Tissue Paper Watercolor

I thought I would publish all of my tissue paper watercolor projects together to show you all the variations that my students have explored so far. The top one is industrial/architectual. 

I found a rooster calendar that served as inspiration for the second one. The students used different types of papers to layer and then use watercolor ground in the shape of the rooster and then watercolor over top the ground to get the vibrant colors.

The third one is the original sunflower exploring the shape of the sunflower from different angles. 

And the last one was from a children's class, just gaining experience with painting on texture. We used acrylic paint for this one.

The technique is described here 

http://mklart.blogspot.com/2012/10/tissue-paper-watercolor-texture.html

Ukrainian Easter Eggs

I usually make Ukrainian Easter Eggs every year to share with my family and as demonstrations for my classes. This year I found some wonderful blue and green eggs that came in wonderful sizes. Two of the eggs in the center are the natural color. The other two have the first layer of wax and are ready for their first dip in dye. The usual bright colors that I use just didn't feel right so I chose some off colors and am really happy with the natural color and look they have. Another batch below.

Value Portrait in Watercolor

This is a demonstration that I did for my watercolor students when we were working on portraits. I wanted them to see the shapes using values and then think of color later. It is a nice quick exercise to do before any portrait... or painting for that matter.

Acrylic Poinsettia Painting

I had my students try acrylic instead of watercolor for our poinsettia class.

It was fun to try something new, twist our minds a little with a different way of painting.

This was my demonstration... 8x10 canvas board.

Watercolor Portrait from Life

My adult watercolor class has been working on portraits from live models

and this is the demo that I did for the class today.

Watercolor, 11x14 inches

Watercolor Portrait

Just Daddy and Me...

portrait commission

11 x 14 inch Watercolor

Watercolor Halloween Pumpkins

I had hoped to have this finished today to wish everyone a happy halloween but it will have to be a Happy Halloween with a work in progress photo.

Watercolor on quarter sheet watercolor paper

Ok, finished now.

Night Watercolor Study

Just a quick demonstration/study I did for the class today to show what you can do with night.

The lit gas station, dark against darks, highlighted roads, silhouettes...

I will definitely do more of these on bigger paper.

The students had many references to choose from. 

You can see some of the photos they had to choose from here.

http://mklart.blogspot.com/p/homework.html

watercolor on 5x14 inch paper

Tissue Paper Watercolor Texture Sunflower Painting

We needed to loosen up in my adult watercolor class so we did some very loose sunflower under paintings on quarter sheet watercolor paper. Then took some tissue paper and 50% water/mod podge mixture to glue the tissue (some use rice paper) paper down controlling the wrinkles. Then painted over the dried tissue paper with washes and color letting drips and the color settle where it wanted to. It is hard to let go sometimes and just let it happen. We were feeling the sunflowers, not painting details. Does that make sense? A good lesson.

Below is the Heinz factory in Pittsburgh that I used this technique on from a while ago.

Where's the Grapes?

I went out a few weekends ago to photograph some grapes as reference for my adult watercolor class. Drove to many places and found they were harvested or none on the vine. So I went to Costco, bought some grapes, cut some vines and took them home. I used twist ties and the backs of chairs to set up the grapes and vines against a strong evening sun and photographed.

This is the demonstration painting that I did for the class. We focused on the warm light coming from behind and the cool light reflected from the sky above. Using my artistic license I took out the twist ties and darkened the background to keep the focus on the warm glow.