Painting loosely

Each year the St Michaels Art League (SMAL) schedules two nationally know painters to come to our area for multi-day workshops. This fall Eric Weigardt came for 5 days. Unfortunately, I had a schedule conflict and was not able to sign up for the workshop. But, I did go one morning to see his demonstration. A few of my friends had taken classes from him and now I know why.

His easy, loose style creates a freshness in his watercolors that is so appealing. He offers a set of videos - which SMAL promptly bought. I have now watched all six - and want to watch them again and again.

One of the videos was on flowers - basically watching the edges and white spaces. Not to worry with all the petals - knowing it is flowers, I just do enough to suggest 'flower.'

Last week I thought it would be fun to just try it. I started with lots of pinks, gradually adding some darker reds. Then threw in some greens (blues and yellows) and painted in the container using the colors I had already used.

After it dried, it looked a little pale - I added some darks and decided to stop and just look at it for several days.

I think there is a wonderful freshness to this. I had a great time  - I want to try this some more.

Peppers, part II

Yeah, the peppers again... When I took the pepper painting to class the following week, everyone liked it...and then there was a discussion about adding some drama. Some of the students had been using very dark backgrounds in their paintings lately. What would that look like with the peppers?

I agreed the painting could use some darks, so I began experimenting. The voice in my head kept repeating, "It's only paper..." After all, I am taking a class - I need to experiment!

Here is the first attempt. I wanted it to still look like reflected glass...

I didn't like that particularly, so I washed it off and tried again.

Hmmm, maybe a little better. What about solid dark?

Well, that's dramatic all right, but now it's all about the window and not about the peppers! I showed this one to my class this week. They agreed, it was too much. They liked the other two pictured above (I had printed out the various iterations). Suggestion: use a sponge and wipe off some of the dark so the window has the streaked look...and let the streaks cross over the window frame to break up the sharp white lines.

I feel like the little kid in the backseat on a long trip..."Are we there yet?" ...