Hello and welcome, artists! I’m so excited to share a journey for artists on all levels. We’ll explore ethereal and atmospheric imagery on paper, using watercolor and enhancing our work with touches of personal mark making and delicate drawing.
Whenever I paint or draw, I'm always hoping to tap into a state of flow - that magical place where I truly feel that I lose myself, my sense of time and place, and whatever my mundane concerns might be - just for a little while.
Of all the materials I like to use, watercolor really invites us to dance with it, in a way that no other medium does. Everything in watercolor depends on timing. Watercolor is lightning fast, and also teaches us all the patience in the world. It is organic, fluid, mutable - it is, at heart, water.
Like everything magical, watercolor also invites a lot of myths. "It's the hardest medium" "You can't go back if you make a mistake." In this mixed media approach, we'll leave those limitations where we found them. “Overworking" doesn't exist. "Too dark" is just an opportunity. "Too much water" is often the right amount. We're going to push our materials to their limits, allow the flow to really lead the way, and mix our media meaningfully, to create ethereal and magical places that were hiding within our paper and paints all along!
We'll paint, draw, drip, spritz, and we'll even find out that water and wax DO in fact, mix. In the end, you'll have a collection of ethereal, atmospheric landscape images to treasure, share, and expand on. I can't wait to see what you make!!
Classroom Is Open!
Only $67.00
{ LIFETIME ACCESS & DOWNLOADABLE VIDEOS }
Here's a description of each of our special projects:
Warm up - Microscapes
In this fun warm up, we'll create tiny landscape images, using a big brush and a limited palette. We'll enhance these "micro" landscapes with a little drawing, getting ready to take on larger scale, and familiarizing ourselves with a few indispensable keys to creating landscape imagery in any medium. They're always fun to create and hard to stop making - you can fit so many of these charming micros in a sketchbook!
Lesson 1 - In The Air
In this lesson, we'll create three half sheet atmospheric mixed media landscapes, keeping things simple and focusing on the sky. We'll master water control, water non-control, and getting to the heart of minimal, ethereal, beautiful landscape illustrations. It's all about finding flow! Our palette will include just what it takes to make these masterful minis.
lesson 2 - A Little Rain
It's hard to resist the urge to complicate things, especially when you love to create in layers. In this refined stylized landscape, we'll challenge ourselves to exercise restraint, and create a calligraphic, dreamlike place, using a limited palette and a sprinkling of drawing magic. Scaling up to the full 9x12 sheet gives us some new challenges, and we're ready to meet them.
Lesson 3 - Inspired by Water
It's helpful to tether our paintings to a reference photo, sometimes. We'll use a reference here, but only just. Atmospheric landscape is all about suggestion, about the question and not the answer. You'll learn what to do if your painting starts to get a little too concerned with minutiae and you'll wind up with some startlingly beautiful mountains. We'll finish off with a touch of drawing, to clarify our intent and polish the edges of our painting.
Bonus lesson - Too Much Is Just Enough
Inevitably, the price you pay for pushing materials to the limit is that sometimes your clouds wind up looking like floating rocks. Don't throw that painting out till you do this! I can't promise that the technique in this lesson will *always* solve the problem, but I usually wind up somewhere much better than I was planning to go in the first place. In this lesson, we'll add some cold wax and neocolor 2 wax pastel to our world gone off course and change it for the better. You may love this so much you plan to end up here at the start!
Classroom Is Open!
Only $67.00
{ LIFETIME ACCESS & DOWNLOADABLE VIDEOS }
What will you learn in this class?
Ethereal and magical mist effects, painted and drawn
Simplification and intuitive compositional strength
Extreme wet-in-wet experimentation and letting go
What to expect from your paint, wet and dry
Managing edges, eliminating and encouraging “blooms”
Working wet into wet
Experimental play with color, wash, and layering
Workflow when working wet-in-wet to create great work in batches
Using drawing together with watercolor to add detail and texture
Using water soluble wax pastel and cold wax medium as a top layer
The power of dark value and shadows
Using a limited palette and the value of a limited palette
Paint management for wet-in-wet
Texture tools and alternative applications of watercolor
Great landscape images from inspiration, imagination, or both!
Who is this class for?
This class is for all levels, and is especially for those who love landscape or want to create ethereal abstracts. Your work will be uniquely and inimitably your own, since you can never step in the same river twice.
HERE ARE JUST A FEW EXAMPLES OF dena ann’s WORK
Classroom Is Open!
Only $67.00
{ LIFETIME ACCESS & DOWNLOADABLE VIDEOS }
Supply List
I like M Graham, but any professional paints are fine.
CORE COLORS: Nickel Azo Yellow, Transparent Red Oxide (or Burnt Sienna, or Quinacridone Rust) Ultramarine Blue
ADDITIONAL (less important but good to have) Pthalo Green, Pthalo Blue, Payne’s Gray or Black or Neutral Tint
Optional: Chinese White or White Gouache
BIG BRUSH: Inexpensive 1.5 inch Hake or mop pointed Mop/Quill/ large round brush - I use a mop brush called Atelier by Silver brush Co, a soft synthetic at a good value. Quills have odd sizing, the brush should be about an inch in diameter or more. You can use any big brush that holds watercolor
BRUSHES: Size 16 Round, Size 6 Round are the sizes I use throughout class. A liner brush is nice and totally optional
SRAY BOTTLES: I like different sizes, and an adjustable nozzle for changing the concentration and force of the spray can be really helpful.
PALETTE: You’ll want a lot of area to slosh paint and water around, versus a little well palette, though I use one of those, too, for the warmup and smaller paintings. I used white glass plates from IKEA - they’re great for this purpose
PAPER TOWLS OR SPONGE: (household) You can let them dry and keep using them as long as the washes you clean up are light in color
SMALL BITS OF SPONG FOR PAINTING: I used natural, textured synthetics are good too. Stiff bristle brush for texture (optional)
WATERCOLOR PAPER:
100 percent Cotton Rag is essential
You will need 140 pound cold press paper for this class. I like Winsor and Newton Professional, Blick Premier, and Bee 100 percent cotton paper mini sheets.
The Winsor and Newton paper is an amazing paper at a good value. A 9x12 block is recommended.
DRAWING: These are SUGGESTED media, if you have things that plug into the color palette of your paintings, use those things.
NEOCOLOR 2 WAX PASTELS: I used neutrals and colors that meshed with the paintings: Beige, White, Silver Gray are key colors
Optional: Payne’s Gray Cinnamon Golden Ochre Apricot Sahara Yellow
PASTEL PENCILS: I used Stabilo CarbOthello, coordinating the colors with the painting, relying on the grays in the range, as well as ochre, browns and peach colors.
COLORED PENCILS: I use a few coordinating colored pencils. I like Derwent’s Drawing range immensely, all but one totally lightfast, and stunning neutrals for landscape.
INKTENSE PENCIL: Payne’s Gray
GAMBLIN COLD WAX: Dorlands might work, but it’s got a looser texture and I haven’t tried it in this application.
OPTIONAL: Fixative for pastel - I use Spectra-Fix