Day 1 - 30 Paintings in 30 Days 2014

I said last year at the end of Leslie Saeta's 

30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge that I would NEVER

do that again.

Well....

Digital study on paper 53

I am taking another run at it.

But this time I don't have a show opening

when the month ends.

So I am going back into my photo archives.

Painting in oil or watercolor.

Experimenting with digital painting 

in the Paper 53 app on my iPad.

Here is a 6 x 8 watercolor of Lake Sugema.