Watercolour class 4th week.

I haven't got around to scanning the exercises with masking fluid, sorry (who the heck am I saying sorry to?  I don't even know if anyone is reading this).
Our tutor had us do another still life this week, but using vegetables instead of fruit.  She wanted us to incorporate what she had shown us so far into this painting, so I used candle wax for the white bits as highlights on my shiny vegies.   When she had told us last week to bring our own vegies if we wanted to, there was a bit of a discussion around the room as to who would bring what, and what would be the hardest things to paint.  One girl said broccoli would be, and most of them groaned 'oh yeah' until someone else said cauliflower!  I sat silent, already thinking.  I wanted a combination of colours and textures, and finally decided on a red onion and a brown onion, a zucchini, and a red pepper.  When we arrived at the studio on Monday, Dorothy had already set up an arrangement of vegies, and she said we could use it if we liked.  So after asking if anybody else wanted the broccoli (they didn't!) I added it to my little display.  At the end of the class, they were all very impressed with my broccoli! 

All I had to do was the shadows and a few touch up bits here and there, and I found time to do that today using the photo I took on Monday while everything was in the same position. Dorothy encourages us to do that, so we can finish our paintings later if we don't have them completed by the time we go home.
That damn red onion was very hard to paint - would you believe something so simple could be so tricky?
I still haven't got the arrangement and perspective correct either, although the photo was taken from a slightly different angle to where I was sitting when I sketched it.  Cie la vie...it's all in the learning I guess.

Watercolour Class, third week.

This week we finished our fruit still life, painting the background with washes, and making final touches to the fruit.  Dorothy demonstrated how to create white spaces on water colour paintings, using masking fluid, candle wax, leaving an area unpainted, or scratching away a painted surface.  The last hint came with a warning that the paper will be damaged by that process.

I spent today with my artist friend G, and we sat in her sunny kitchen and played with masking fluid and candle wax to create some interesting effects on small paintings.  I will photograph them and post here shortly, but for now, here is my finished Still Life.  The original is actually a rectangle, but it wouldn't fit in my scanner that way, so I had to crop the sides.