Art of the Carolinas: Day 1

Yesterday was the first day of classes at Art of the Carolinas in Raleigh, NC.  The vendor mall was not yet open, but my class was held at the nearby Jerry's Artarama store, which sponsors the art conference.

First I checked in and received my free gift bag with a bottle of water, a bamboo mat that rolls up to hold your paintbrushes, and a nail brush.

Then I went to Jerry's and bought two new watercolor brushes for the class.  When I checked out, I got a free Jerry's T-shirt.

My class last night was with Florida artist Tom Jones.  The workshop was called Sunrays Filtering Through the Forest.

The subject matter reminded me very much of a scene from Ashe County in the North Carolina mountains, where we have a weekend place. 

When I went into the room, I found a slimmer Tom Jones, who has lost twenty pounds since last year.  Also, I was delighted to find that there were only four students registered for this class, and one of them did not show up.  So, we got lots of individual attention!

Tom provided the paper and paints.  He did a great step-by-step demo.  He brought his painting around for us to see up close after each step.

 

I loved working with those gorgeous autumn colors.  The little green speckles in the water area are frisket, a mask applied to preserve white space.  It is rubbed off when the painting is done.

 

This was my painting about halfway done.  The water area sort of looks like a blue sky with fluffy white clouds at this point.  In fact, one of the students in class was doing his whole picture upside down and had to start over.

 

 

Here is Tom's finished painting with a working mat.  It is taken at an angle.  I think his is gorgeous!

 

 

And here is mine at the end of class.  There are a few places I want to work on.  I might even do it all over for practice.

 

 

I have another class with Tom Jones later this afternoon.  This one will be about painting mountain mist.  Here is the sample from the website.

 

 

Beautiful, yes?  The bare brown mountains look more like the Rockies than the Appalachians of North Carolina, but I can't wait to work on this one.