Just My Cup of Tea

I'm having super busy week, but I was determined to get in some watercolor practice in.A helpful exercise for working in any media, as many of you know, is to concentrate primarly on arrangement of your values (light dark pattern).  Here I've also played with the temperature by using two complementary pigments (wonderful quin burnt orange by Daniel Smith) and FUB (french ultra blue). I will likely turn this into quick value oil study as well.

Like many enthusiastic watercolor painters, once I get painting I too struggle with saving my whites (or lightest areas) so these type of small still life studies are perfect for practicing that discipline. Remember saving whites is essential for glowing light-filled watercolor paintings. Plan ahead and protect them vigorously!  

Also, just signed up for Tim Deibler's oil painting landscape workshop at Abend Gallery in Denver in February.  I been lucky enough to have taken a summer plein air workshop with Tim before and quite frankly am hoping he does not remember me or my frustration in a windy cow pasture chasing my very wet oil study across the muddy field.  I recall my language was less than lady like...Ahh, how I respect and admire plein painters!  


For more information about my beginning watercolor color workshops or classes in Denver (conducted in a comfy warm studio in the winter!), please write me a note. I look forward to seeing you in the studio!
 

Holding onto Red

Thought I'd post one of my quick oil painting studies today from Art Students League. I love to paint the live model and these quick (a few minutes literally) oil panting figure studies are great fun and for me a way to approach the figure in a more painterly fashion.

One of my favorite painting books about doing quick studies is 60 Minutes to Better Painting by California painter Craig Nelson. A great addition to your art book shelf for under 10 bucks. If anyone out there has attended one of his workshops I'd love to hear about it!

Also, I'm often asked where I buy these great little "gatorfoam" primed painting panels, they are from Abend Fine Art Gallery here in Denver.

Also, I see that Fine Art America (the site where I sell prints of some of my most popular paintings) is having their first ever 15% off print sale through November 8 (promo code: FALL09), so be sure to check that out. There's some fantastic artists on that site and you can find just about any subject matter imaginable.

Finally, be sure to check out my new Art Marketing Blog ART SMARTS creatively exclusively for for fellow artists and painters who want to improve their art brand and become more successful. Happy painting and art collecting!