My Watercolor Setup

Sorry for the mix up and the disappearing post. Hopefully I can re-write this.

I took a class a couple of weeks ago on watercolor painting from the excellent Steven Kozar who lives not that far away down in McFarland. I got quite a few good ideas and hints that I'm putting to use and here is a quick shot of my workspace.

Things I've learned:

• Stretching my paper on foamcore boards. I took a full sheet of foamcore and cut it into quarters, stacked them and then wrapped them in packing tape to keep them water resistant. I then soak my paper in water for twenty minutes and then staple the paper to the wrapped board for it to dry. It's much lighter and cheaper than using plywood which is another method I've heard of.
• Using a cheap kitchen sponge to wick off excess water and paint off of the brush. 
• Cut open a large plastic bottle to hold your brush cleaning water. This prevents your brush from getting too contaminated from the dirty water.
• Use thin layers of paint to get clean gradients of color.

It was a fun class and I'm thinking of taking one of his oil painting classes when it comes up in the fall.

View Steven Kozar's Art

Working on the Lighthouse

My good friend Dottie asked me recently to paint a lighthouse for her. In the past I had done some work in her daugther's room and she wanted something to spice up her sea-themed bathroom. After doing a quick search on Google images on lighthouses (only 7.9 million of them), I mocked up a few quick drawings with my watercolor pencils to get a feel for what she's looking for.

She liked the layout of #1 but wanted more rocks. She also went with the lighthouse design of #2. Grabbing my craft acrylics and brushes, I set off to work.

The first night I got a good start on things. I liked how the lighthouse started to come together and the blue-green of the water complimented the red of the lighthouse.

The next night I dropped in a light grey sky and put in the sun and it's reflections on the waves. I think that I should have dropped in the sky background first instead of doing all the foreground work, but that's a lesson for the next time. The rocks also didn't have enough contrast to make them pop, so I put in more shadows and highlights.

The final night I put in more details and added the cloud cover. Dottie really enjoys it and want's me to do more in the coming year. Overall, it took me about 7-8 hours of work.

Working on textures

My latest project has me practicing the layering of color. I'm attempting to get smooth gradients from lighter to darker shades, with only occasional success, by layering successive washes of color onto the previous ones.

My palette probably has too many colors for this painting, but I wanted to get a good diversity of color for the rock wall. The viridian tree on the right doesn't seem to match the intensity of the rest of the painting. I think I'll need to work on the shadows more and increase the contrast to make the lighter parts pop more.

Dragon Tattoo 8.6

I've made more progess on the tattoo design so far. I really like how the head and wings have turned out. I'm finding that I may need to go back and adjust the lower body to keep a more consistant line width. Nick's name is far too bold, leaving Kyra's name to look out of place. I am happy that I was able to be fairly consistant in my letter styles, making an A and an N that fit well either in a wing or to fill up a body was quite the challenge.

Next is to perhaps add a lower claw and to add some 'fire' coming out of the mouth. I want to add a few more names and that might be the best way to do that.

I also should get this down to a tattoo shop to have them critique it, I should find out if my lines are too thick or thin before making too many more revisions. Overall, I'm happy with the design and we should be able to get it done soon.

Tattoo Design 8.1

I've been working for many years on a tattoo design for Ticia and I. The idea is to lay the kid's names out in a dragon shape. I've lost count of the drawings I done for this. I'm looking for the perfect design and I'm liking how Rebecca's name is in this design. Now to tweak Nick's and add the others!

Bucket of Kittens

I found a photo of three kittens in a bucket in one of my daughter's calendars that I liked, so I dug out my watercolors and got to work. I had forgotten how much more intense the watercolor paints are versus the watercolor pencils I've been using for the past month or two. My plan is to do this image with the watercolor pencils as well, so I can contrast the different effects that I can create.

I still need to add some shading to the bucket and finish up the kitten faces, but I'm happy with how this is turning out. I'm using my Winsor & Newton Artist watercolors on 200lb. paper. This is the first time I've used a paper this heavy and I like that I haven't needed to stretch it first.

Acrylic flowers in progress

I'm trying the Open acrylics again, working on getting a feel for how they mix and their drying time. With the colors I have, I thought I'd go for making more flowers. Anyway, here's the current state.