A Day of Watercolor

Hello folks!  So I had my much anticipated watercolor painting class this weekend.  It was a full day of watercolor - from 10am to 4pm, complete with a break for lunch.  For those of you who are in the Seattle area, I took it through Classes and Workshops at the University of Washington.  I feel like I learned plenty of great techniques, although the real skill is only going to come through practice.  I am going to share some of my paintings from the class, even though… let's be honest… they aren't very good.  LOL!  Still, I had fun, and that's all that matters!

Practicing shapes - that green "thing" in the middle started out as a tomato, and my teacher recommended I turn it into a leaf...!  It's still not the best leaf, but I'm going with it.  Apparently watercolor painting is all about working with what you've got, since you don't really have control over what the wet paints will do on the paper.

More shapes - this tomato turned out a little better.  Obviously, I have more work to do on my fruits…  ;)  I attempted to turn a blue blob into a flower… but I think it looks more like a spaceship now, so that's what I'm telling people.

A sunset… painting landscapes are my favorite.  The "dry brush" technique to paint water is used here, as was a blended wash for the sunset.

Drawing palm tree's are kind of my old standby sketch, so I had to attempt one in watercolor…!  I tried another blended wash for the sand, and a technique for the sky where you paint a wash, then use a paper towel to "blend" clouds in the sky.  If you use the back of your brush (the pointy end), you can draw fine detail that is a shade darker - I did this for the palm tree leaves.  I didn't have time to paint coconuts into the palm tree!

A mountain scene…I tried to paint the sides of the mountains with a yellow to imply the rays of sun, but it turned out a little wonky.  We didn't have the color black in our kits, so I had to make do with blues for the mountains.

There you have it!  A few people in my class were natural artists and painted these amazing things right off the bat.  My pictures look a bit like something a 5-10 year old would make, but I'm hoping to improve over time…!

Thank you for looking at my little practice paintings.  Is there anything you are currently working to improve upon?  Please share!