Watercolor class demonstration paintings from Spring term 2012

I thought you might like to see what the subject matter was for the beginning to intermdiate watercolor class I taught Spring term 2012 at Clark Community College.  We selected a subject for each of the 8 classes.  It is different every term.  These are the paintings I demonstrated this term.  

 The title of this painting  describes the look on this man's face.  The object of this lesson was to show how to choose a color pallette to help portray the character.  It uses a simple background, hard and soft edges, a portrait composition and use of only two colors to achieve the finished painting. 

"Despair"

Capturing the light was the focus of today's demonstration painting.  This subject also gave me an opportunity to demonstrate painting white fabric.

"Stephanie"

 

Painting flowers is always a request in my watercolor classes.  Over the years we've painted lots of different flowers.  One that is always requested is the big, showy, fun to paint, Sunflower. 



 

"Sunflower"

 

 

 

Pears always give me an opporunity to share with the class the necessity of lights, mediums and darks in a painting to help create form and dimension.  Each of the pears show a highlight, mid value, core shadow; reflected light and a cast shadow.   All of these elements are necessary to help the pear shape move from a one dimensional drawing to a 3 dimensional form.  We also created a dark pigment from two complementary colors. 

"Three's a Crowd"

The class wanted to have one class on the subject of a building in a landscape.  I'd recently been to upstate New York and surrounding areas to see the Autumn colors.  This barn was one of a multitude of paint worthy sights.

I demonstrated the watercolor on the right in class.  Then I returned the following week with the acrylic version.  I created this version to show how to make a tradition subject more contemporary by simplifying the foregound and middle ground and I also intensified the color in the sky. 

                                           "Red Barn"                                             "Red Barn"

                                       Acrylic Version                                          Watercolor


Another simple demonstration of light, medium and dark values to created form.  I also demonstrated a simple "wet on dry" background, wet pigments on dry paper.  It is important, when painting flowers, to get the paint on the paper in the least number of strokes as possible.  This helps maintain the luminosity of the paint. 



"Pink Tulip"

 

 

This was our final demonstration of the term, a quick, loose, colorful painting of a rooster.  The roosters cocky attitude and beautiful color make it a class favorite. 

 

"Hawaiian King of the Yard"