One of my artistic goals this year is to further my inspiration and learn new painting processes and techniques. I’m off to a great start!

David taught us how our iPads and the Paper by 53 app are invaluable tools to have in our artist’s quiver.

In our first exercise we worked from a photograph of a marsh scene that was shot with afternoon light. The sun rises over the marsh past these trees. Our mission was to create a sketch of the scene on our iPad, but to change the lighting by adding the sun and shadows to make it an early morning scene.

In the next step, we used this rough sketch as our inspiration to create a watercolor.

We worked on rough watercolor paper using a one-inch flat brush – both totally new for me.  I’m a hot press paper girl.  I’m liking rough paper, not to mention the Steven Quiller one-inch brush!

David took us step by step.  He showed us how to paint the sky, cutting around the sun…. off we went, back to our work stations to paint.  Then he demoed the marsh and trees….  I love watching instructors paint and find I learn best with this method.

I’m very pleased with the end result! Working on rough paper with a flat brush offers the opportunity to paint quickly by using specific brush strokes to create different textural effects.

Stay tuned….. more to follow.