YUPO WORKSHOP IN FRANCE

Our workshop is beginning to fill up for next year's French workshop.  The processes shown here will be shared during our eleven days at Le Vieux Couvent.  We'll be exploring YUPO in many unique ways.

This is from one of the villages in the beautiful Dordogne region, so picturesque and paintable! 



'St. Emilion'  Watercolor and Fluid Acrylics on YUPO 26 x 34"

JONATHAN

Our nephew, Jon, lives in London and is an accomplished musician, song writer, and music mixer. His group, ADULTS, CHILDREN, AND ELDERLY (ACE) plays in several venues in England, and he is their awesome drummer. This painting, done on gessoed watercolor paper, celebrates his creative spirit. Jon is so gifted artistically as well as being truly brilliant. The gessoed paper surface was randomly stamped with an 'ART' stamp before it dried. Several colors of fluid acrylics were flung onto the upright paper and allowed to drop off before the watercolor portrait was painted. Thanks goes to Nick Simmons for his ACRYLIC FLINGING demo at our workshop here in the studio last month.

Many years ago, I squirted staining watercolors onto an upright sheet of 300# Arches which had some miskit 'combed' onto it, then explored what I could make out of the colorful splashes. Below is the result of that very special painting.

DEMO

Wednesday morning's class asked for a demo on pouring miskit and pouring paint to create a background for a painting. Steve Blackburn introduced this technique, winning major awards with his paintings. He also teaches workshops to help artists discover how to create this unique look.

First, a small blop of miskit was placed on the paper, and immediately the edges of that miskit blop were lightly spritzed with water to make the miskit trail out into those spritzes. The paper was turned and tilted to encourage a random miskit pattern. Eventually, the white paper had miskit trailings crawling over much of the surface. (See Steve's website for better instructions.)

When the miskit had dried, watercolor paint was poured over the paper and allowed to mingle with other colors which were added while still wet. For this one, warm colors were poured first over most of the paper first. Then when they were completely dry, cool colors were poured in chosen areas, with soft edges created with a sprayer. The whole paper was covered with paint, leaving no pure white areas anywhere. When all the paint was dry, the miskit was removed to reveal intricate patterns of whites which would play an important role in the painting.

The drawing was done next, as well as a small value study in black and white. Once the painting began, the idea was to preserve as much as the original poured areas as possible and to include some of the white patterns within the focal area. Negative shapes behind the subject must be painted in, as well as darker areas within the subject - like the shapes on the giraffes, the eyes, etc.

Check out another master at this process. Kathy Wirth has adapted this technique to her own style of painting and creates breathtaking and unique florals, pouring miskit and paint first before 'pulling' out the flowers almost magically from the poured surface.

It's a lot more difficult than it looks to create beautiful art this way. The challenge always seems to be to NOT PAINT what you are painting. That's sure confusing, but it's true. To let the beauty of those original pours be the highlight of the painting, they should remain untouched in the focal area as well as in other parts of the painting. This process is a great way to shift an artist's thinking from painting things like flowers or giraffes, into painting shapes of lights and darks.

These giraffes were finished last week during a snow storm, and today we're getting a lot more snow again. It'll be a great day to paint on YUPO and watch the birds.

"TWO FOR LUNCH" Transparent Watercolor on Hot Pressed Crescent Premium Watercolor Board, 20 x 30"

ADJUSTMENTS

Yesterday's painting has been adjusted slightly here and there, and I'm calling it finished now.
There's been another stem added (thanks for your helpful comments) by lifting the top edge of color off of it before adding Rich Green Gold and Transparent Pyrrol Orange to the bottom edge. The stem shows darker on top than it actually is since the top of the stem is lighter than the background. Also, the inside of the big flower over to the right was darkened some as well as softened where the seeds meet the petals.

The left hand flower has adjustments also so I don't have to crop it off. And the distracting petals on the top right of the big flower have been quieted way down, as have some of the whites on the edges of the pokey green things above that flower. How's that for technical terms of a flower?!? You'd never know I spent 20 some years working in a garden center, would you?

Now on to the next painting, which won't be a pour. But first, I have an art reception to go to tomorrow at Sharon Woods in Cincinnati, Ohio. It's from 1 to 4 - hope you can make it.

"SASSY SISTERS" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 22 x 17" COLLECTED

POUR IT ON

Yesterday's morning class began the time consuming technique of pouring a painting, using miskit to preserve the correct shapes between each layer of pouring. This first photo shows the final painting which has been adjusted considerably after all the pouring was done and the miskit removed.

The second photo shows the painting part way through the pouring process, with about 3 layers of miskit and 3 pours of paint. For the first 3 pours, I used a cool primary triad of Quinacridone Magenta, Ultramarine Turquoise, and Hansa Yellow and poured them somewhat randomly onto the wet paper surface.

The third photo shows all the pouring completed with the miskit ready to remove. I'd added Transparent Pyrrol Orange and a little Cerulean Blue to the last 2 pours, and dropped some extra dark values of Quin Magenta and Ultramarine Turquoise into the center of the sunflowers while the area was wet. Both splattering paint and adding popcorn salt helped create subtle textures in a few areas, too.

This next photo shows the painting as it looked after all the miskit was removed. It was easy to see that some major corrections had to be made. The lower left flower was misformed badly (cropping may help,) and the lower right one needed less value changes from the darks to the lights (adding color to the whites would help there.)

The inside of the main flower needed to pop a whole lot more, and the warmth in the background was stifling and dull. I wished then that I had known to pour all cool colors for that last pour. Too late now - and I wasn't going to re-miskit the whole painting. Also, I felt the flowers needed a suggestion of a stem or two.

This photo shows some of the corrections. The center of the big flower still needs more pop, and the background simply must be cooled down, (which I did NOT want to do.) But it was robbing the sunflowers of impact because it was too warm. Cooling it down with Indanthrone, if painted on in a juicy - poured-like manner, would help give some relief and rest for the eye from all the heat.

Leaving some of the background showing as the stem for the lower right flower would help to anchor the flowers - see the top finished photo. Does it need another stem from the top flower to angle off to the left?

The reference photo above seemed better flipped sideways. Minor adjustments were made for better positioning, etc. before the drawing was completed. Though I seldom paint flowers anymore, this was a good challenge.

"SASSY SISTERS" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 20 x 17" COLLECTED

CHANGING COLORS

Yesterday's painting is a reversal of this painting, but this one includes more background area. The technique of literally pouring watercolor in layers over protected, painted shapes helped develop the glow in the tulips.

The mood in today's post seems livelier, maybe because of the warmer palette. Although the process takes a lot of planning and work, it's so worth it when all those miskit areas are removed to reveal the luminous colors.

A scrubber brush helped soften some edges in this painting, too, but no paint on a brush ever met with the paper. Both paintings are from the archives.

"TWILIGHT" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 20 x 14"

OUT LIKE A LAMB

Only a few weeks until spring gets here - we hope... My daffodils are finally poking their leaves out of the soil, but there's no sign of the snow drops yet.

These tulips were painted with layers of miskit protecting the already painted shapes that weren't to get any darker. After each application of miskit dried, color was poured over the wet paper, then allowed to dry, too... more miskit, then more poured paint - with a total of seven layers of poured paint over seven different applications of miskit. No paint brush loaded with paint ever touched the paper, except for signing it.

The batiks and taping techniques on this blog were created with the same process, but with different materials to protect the lighter values. Instead of miskit, masking tape can be torn to cover shapes on the watercolor paper, or hot wax can be painted on washi papers to protect shapes before adding darker values of colors. Whatever's used to protect existing values helps keep the lighter values light and untouched, while the darker values are built up, usually resulting in fresher looking watercolors.

It's a great way to teach the importance of value changes to artists. Color does seem to get all the credit for a good painting, but VALUE really does do all the work - defining shapes, distance, forms, etc.

Watch for a post of another painting of the nearly same tulips tomorrow done with other colors, resulting in a completely different mood. Painting the same picture several times seems to bother some artists, but I enjoy the surprises and lessons that each painting brings, since they all have their own uniqueness.

"PINK PARADE" Transparent Watercolor on 140#HP Arches 21 x 14"

COOL WASH

This was posted yesterday, but since then, a pale blue wash of Cobalt Blue has been added to the background as well as to some of the petals of the flowers. Stronger darks were also added, as per Rhonda's good suggestion on the last post. Maybe better?

Yesterday's post was a little too pale compared to the real painting. This one's more accurate, I think.

The last couple of days have been spent blowing bubbles - paint bubbles! More to come soon on this:-D

"WASHED DAFFODILS" Transparent Watercolor on 140#HP Arches 16 x 12"

SO MANY GOOD CHOICES

One of the things that I love about watercolor is the huge variety of processes and techniques to choose from when painting. After taking many workshops from many wonderful, professional artists, I've enjoyed adapting those techniques to how I paint, eventually passing along the information about the processes to my classes via demos. Credit is duly given to the instructors for their specific techniques that they so willingly share.

Years ago, a friend introduced me to Stephen Blackburn. Deb Ward had been fascinated by his beautiful handling of watercolor, so a bunch of us signed up for his workshop in Lafayette, Indiana. Since then, he has been to the Cincinnati area several times to give workshops ... twice, in fact, to give workshops for people in my classes. One of my original paintings of penguins, shown on the blog on March 24, 2008, was created during one of those workshops.

The daffodil painting shown here was a demo for Tuesday's class based on info that Steve taught us. Posted here are also two stages of the painting before completion.

First, miskit is 'poured' in a 'stream' onto the paper and then spritzed with water to create trickles for it to flow into. It's a lot trickier than it looks to do this part. Once the miskit is dry, paint is poured over the paper, with several colors being applied. Each color can be allowed to dry in between pours, or for more color mingling, the colors can be poured all at once.

Once the miskit's removed, the subject can be established, as it was with this painting, or the subject could be determined ahead of time before pouring. I do a detailed value study of the drawing in order to know where NOT to paint. For the most part, the picture is developed by painting behind the subject matter, with those darker values popping out the focal areas. This 'negative' painting preserves the beautiful results of the poured paint over the ruffly miskited areas, allowing them to remain untouched.

The final look couldn't ever be achieved with a brush. The unique textured surface created with the poured miskit and paint adds so much to the final painting, making it more unique and intriguing to look at. Thanks, Steve, for sharing your discoveries with us.

Steve won the top award several years ago in International Artist Magazine for one of his exquisitely rendered sunflowers done with his technique. He's a master artist who has developed his very own technique of creating beauty, and he willing shares his techniques in his workshops. Deb's invited him to return to Cincinnati to teach another workshop in May. Hop over to her website - http://www.debwardart.com/ - for more information about the workshop, but hurry. Several people from my classes have already signed up.

Pop over to Steve's instructional website, where you can sign up for his newsletter, too. If you click on the workshop page, you'll see him in action at one of the workshops he taught in my studio. Here's the link - http://www.learnwatercolors.com/

Next month, watercolor artists from around the country will enjoy being at Kanuga Watercolor Workshops near Hendersonville, North Carolina. I've been able to be there for most of the last dozen years to continue learning more about creating art. I'm one of those people who think that learning never ceases and love taking advantage of as many opportunities as possible to experience more ways to be creative. Although there are more than ten instructors to choose from at Kanuga each year, this year Miles Batt will be my instructor for the week. So looking forward to going!

"SONG OF SPRING" Transparent Watercolor on HP 140# Arches, 16 x 12"

ENRICHED AND BLESSED

Imagine being a pilgrim or Indian about 300 years ago and how you might have communicated with others. Fast forward to today. Now we can go to many, many places all over the world to communicate, 'visit,' and explore, without ever leaving our computer chair. The pilgrims and Indians could never have imagined any of this.

Here in this country, we set aside one special day to be thankful for our abundance and blessings. This year one of the things that stands out is knowing an extended community here on the Internet via blogs.

I'm very grateful for all the places to discover, to be able to find such beautiful art in a variety of forms, and to 'meet' the diverse artists from so many artistic fields. I'm grateful that you are here today visiting this blog. Thanks for enriching my life by sharing it via art.

I appreciate the encouraging comments and helpful suggestions that many of you post here, and wish for all of you God's bounteous blessings on your life and your creativity. Happy Thanksgiving. (And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Carl, on Thanksgiving day.)

"HARVESTED" Transparent Watercolor on Crescent Board 22 x 12"

OLDIES CAN BE CATHEDRALS

Some paintings should stay under the bed, and this is one of them. I was learning to pour paint on stretched watercolor paper in the late '90's, and this cathedral is the best of the two that I tried. (You don't get to see the other one.)

This is OLDIES time, and I've got a few more...lots more, actually. I'll only post a couple more then get back to some newer stuff.

To check out how a pour should really be done, go to the March 28th post for this year. That painting was done the same year this one was. What a difference some experimentation and practice can make. I suppose I should try this again now. 'Thanks' to my sister, Marilyn, for her photo.

"ALL SAINTS DAY" Transparent Watercolor on 140#HP Arches 10 x 21"

POURING PAINT

One of my favorite things about watercolor is how luminous the paint appears. When paint is applied by pouring, without the aid of a brush, it seems to have even more luminosity, too. That's how this painting started.

The first picture here shows the painting right after I'd removed the miskit. All the edges are crisp as a result of using the miskit, but the painting has a very graphic and, unfortunately, almost monotone look. (I think I let the colors blend together too much during the early pours.) I was not ready to call the painting finished so I had to get out my brush and make lots of adjustments.

This old nurse log 'lives' in Washington State, where Dawn Bailey took an excellent photograph of it with all the moss and ferns growing around it. Be sure to check out her nature blog - Vulture Cafe - on the side bar.

We painted together a week ago, and this was one of our projects. In fact, it's actually her fault that I'm teaching 'online' now to several artists - she instigated the idea and nagged me until I said we'd give it a try. She's a great photographer and knows her way around handling a paintbrush pretty well, too. We had a good time last week painting in real life instead of via cyberspace on the Internet.

The next painting shows lots of the adjustments, but the last photo shows what I think is the finished painting. In this last photo, only minor adjustments were made to various edges along with subtle value and color changes to some small areas. Because I painted over almost the entire picture with a brush, much of the original luminosity of pouring the paint has been compromised.

See if you can find the mountain chickadee that was added in the last photo - which sang to us as we painted that day in our woodland studio. It really looks more like a sparrow, so you'll have to use your imagination.

"HAVEN" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 11 x 15" COLLECTED

GARDENS

Recently a new friend who's an avid gardener purchased this tulip painting I completed a couple of years ago. Since I've been puttering in the garden all day, it seemed fitting to post her painting today.

Her gardens were so full of treasurers, surprises, and intrique. Just by walking along the natural curving paths she'd created, you could sense that the landscaped area was brimming over with love. It was beautiful and delightful, just like the gardener!

"KLINGER COUNTRY" Transparent Watercolor Poured on 140#CP Arches 21 x 14" COLLECTED

BURSTING OUT ALL OVER

I've dug into the archives for some paintings that are from almost a decade ago. It's weird to compare them to the work I do now, but since this blog is about a journey, I include them here - even if they are out of sequence.

This painting was one of the first 'poured' paintings I ever tried. Miskit was applied to protect shapes of each layer of color and value while I poured new layers of color over the wet paper. I think this one had at least 6 layers of miskit and pours, maybe seven. Removing all that miskit is the hardest part of the painting. Once the miskit's off, it's nearly done! Softening a few edges and adding some soft suggestions of distant leaves finished the piece.

The car's long gone, probably rusted totally by now. But the memory of seeing it 'planted so beautifully' in early June on a winding, hilly country road in our county remains vivid. The rose was a wild one that had sprung up in this deserted treasure and reminded me of an old Hippie! I could be one:-)

"FLOWER POWER" Transparent Watercolor on 140# CP Arches or Fabriano??? about 15 x 11" COLLECTED

WORKSHOP BOUND

I'm leaving in a few hours for a workshop in North Carolina with YUPO master and teacher, George James. There will be some wonderful instructors there at Kanuga during the four days we take classes, but each artist studies under just one teacher, with lots of activities with other instructors offered in the evenings.

Mark Mehaffey, Steve Rogers, and Steven Quiller, all of whom have paintings accepted into this year's American Watercolor Society Show, will be teaching, along with over a half a dozen other diverse watermedia teachers. Mark's painting won the SILVER MEDAL OF HONOR in the AWS show! That is AWESOME!

Very special congratulations goes to Myrna Wacknov, who not only had her painting selected for the first time in the 2008 AWS show, but ALSO WON a TOP MEDAL AWARD, too! YEAH, MYRNA!

This porch painting is another poured painting done with miskit to protect the areas I wanted to keep as light as they were. It may be too harsh looking with the stark contrast from the lights to the darks. Or maybe it's the 'too too sweet' contrasting with extra strong value changes that seems out of place.

It's an older piece, and I no longer have it. Although I've painted this several times, I may decide to paint it again and see what happens. The house in real life was not as run down as my crookedy perspective suggests.

For more info about the annual spring watercolor workshop at Kanuga, go to http://www.kanugawatercolorworkshops.com/index1.html Can't wait to discover more about the next part of this art journey. See you in a week!

"PINK LEMONADE, ANYONE?" Transparent Watercolor on Crescent Watercolor Board 12 x 17" COLLECTED

POURING IT ON

My favorite 'watercolor' look is achieved when I can get the paint onto the paper without ever touching the paper with paint on a brush. This painting was created by literally pouring the paint out of a small container, onto the wet paper. But first, I had to plan things so the paint would flow where I wanted it to go.

I chose the very lightest shapes in the painting and covered them carefully with miskit. After the miskit dried, I soaked the paper with a sprayer filled with water, then poured colors over the whole page, making sure it was covered everywhere with color which had a very similar pale value.

Once the paint was completely dry, I applied MORE miskit to the next lightest areas in the exact shape of those light areas. The miskit would make those specific shapes stay the light value they were as I again sprayed the paper to soak it and poured more colors on.

I repeated this process seven times, each time 'saving' the next darkest valued shapes with miskit before I poured the paint onto the wet paper. Each pour of paint had to be one step darker than the last one. Because the paper was wet and I used several colors for each pour, I had very limited control over where those colors decided to go. I also placed a big plastic bin under my painting to catch the excess runoff.

After the paper was dry, I removed the miskit. The color surprises that were revealed are one of my favorite things about painting this way.

I'd used a brush to apply the miskit to specific shapes to prevent them from getting any darker, but I did not apply any paint to the paper with a brush (other than for my signature.) This painting is one out of the archives and was the first one I'd ever poured completely from beginning to end.

Nita Engle's beautiful watercolors inspired me to start painting with watercolor, and her paintings glow because of the beauty of poured paint. She's a master at letting the watercolor do the work, although the way she approaches her poured paintings is somewhat different than what I've described here. My friend, Charmalee, and I drove to St. Louis years ago to take a workshop with her, and it was well worth the drive. Check out some of Nita's work; she's listed on my sidebar about artists I love.

This process will work equally well with transparent watercolor and fluid acrylics. There is one BIG advantage of using fluid acrylics to pour, instead of watercolor --- the sedimentary textures will stay put on the paper, even after the miskit is removed, if fluid acrylics are used. With watercolor, the miskit will lift off the sedimentary effect of granulating paints, unfortunately destroying some really neat textural effects.

"HOOD ORNAMENT" Transparent Watercolor on 140 CP Arches 14 x 18" COLLECTED

THE REAL SNOW BIRDS

The antics of a group (or flock?) of penguins can keep me captivated for a long time. They are hilarious. Many aquarium facilities feature penguin style living up close just like where these fellows now live in their own psuedo South Pole country (near the Ohio River.)

Using a technique taught by northern Indiana artist, Steve Blackburn, I literally poured trails of miskit onto the watercolor board, spritzing it with water to create avenues for it to crawl into and produce a unique pattern that I would never be able to paint. After the miskit dried, I poured color over the board, using several separate colors. Using a sprayer, I made some areas lighter than others, but the whole board was covered with paint. When it was dry, I removed the miskit to reveal the curious patterns and textures of pure white paper.

At that point, I drew in the penguin shapes and details and began to paint behind the lightest shapes to make them show up. It's really cool to see a form emerge as you paint the negative shapes behind it. Almost magic, but careful planning is involved.

The wings, bodies, heads, feet, and beaks of the foreground penquins were added as positive shapes. The lightest areas of the painting are from the original pours, and I like how the miskit shapes peak through the darks in the painting, almost resembling a frosted morning. This photo shows most of the paintng, but somehow I cut off the left hand side of the painting, so about one and a half penquins are missing. (And after goggling what a group of penguins are called, I found a multiple choice answer --- a huddle, a rookery, a parcel, a crèche' or a colony... take your pick!)

"PENGUIN PARADE" Transparent Watercolor on Hot Pressed Crescent Watercolor Board 30 x 12" Collected (Giglee' prints available)

PLAYING WITH PAINTING

The summer of 1993, I traveled out of state to my brother's to house sit for him, dragging along all my paints so I could enjoy a precious week of uninterrupted painting. First thing I did was load up three oiler boilers (from Cheap Joes) with my three favorite colors at the time - permanent rose, phthalo blue, and hansa yellow.

After randomly applying some miskit to the paper to save some curving white shapes, I headed outside to squirt and splash color on the full sheet of Arches paper. I spritzed the colors to make them run and so enjoyed all the dancing they did as they dripped and flowed together. This is what watercolor does the best, and I loved watching it happen.

Next, I hopped into the hot tub (vacation, remember?) and turned the multicolored, in-progress painting all around to discover how I could proceed. When I turned the paper vertical, I saw that the paint had flowed to create what resembled the profile of a man. His nose was maybe a little too big, but the profile was there for sure, looking downward. The problem was that I also saw a crown of thorns above his head, partially created by the miskited areas. No matter how else I turned the painting, the only thing I could actually see was this profile with the crown.

I slipped into shopping clothes, grabbed my brother's car keys, and drove in the direction of Walmart. NO WAY was I going to paint a religious looking painting. I'd had enough of religiosity recently, enough for a lifetime as far as I was concerned.

As soon as I entered Walmart, I KNEW the name of the painting. THE COST. And I knew I had to go back and paint it.

Back at my makeshift studio, I took out my watercolor pencils and enhanced the hair and crown area, created a beard, and developed more of a mouth. I found a mirror to look in to see how eyes would look in agony..... (and I had a measurable amount of agony going on in my life at that time to help me sense it for the painting.)

Finished. I looked at it again from the hot tub. I was struck by the beauty of the pink drips falling from the crown. It took some time before I could understand the meaning of the name of the painting.

Now I know that I no longer have to strive for 'perfection.' I can stop trying to accomplish perfection as if my life depended on it. When I make mistakes and do things wrong, I know that I am forgiven. That cost has been fully paid.

Many years later, when I look at those fluid, magenta drips, I am still struck by a sadness or agony, but I also feel a wonder, an awe at the touching beauty I see ... very strange and conflicting emotions that somehow work out ok together.

This isn't a religious painting but a painting about being freed. I'm thankful for being given this gift to paint, but I'm most thankful for knowing God's pure love and acceptance through His most precious gift, Jesus Christ.

"THE COST" Transparent Watercolor & Watercolor Pencils on 140#CP Arches 22 x 30" NFS (Available as a Lithograph Print in Several Sizes)

BARN-a-MANIA!

Buck County, Pennsylvania Barn to left & Ohio Mail Pouch Barn below

My specialty --- "Maudlin" sunsets.... meaning '''overly sentimental!''' Enough said.

A couple of weeks ago, I threatened to post a bazillion old barn paintings I'd done over the last 20 years. Fortunately for us blog-aholics, I only found a few of them.

The barns at the top are the most recent, probably done within the last eight years as something I taught in an intermediate class lesson. The farther down this

post you look, the older the paintings are.

The gray barn with the two white silos and fence posts was done as a result of reading an excellent, inspiring book by Valfred Thelin regarding pouring on paint and letting it run. Somone's since borrowed my book... the price I pay for loaning them out..... I still have hopes of seeing it again.

There's an old mail pouch barn near us that HAD to be painted, of course, (see 2nd painting.) The late evening sunset was done before they moved the barn and put it on a concrete block base - looks ugly now, but it surely is a relic from the past.

Some of the barns came out of my imagination while some are from photos I took. The weird (and profitable) thing is that all barn pictures sell well here in the midwest. And there are lots of them, some much better than others.

Talk to an artist who's been painting a while, and they will roll their eyes about painting barns. I will too, probably, because I realize now that it's not the barn that should be painted, but the feelings we have about 'old' things like barns that need to be expressed in our paintings. I've done a couple of more modern, abstracted barn paintings that were fun to do. They took the longest to sell.

Fortunately, I'm not counting on sales to survive, so I no longer care to paint the things that I think might sell the best. I can paint what I want to paint, what interests and challenges me. And seldom is it barns anymore.

Back when I got excited about getting commissions to paint, a woman asked me to paint her grandparent's old homestead, the one here with the big white house, oak tree, garish green pines, and two distant barns. After it was done, her siblings all wanted a copy.

Now days, with the giclee' process, that would've been easy to do. But seventeen years ago, I had to repaint the same picture, with a few minor 'memory' adjustments, for all four of her siblings. GROAN... or so I thought. I found out the value of challenging myself to make it a better painting every time. Each painting was a full 22x30" sheet of paper, and I charged $129 each. YIKES. What was I thinking? But, maybe I got the best end of the deal, too, considering the lack of mature composition, garish green trees, awkward oaks...

Enough about barns. And thank goodness, they're are all sold.

Big barn above with mountains was done when I attended my first workshop in Estes Park, Colorado with Tony Couch. What a great week with gorgeous surroundings. And as he explained, we can't really paint barns. We can only paint shapes, textures, colors, lines, values, sizes, and direction.

Left barn is a scene I usually teach in my beginner's classes.

This was painted about 8 weeks after I started a beginners class with Suzanne Mayes Wentzell in Kokomo, Indiana. Nice fog but what pathetic trees:-(

THE END! (Transparent Watercolor used in all these barn paintings.)