This weekend we went to an office Christmas party, babysat for granddaughter and grand dog, installed a new alarm system, ordered a replacement laptop for me since the insurance company finally came through, and watched the progress of our new cabin through web cam and also photos from my sister.
This little girl lights up the gloomiest mornings!
The cathedral roof and the side pieces are in place , and they have started building the decks.
After the baby went home, I decided to practice some watercolor brush strokes using a free website tutorial from watercolor painting.com. I should have done this before I ever tried to paint a picture.
These are not videos, but tutorials with descriptions and photographs.
The first assignment was to paint curvy lines in different colors, leaving white space between each color. This is to practice brush control. I have covered my curvy lines with textural brush strokes from a later section on stab painting.
Another lesson was on applying pressure on the brush to make thick and thin lines (top section).
The grassy and branch-like areas are part of a lesson on Wrist Flick strokes. My instructor Tom Jones was a wiz at this technique.
The wider strokes at the bottom are "Painterly Strokes." You load the brush and lay it down flat on the paper.
The last brush stroke was "Cutting Edge." I found this very challenging. Getting a clean, smooth line of paint takes practice.
I also worked on different ways to hold the paintbrush, from the same website tutorial. The resulting lines range from controlled to loose.
I also keep on trying new faces that I copy from magazine ads and then attempt to paint with lush color and loose lines. This lady is almost done, but the eyes need more work, as well as the hair near the hand.
That's about it. I hope when I get my new computer, I can edit some of these posts from the past month. The iPad does not let you choose the size of the photos or their placement, or put in web links when using Blogger. Thanks for your patience!
