“Expressive Portraits” by Jean Pederson

After going on about getting to Chapter 3 in ‘Ways to Learn Acrylics’, it’s kinda funny that I’m switching gears and blogging about a different book. Don’t worry, later blogs will be about acrylics from Chapter 3.

Next week in all three of my art classes we are studying portraiture, so it’s the perfect time to try exercises in “Expressive Portraits” by Jean Pederson. The artist's portraits are really wonderful; they are mixed media, painterly type portraits that use vivid colours. Her book is pretty comprehensive. It explains all the things a beginning artist would need to know about drawing/painting a portrait; it also shows you the methods Jean uses. I’ve done a few exercises to try and learn more about watercolour portraits.

One exercise ‘practice wet glazing’ I did twice; on the left the portrait was painted on textured watercolour paper 300gsm 10” x 7” inches and on the right on Khadi paper 8” x 8”. It’s funny that both paintings are of the same woman but they look totally different. They aren’t perfect but it was fun to have a go and not be too precious about the results. All my art teachers say that by experimenting you learn.

Another exercise ‘build a background of rich, varied darks' isn’t completed, but I like the way it looks without all the dark colours. It certainly doesn't look as good as Jean's first step, but I'm not that accomplished... maybe someday:)

Also, there were some pretty cool YouTube watercolour portrait painting videos. Here are two awesome ones:
Lesson 16 / Painting the Portrait by Stan Miller
Watercolor step by step how to paint portrait, demo by Zimou Tan

Art Materials Live – Birmingham NEC

Art Materials Live on Friday the 6th of November was worth the trip. It was interesting because the event was combined with craft and gift items, which seemed larger than the art section. Although small, the Art section took most of my time and I participated in four hands on art demonstrations.

The SAA had the biggest area with two sections for art talks, two for hands on demos and the middle area for products sales. It was a much smaller version of ‘All About Art’ in London.

At this event, I painted a snow scene in watercolour with Matthew Palmer, then of course bought two lift out brushes.  Next was a session on pastel painting with Jeremy Ford where I proceeded to buy a pastel kit :).

Linda Matthews had her own small demonstration area and I tried my hand at using permanent ink and watercolour; it was my favourite painting of the day. Linda has a variety of classes teaching different mediums both in the U.K. and abroad.  She is very easy going and personable and I want to take a painting class with her; hopefully sometime this summer.

Finally, the Chinese Brush Painting Society gave a small hands on lesson; it was very useful to learn how to  mix the ink, hold the brush and remove excess liquid properly. We also were able to practice making marks on cartridge paper and just for fun how to draw a cat and mouse. I was really impressed and bought a brush at the stall and ink from the SAA.

Art Class w/ Wendy - Loose Watercolour

In Class

In Wendy's art class we learned to do loose watercolours with masking fluid, salt, pins and ink, or, in my case, white gouache. The assignment was in the SAA March 2015 magazine. Everybody did the same thing but we all had unique results; it was a really great experience. Not everyone used the same hues and even if the colours were the same, the intensity was different.

At Home

I loved it and decided to do another at home using different colours and a lighter weight cold pressed paper.

Art Class w/ Wendy – Pencil Drawing & Landscapes

Instead of one class, now I'm taking two; Drawing & Painting with Joel and another art class with Wendy. With all my drawing practice I thought there would be improvement. But, in Wendy’s first drawing class, after a very intense negative space exercise… I'm not so sure. Not going to post a picture it was so bad. The subject matter was hard but that’s no excuse. I also drew a chair, the same from last year, and couldn’t even say that was better.

Oh well... in her second class we drew a landscape in pencil from a photo. Even though it's not finished; it’s better that the debacle from the negative space class. It's Alnwick Castle, the subject the artists painted in ‘The Big Painting Challenge’ on SkyArts.

In the third class we did a tonal painting of a landscape; I chose a picture from Paint My Photo by Dave Webb. Tonal paintings are much easier for me; in a later class I painted a colour version of the same subject... what a disaster. Somehow matching colours correctly to photos is not my forte; not sure if it’s the watercolour paint or me. I don't think I'm colour blind, but there is definitely something wrong.

Paint my Photo Hibiscus & Lightning Watercolour

While looking for a watercolour lesson on YouTube, I came across Lindsay Weirich 'thefrugalcrafter'; she has a ‘Hibiscus watercolor painting tutorial’. The lesson was easy to follow and my watercolour came out pretty nice. 

Lindsay used a photo from Paint My Photo, a membership website, that has photos you can use to paint your own works of art and sell.

The website has since moved platforms and, in my opinion, is not as easy to use. www.pmp-art.com is still a remarkably inspiring meeting place for both photographers and artists. With about 60 photographs loaded on the site... I'm just waiting for someone to paint my photo.

Each month there is a photography and a painting challenge. For the month of May I took part in the painting challenge. My watercolour wasn’t as fabulous as a lot of the others; but it was fun to submit something and I got to use my masking fluid.

http://paintmyphoto.ning.com/photo/flash-of-lighting