Friday, May 26, 2017

RED, RED, RED


"Fearless Flowers," the watercolor class with Birgit O'Connor, offered me the chance to step out of my comfort zone with color. I tend to use three colors in my artwork: Burnt Sienna, Cerulean blue, and yellow ochre. During the class, we followed the traditional art class practice of copying the instructor's work so we could learn Birgit's techniques with large washes of color.

When I took a botanical illustration class several years ago, the instructor claimed that white was the hardest color to paint. Not to me, white was easy compared to red. Red can overwhelm or get muddy easily.





I inwardly cringed when Birgit showed us her painting of red lilies. But after working all day with loose washes, here is my result: my still unfinished version of her painting. Maybe red isn't so hard after all. Now, purple is another story.




Since the class, I've been looking for red. 
Join me in this challenge:  RED, RED, RED. 
Show me your photos or paintings with red, not just flowers, as the dominant color.



Take a look at these reds that my Kuretake watercolor set produce. Dense and rich.


Check out Birgit O'Connor's website:
https://www.birgitoconnor.com  You'll be glad you did.

Click on Kuretake's website to see their watercolor sets:
https://kuretakezig.us/watercolors/gansai-tambi/


2 comments:

  1. Martha, sounds like our class with Brigit was inspiring for you. Just not my style, but enjoyed meeting you. This is a lovely blog. I will make it a bookmark so I can come back to it. Envious of the postcard exchange and the other interactive art projects. Where I live I don't know of any. But two of my photographs were accepted in a local winery photo contest, so maybe my new artistic endeavors will be with photos. That is just for fun.

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  2. Hi, you are right, I learned something with Birgit, which I has helped me in my weekly watercolor class. Thank you for bookmarking my blog. I appreciate every reader and I enjoyed meeting/talking with you during the class. There are several postcard exchanges -- probably many -- one, Love Notes, which doesn't require your own artwork, was a good place to start for me. Jennifer Belthoff runs it. Check out her website: http://www.jenniferbelthoff.com/lovenotes/

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