Book Recommendation

For those who like floral paintings, I recommend "The Watercolour Flower Painter's A to Z" by Adelene Fletcher.  It includes step-by-step instructions with beautiful finished paintings.

Last year, we chose this book to work from, with my students.  Here are a few of the demos I did using this book.

The next time you go to your local library, look for this book and perhaps others that you find appealing to you.
Happy painting!

Learning by Imitation

Learning art by copying other artists' work is a common discipline.  Particularly if you are a beginner, studying the work of great artists whose work you admire, will allow you to be better informed, thus creating fascinating work of your own. Just as a musician is inspired by the great composers, or an author is well read, a visual artist should be exposed to great examples also.  However, creativity will come to fruition, only if we apply what we learn to our own work.

From time to time, I will share with you some of my studies inspired by the work of other artists.

Continuing with the theme of studying trees, here are two watercolor paintings (from left), that I practiced, inspired by William Henry James Boot, an English artist born in the mid 1800s.

This experience allowed me to construct a painting using a different color palette than my own.  It made me think about why I was drawn to it in the first place!

Let me know about your experience of learning from other artists.

Autumn Trees

It is November.  The air is cool and crisp.  Golden brown leaves swirl around on the sidewalks.  Morning walks are fresh and calming.  

It is time to be out and about with your sketchbooks studying trees with their interesting poses.  When sketching trees, just a portion of it is sufficient to make an interesting composition.  Below I have prepared a series of steps that you could follow to do a simple line and wash study.  

I am using a pencil, pigma micron pens 01 and 03, and watercolor paper, french ultramarine blue and new gamboge yellow paint.

Start with a pencil contour drawing, marking some texture and shadow patterns.  

Once you are happy with your drawing, go over your outline with your 01 pen.

Next, using your 03 pen, darken your shadow pattern.

Now, it is time to add your wash.  To keep things simple, choose a cool and a warm color.  Apply your cool color on your shadow patterns and soften some of the edges.

When this is dry, add your warm color.

This is it.  You may use my drawings to practice if you wish.  If you are going to post it online, please link it back to my blog.  

Here is another example.  Experiment with different cool and warm colours.  Let me know if you give this a try.  Happy painting!

-Miss Bronte

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."― Nathaniel Hawthorne