While we were travelling around the Great Lakes in our RV last month, I created this painting based on a photo I took while visiting my Mom in B.C. on an earlier trip.

In the photo below, I have started with a pencil sketch on 300 lb watercolour paper and masked out the flower and leaves with Pebeo Masking Gum. I like the fact that it is dark enough to show up against the paper, allowing for better application accuracy.

Once the mask was fully dry, I used Indigo paint on the shadowed crevices between the stones. When dry, I spattered a fine spray of masking gum over the whole painting (using a tooth brush and a pot scraper), to preserve fine white dots in the stones. Then I spattered on a fine spray of Indigo paint and let everything dry overnight.

The next day, I gently wet the entire painting with clear water using a soft, natural hair brush, to disturb the Indigo spatter as little as possible. I gently dropped in muted mixtures of Indigo, Burnt Sienna, Primary Red and Aureolin (yellow). I waited about a minute for absorption and evaporation to reduce the wetness of the wash, then sprinkled table salt sparingly over the entire painting. I let the painting dry overnight.

After brushing off the dry, dirty salt using my pot scraper and fingers, I created a 3-dimensional effect on the stones using my 2-brush technique. I added dark shadows on stones beside the crevice lines, using a brush loaded with Indigo paint, and softened the edge of that shadow towards the centre of each stone, using a brush loaded with clean water. I used as few brush strokes as possible, to minimize disturbance of the previous paint layer.

Once the paper had fully dried, I erased the masking fluid with a crepe eraser, revealing white paper underneath. Some of my pencil lines disappeared in the erasure process, so I redrew them where necessary.

On dry paper, I painted each leaf and the stem, using mixtures of Indigo, Sap Green and Aureolin.

I completed painting the leaves, then defined the petals using Primary Red, Burnt Sienna and a touch of Indigo. A few shadowed areas and white dots were darkened where needed, to complete 'Hyacinth and Drystone', watercolour, 12 x 9". 

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I subscribe to Artsy Shark, an art marketing blog that often has excellent posts. Here is one for artists who show their art at summer festivals.

When I'm at the Buckhorn Fine Art Festival this August I will be sure to put this advice to good use. I hope you find it helpful as well.

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When I heard California artist Birgit O'Connor was teaching a watercolour class at Studio Six in Markham recently, I jumped at the chance to attend the three day flower painting workshop. Last year I learned how to varnish my watercolours from her excellent DVD Framing Without Glass, and have admired her style of painting enormous dramatic florals.

There were about twenty students in the workshop and the first day we learned her technique of making large, glowing washes by painting these half sheet warm ups. We used large brushes (size 20 and 30 rounds) and wet each area with lots of water so the washes would run together when the paper was tilted. Learning that technique alone was worth the price of admission! In the photo below, Birgit is pointing to my painting in the top row.

On the next two days of the class we had the option of painting along with Birgit on a second sample piece, or using our own reference photo to make a painting using her techniques. I opted for the latter and started a full sheet painting of blue Rose of Sharon from a photo I took in my friend Patti's garden. Below are the layers I finished during two days of painting.

I used MaimeriBlu pigments Cobalt Blue Deep, Sap Green and Indigo, and Winsor & Newton pigments Quinacridone Magenta and Crimson Lake for this painting. These combinations were new to me but I definitely will use them again as the mixtures were rich, somewhat liftable (so details could be softened) and non-granulating.

At the end of class Birgit posed with me beside my half finished painting (below). She was a very good teacher and the whole experience makes me want to paint more large florals.

The class was about a month ago and today I finished Blue Rose of Sharon (30 x 22"), pictured below. Let me know what you think.

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