My first artist workshop at Wilbur Hot Springs

On Saturday morning, we began with a still life watercolor painting lesson and my two participants, Rebecca and Sai did quite skilled jobs on their preliminary thumbnail sketches, then their watercolor paintings. Both saw the antique vase quite accurately and successfully left some of the white of the page for the reflections on it. They also mixed a close matching green and layered it to achieve the three or four shades we determined was on the object in addition to the reflective whites.

Here's Rebecca behind her painting. My painting is on the right. (BTW, Rebecca might return to model for us! Isn't she beautiful?!):



Here's Sai's painting. Sai has an Avionics Engineering degree - surprisingly not an Art degree:




On Sunday morning, I led a lesson in small, "plein air" (open air and light)watercolor sketching done "alla prima" style (all at once), and included a few impressionistic figures by the pool. We began each small color sketch with a sand hourglass egg timer for a 2-3 min light and loose pencil sketch, then 6 - 9 min water coloring with two to three turns of the egg timer. Our 90 lb. watercolor paper measures 9 x 12" and the individual color sketches on them are 3 x 5" and 4 x 5". Here's mine:



Todd is an Engineer by trade, and these are his first-ever watercolor paintings. He did a great job! I liked his bright colors and especially his Van Gogh-styled texturing on the last two. He also did well with another first for him - sketching and painting a human figure. His model was one of the sun bathers who was sitting about thirty feet away.


My next of eight Artist Workshops I'll be hosting at Wilbur Hot Springs is scheduled for Friday through Sunday, May 22 - 24, 2009. I'll be giving a watercolor lesson on Saturday morning. On Sunday, I'll demonstrate a small landscape in oils, using a palette knife. If we get at least five participants who wish to have a friendly competition with the paintings they produce, we'll have a cash pot split for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. $5 entry fee per painting, no size or medium restrictions, no limit to the number of painting entries per artist, although one prize limit per artist. Judging will be done by one vote per every Wilbur guest we can find to cast a vote for their favorite three paintings. Please come join us for the fun if you're able.