Thursday, August 30, 2007



Week 3 - Kate Johnson's online watercolor class

This week's lesson is on "Earth, Pebbles, Sand, Rocks, Grasses and Weeds" and the reference photo I used is from Death Valley. I painted this on a Cotman sheet and it is 8 x 5. It sure was fast and easy to paint of this paper after working on the canvas and the hot press recently!! The pigments used were all WN and they were Burnt Sienna, Payne's gray, Indigo, Raw Umber, Sap Green, Cad Yelow Pale and Cad Orange. I masked the little plant, then I washed the background and then used several colors for wet-in-wet splatter. After the rocks were painted, and before I removed the mask, I dry splattered very finely with a toothbrush. It was a fun exercise and I enjoyed working on something rather simple.

11 comments:

Donn said...

This is just beautiful, Brenda. Lovely, lovely painting! You can be proud of this one!

Lorraine said...

Brenda great colors I feel like I know what death valley is like. the spatter gives me the feeling of sand and dryness. Good Job Lorraine

caseytoussaint said...

Nice job, Brenda!

Judybec said...

Brenda, these are very lovely textures.

Teri said...

Brenda, this is a beauty!!! The colors are so strong and vibrant and just enough spatter.

Linda said...

Brenda, it may be simple, but it is very well done! Any more complex and it wouldn't be right -- perfect!

Jana Bouc said...

Excellent work! These rocks look hard, sharp, heavy and in the hot sun. Beautiful work. I really admire this painting!

Irena said...

Brenda your painting came out beautiful...full of rich values. You did a really good job capturing the shape of the rocks.

Have you been getting a lot of ash from the fire in Action? Kinda of scary that it's so close.

Africantapestry and Myfrenchkitchen said...

Uou're doing great work, Brenda...love yhe colors you've used here.
Ronell

Jules said...

Brenda, you're going from strength to strength. I love the texture of this... Jules x

Terry Banderas said...

This turned out very nice. You should be pleased. I am sure your instructor was.