Day 108 - Charles Reid Day 3

The blogathon continues...only 108 consecutive days of posting now!!

Today we were allowed to chose from sets of old black and white photos with which  to do value studies. We used a range of 1-6.  1 is white, the lightest white, and 6 is black the darkest dark.   One of the photo was of John Singer Sargent, the master of watercolor.  I had NOT wanted to do it again because I made a hash out of it last March at Spruill the last day of class.  Today I paid rapt attention. Took copious notes and this is what I did!!

I am quite pleased with the way he turned out. I used lots of color but not too much.  Got some color mingling going on...I think it has a nice glow. I actually did things like put on color and pulled it out with a wet brush so it was not so heavy.  Should have done that on the flowers yesterday. 1/2 sheet Fabriano cold press.

Colors...skin cad red light, cad yw light, raw sienna and ultramarine in face shadows with a touch of carmine under the nose. Other colors...yellow ochre, viridian and chrome oxide in the grass with raw sienna, cobalt and ultramarine blue touches.  Clothing - raw sienna, cobalt, burnt sienna.  I know there are more but I left my notebook back at the classroom...sorry.  

The sky is my favorite easiest sky ever...I slung a watery cerulean across the sky.   I rolled the brush into it...presto chango ...instant clouds!! 

Lots of dripping and splattering and dripping to get to this point.  

This is the one I painted in March when I took his class at Spruill Center in Atlanta.  NOT so bad as I remembered but not as good as the one I did today I think!  I think I actually used a Mr. Clean Eraser to wipe out the too dark darks and repainted alot of Mr. Singer himself.  The background is the original one.

Charles Reid's demo from today! He is so fabulous to watch paint.  He twitches the brush here, twitches it there and magically a person or flower appears...its nothing short of amazing.  I tried to buy his magic paint brush but its not for sale...maybe I will get there in 57 more years of practice.  He has been painting since he was 14..he's now 78...this is what 64 years of painting will get you!

Just wanted to add that Charles Reid is a terrific teacher.  He and his wife Judy are just the nicest down to earth people.  He may paint with the stars but he's a real person. They both try to do anything they can to facilitate the class!  Thanks Charles and Judy Reid!!

Thanks for looking!!

Day 107 - Charles Reid Class #2

Dad's American Journey Paint The two tubes of paint are old Cheap Joes American Journey paints that I inherited from my dad.  He was never much of  a watercolor painter so these tubes were about 25 years old and still worked great! With that in mind I did buy another ultramarine blue. One more session of Charles Reid style painting will finish this one off!!  The brush is one I bought for the last Charles Reid class I took back in March. Dad's going to be tickled that I painted his paint when he sees it this weekend. 

Our group got THE TOUGHEST flowers in the room to paint...even Charles Reid said they were. However I am pleased with the way they turned out. A little nontransparent BUT on the whole I like it.  They were tough because they were a rusty red with the backs of the petals yellow...HUH??!

You would not believe the colors I tried in an effort to paint these. I tried  vermilion, quinacridone red, burnt sienna, aurelin, yellow ochre, ultramarine blue AND a very dark purple..ALOT of negative painting too...mostly with combos of vermilion and rust with purple and ultramarine blue added to it.

This is the setup minus my paintbrush and two tubes of paint.  I scrunched the objects together because I thought they were too strung out yesterday. We didn't have a focal light source on the flowers which was a little bit of a problem.  

This was one I played with trying to get the colors to mingle more on the paper.  I actually like it better though its not finished by a long shot.  I think I painted this in about 20 minutes at the end of class and I actually like where it was going better than the first one. Practice practice practice!


Charles finished his morning demo a few minutes early today so we were lucky enough to get to tour the Cheap Joe's facilities.  Joe himself led our tour.  He's just a sweet lovely man.  There's a gallery of his wonderful watercolors as well as other teachers and some of the employees.  We got to see his man cave office, the order center, the employee lunchroom complete with a monthly birthday cake celebration AND a scale!  Nice big windows with views.  Then it was off to tour the warehouse.  To say it was huge well is an understatement.  At least as big as two football fields.  Joe said he could teach us to fill an order in under three minutes no problem.  We also got to meet his top employee Robert who packs the thank you gift you get with every Cheap Joes order.

To say that the staff and owner of Cheap Joes bent over backwards to make our week PeRfEcT would be an understatement.

If we thought we wanted something from the store not a problem...we run a ticket.  If it was only in the warehouse it magically appeared in no time flat!!

The only way he could improve our experience is if he added a dorm and a dining hall!! :)

Our morning demo.  Watching Charles Reid paint is like watching a magician wave his brush and create magic.  A daub of paint here a daub there and magically the flowers appear.  Just totally enthralling to watch him paint, and Cheap Joes makes sure we can see every stroke in a large flat screen tv set up so everyone can see the teacher working. I painted that same wine bottle yesterday.  WHY doesn't it look like his??!

Charles Reid's set up!

Charles Reid paints!

The wonderful Judy Reid, Charles' wife, retired Kindergarten teacher, aka the Boss, loves to tell stories and make jokes.

After class a classmate, Diana and I went on an adventure looking for old barns and beautiful mountains to photograph.  This is a charming church we found about ten miles out of town down a winding mountain road...on HWY 140 I think!  A beautiful drive that Joe sent Diana and I on in search of gorgeous views.

A view round every bend in Hwy 140...lots of great barns!!

Thanks for looking!!

Day 106- Day 1 with Charles Reid!!

I am at Cheap Joes taking a class from the awesome Charles Reid...the author of 12 books with North Light and many dvds on how to paint like Charles Reid.

Even Joe himself of Cheap Joes is taking the class!! Two days of flower painting and hmm two more days of value studies.  

Cant say enough about how great everyone at Cheap Joes is.  The classroom is just terrific.  We can see every stroke on the HUGE flat screen tv in front of the room.  We each have our own work table, lots of great light, terrific catered lunch, AND last but not least there were guys to help us schlep our stuff from our cars to our tables!! Going to have to take another class at Cheap Joes!!

This is what I painted today.  I am oh so more pleased with it than any flowers I painted in his class last spring.  I actually got the idea of negative painting. I didnt destroy my whites and lights like the daisies...last time I made a hash out of them.    My only critism of this painting is that the wine bottle and pumpkin look lost over on the left by themselves and the vase is DEAD center...never a good look. 

So I cropped it...think this one looks ever so much better than the whole picture.  The bottle and the pumpkins look good but ..hmm that can be a whole other painting right?!

Which one do you like better??

This is the master Charles Reids painting from today. Is it not AWESOME!! I love everything about it.  Notice his wine bottle touches the flowers UNLIKE mine.  

Enough for now. I could do another whole post on the great fun Mike and her husband Allan and I had going to Mast General after class taking pictures of great barns and pumpkins in the valley there BUT I am tired and taking a shower!! 

More tomorrow!!

Thanks for looking!!

Day 66 - Zoe Alla Prima

WOW SIXTY SIX posts...sometimes I amaze myself.  I had drawn this sketch of Zoe in my wc journal a few days back but not painted it.  

Was talking on Instagram with some other artists about Charles Reid so I decided to revisit his alla prima style in this painting...I do love the way the individual watercolors intermingle with each other when you paint using his method.  

OH you say HOW does he paint? Well if you have ever painted with oils or acrylics he paints that way.  Lays the color down like oils and generally leaves it alone.  He also uses pure wet colors - generally cad red light, cad yellow, vermilion, rose madder, cerulean,  yellow ochre, cobalt and raw sienna, and ultramarine blue with burnt umber and lets them mingle on the page.  He can paint anything with about 12 colors.  He also paints quickly, doing portraits in two hours.  Said anything more than that is messing it up.  

So here's Miss Zoe.

Here she is...I am really pleased with how she turned out.  The only thing I would change is to make the tip of her right ear round instead of pointed!! 

Why do I say this is Alla Prima aka First strike?  Most of the color was laid down all at once. 

Cerulean blue to the right of the right ear is negative painting to define her white ear.  So is the cobalt under her chin.  Can you find other blues used as shadows to define areas. That's negative painting.

Splattering?  The spots of yellow ochre and cerulean were made by splattering.  I covered up Zoe with a papertowel and the thump a loaded brush at the background.  Too much?? Not a problem.  Turn your brush sideways and roll out some of them or smudge with your finger.

day umm Seventh day of may?

This started out as QUITE a good sketch of my youngest son drew...did i say hes graduating from law school Friday...oops dont let him here me say that...he will get me for ah hem"bragging" or at least thats the way he sees it...guess i am supposed to say my son ...doesnt do anything?

Anyway i was goign to paint it when i was not tired but then i reread Charles Reid's watercolor secrets...the part about painting people.....he said the reason to do loose contour drawings of whoever you want to paint is so that you have alot invested in keeping the picture faithful to the subject...so he gave me permission to slap some paint on...I can tell you drew never looked like this even at halloween...but it was fun! Funny thing it does have an air of drew about it just like the book said...but I think hes really alot cuter dont you...:> Hmm maybe i do need to try again when i ahve more time...at least i got day 7 done...off to bed...good nite all!

Trying to upload AGAIN

Sorry to confuse everyone...I thought i had done this RIGHT last nite but had gotten some really ODD message from blogger saying it wasnt going thru...and then it acted like it uploaded...now its nowhere to be found...sooo here goes again!!!

EDM Challenge 117-Something Round

These small green balls have been all over the driveway and yard alot lately...But i had no idea what they were. The rain in the last three days knocked down a jillion more. Going out to check the mail yesterday i picked one up and though...perfect for the round challenge...such a strange looking thing...still wondering WHAT they were....we have so many different trees in our "woods" it was hard to tell....

By the time I got back to the front steps I found the answer to my question...a tip of a branch knocked down with the little ball on it still...SWEET GUM was the culprit...one day these were all going to be the big ouchy prickly balls that fill the yard up in the fall...

OH Charles Reid wanna be again...splattered and dripped....I first painted the leaves a yellowy green and then painted darker colors over each one...I got more proficient as I went...the top ones are the last ones I did...well not quite...the branch was last...and all those charles reid drips of paint that I love...hes got to be painting on an easel vertically...at least thats the only way i can get the paint to run and drip!

Daniel Smith WC in my big wc molie..decided to give it a chance with real wc...not pencils and it worked very well....I do think this needs something on the left side..not sure what bbuttttt we shalls ee!!