4/18/12

First Class of a New Session

Watercolor Demo
This was a quick little watercolor sketch done in class this morning.  It's about 6.5 X 5.  I'm working on a summer cottage theme, using a porch from one cottage, a screen door from another etc.  The painting is more or less a sketch to see how my colors will balance.

In the top right corner is a thumbnail sketch that I was working from.  My students really fight the thumbnail sketch idea.  I keep telling them that once they have the composition and darks and lights planned out, the painting will just fall off their brushes.  The thumbnail should be no more than two inches and take no more than two minutes.  Easy, huh?  Of course, sometimes I have to do a million thumbnails before I can get to the painting.

It has been cold, rainy, snowy  -  yuck.  But the trees are beginning to bloom, the grass is very green, and the birds are singing.  We'll be okay.

We've been painting the quirky floor in our living room.  The whole house was completely disrupted by the stuff from that room being shoved into every available space all over the house.  Isn't it amazing how much stuff you can have in one room?!  I really got to liking my favorite chair in the kitchen.  I was beginning to feel like we were on an episode of the Hoarders.  We had a little corner of the dining room table to eat on, we could sit on the couch if we squeezed between stacks of stuff,  and if I sat in my comfy chair displaced to the kitchen, I had no place to put my feet.  Yesterday morning I was beginning to feel a little dazed and displaced myself.  In fact, when my husband left for work, instead of his usual "Love ya. See you tonight", he said, "Don't operate any heavy equipment."   The house is back together now, and so am I.

Blogger has changed its format, and the photo editing site I have used for years is going away tomorrow.  I'm cool with all that.  I can handle change. It'll be fine.  I don't care.

4 comments:

Marj said...

So glad you are back (posting). Isn't it upending when things are not in their usual spaces--only a little mess is OK :-) I think I have a sketch/painting of that very screen door. Yours is so pretty! Love the combo. idea.
Will you be having some Wtrclr/Journaling Classes again this summer? Looking forward to making reservations in Aug.

Catherine said...

Marj - yes, a little mess is good. I will be doing journal classes - I haven't posted them yet, but they are posted on the Bay View Association site.

Deafgoldenhair said...

Hi Catherine,
Which format do you use? I've been wanting to set up my artwork but how? I guess I need a small lesson to set up my blog. I do have a blog but it's not the same what I wanted in mind. Sometimes it's good for a change!

Catherine said...

Brenda/Deafgoldenhair - I believe the template was (is) a version of Blogger's "awesome", but I'm not real sure what is what now that they've changed things around!
Play with it - you can see how it looks before you commit. Even then, you can still change things. I really don't know what I'm doing now that they have "fixed" it. I'm going to have to play with it too.