Water color Practice W/ Little Brother

During my free time, I like to pull up Youtube tutorials and just practice painting. My little brother who recently turned 12 this month is also into art. So I do paint with him sometimes and he loves it. This is a piece we recently did together. At first glance, it's hard to tell which one I did and I think that's awesome considering I do have way more experience than he does. But it was fun and I love the colors!

Paint Brush Bag Roll

So in my first semester art class at school, I took a textiles class with Mrs. Elisa. In this class, we first designed our own stamps. We were required to create one figurative, geometrical and one other I forget the name of but it had to do with plants. Anyways, so I made one inspired by the Moroccan khumisa (palm shaped amulet), the Kurdish sun (on flag) and and the Egyptian Scarab. 

After that we printed our own fabric and were given the option to use our stamps. For the fabric base, we used acrylic paint and Gelli plates. If you know me, then you would know I stepped out of my comfort zone with these colors. I absolutely hated it at first because of the colors but when it was all put together, I ended up actually liking it. Anyways, so I added my stamps on top and this took several weeks to get completely done because there was so much behind the scene work involved. 

It didn't end there. My class was making regular bags fit for tablets and stuff like that, but Mrs. Elisa said I could make something that would go with my senior project, so we decided on the brush bag/roll. This also meant that my fabric pattern would be completely different than everyone else. So this involved a lot of thought processes from the both of us but it turned out to be awesome!!

Watercolor Artists

So since I have a research paper due soon on contemporary watercolor artist Janet Fish, I've been coming across many amazing artists besides her. There was one piece that caught my attention not just because it's one of Cloud Gate, but because of how real it looks! 

So after some research, I found out the amazing artist behind this piece. His name is Steven Kozar. I'm telling you, I'm still in doubt with some of his painting because of how real they look. 

  

Like there are some amazingly great watercolor artist out there like Janet Fish, but I can tell her painting is a painting which doesn't take away from how great the pieces. But Kozar's paintings are too realistic.  

Last Class Cancelled?

So because of this wonderful weather we've been having in NY, my last class with Larry has been cancelled :( BUT... It's also been rescheduled :) So our final class is next Tuesday. I'm glad we're still having it. The Spring catalog for the MAG Creative Workshop has been posted. There are so many great classes that include ones that will be taught by Cynthia and Larry. The problem is that most of them interfere with my school time. There is also one being taught by Jeanne Lindsay! I couldn't believe my eyes. She's taught watercolor at the creative workshop since 1984. She's an awesome artist! And, she does botanical pieces. Still life and botanical work was what I was primarily interested in when it comes to watercolor. Like it can't get any better.

But, her class is being taught during my school hours. I'm going to try to see if there's anyway I can work that out. 

Last Winter Class

So this coming up Tuesday will be my last class with Larry :( For our final class, we will be focusing on trees. I feel like trees are one of those essential things that just don't seem that important because they're everywhere but they're important because they're everywhere. If that makes any sense at all. So I am exited to learn the techniques for trees because they can add depth and interest to a lot of nature based piece of art. But this also means that I need to hunt down for more classes because I have to take at least one during the spring time. Exiting!!

Working with Shadows

So yesterday, we finished our observational piece from an image Larry took somewhere in Canandaigua. I like it! The shadow aspect of this piece is really cool. In order to achieve, I just went over the already painted areas with a blue wash. For the shadow wash, I mixed mostly ultramarine blue with a little bit of windsor blue and burnt sienna. The most important thing I got out of working with this piece was not going back in specifically with the glaze. For the shadow, we used a technique called glazing which just means going over a painted area with another. As tempting as it gets to go back into it after the first stroke, don't. But I do like the final piece.

Watercolor Redo... Success!

I redid it and it did come out better! I way more happy with how this piece came out! One of the major things with my other piece is that the tree on the far left was very muddy, the background was just horrible in general and the tree kind of looked unrealistic. Another thing was adding depth the the ground to make it almost look downhill. I mean there is still room for improvement with this piece but I'm happy with how it looks. You can see how i roughly sketched it before and how much life the color added to it afterwards.