Year End

Wrapping Up Another Year

I was just going back over some blog posts from 2012.  Some of these are from lessons, and some are just from life.

It's been a good year. Lots of classes with wonderful students, lots of family fun, good times with good friends, and it's been a healthy and active year.

Chris Guillebeau, from the blog The Art of Non-Conformity spends an entire week reviewing the old year  -  what worked, what didn't. Sometimes I wonder if I'm paying enough attention to be able to do that.  I do re-cap after each workshop, and go back over class lessons and demos to see what could be improved.  I also make notes of students' suggestions, and try to plan new things to do.  And, yes, I do write out goals for the new year  -  not resolutions, but some things I'd like to add to, or subtract from, my classes and my life. I could easily spend a week re-capping.  I can spend a week writing out my grocery list.

Christmas comes and goes so quickly.  I actually felt a little sad today as I put away my Christmas socks.

What are your plans for 2013?  

Snow

 We Have a Little Snow Here

I took these pictures at 8:30 this morning  -  the street lights are still on!  I was fussing about the snowplow on its tenth trip by to dump snow behind my car.  My husband asked if I HAVE to get out, and I told him I don't, but I don't want to be that little old lady who DOESN'T.  He suggested I just enjoy spending the day getting things ready for Christmas instead of shoveling my car out.  So here I am, blogging, drinking coffee, and eating chex mix for breakfast.

To any of my students who are reading this  -  this is the time to get some great snow photographs.  We will work on snow paintings when classes resume after the holidays.

Now I'm going to go refine my menus and shopping lists, and watch the snow fall.

If you are in the middle of a snow storm, I hope you can just relax and enjoy it. Maybe you could get some good photographs and maybe a couple of quick watercolor studies.

Local Color

Colors

This week in classes we were talking about "local color" (not the, ummm, interesting people that walk around downtown).  Local color is the true, or natural, color of an object without regard to highlight and shadow.  The point of the lesson was how to keep the objects interesting with some color changes on the surfaces. 

The wonky little cup was painted in a mix of hansa yellow and new gamboge, and then while it was still wet, I added some red and blue.  Color can also be added as a "glaze" when the paper was very dry. 

The primary color squares show how much more interesting they are when the other two primaries are added to each one.  For example, adding yellow and blue to the red square makes it a little more lively, yet it remains very red.

There are no hard and fast rules for adding color that isn't really there  -  that's the fun of it.  With floaty pigments or transparent glazes, the possibilities of watercolor are endless.  What are you trying out this week?

Still Life Objects

Still Life Objects

This is a quick little continuous line drawing, with watercolor added, done in my sketchbook after my class left today.  The tables were full of small objects that we set up in threes.  The idea was to zoom in on a simple composition.  We had some very nice little paintings. 

I have a shelf in the studio that is full of still life objects, and I have "stuff" all over the house that students are welcome to find and use in a still life set-up.  Sometimes I forget where the objects came from when I go to put them back after class, but it doesn't hurt to shake things up a bit anyway.

My new classes started this week, and they are full of fun, talented, eager students!  I get paid for this!!!