Black Friday Challenge - Lets paint Black Friday!!

I thought with it being Black Friday, it would  be a perfect time to paint or sketch something black or something related to black Friday.

It could be black cats

Black Bubblebees

Black Mailboxes full of Black Friday ads

Or it could be your favorite black pet. Remember in water color we don't use black or white. Try mixing yellow, blues and reds in different amounts to make your own blacks. There are other black recipes too like purple and green. Experiment with your blacks and see what happens! Whats your favorite Black recipe?

 Impress me with your creativity!!! Come on, impress me. 

Friday Challenge- Lets paint breakfast

Good Morning!!! Rise and shine, let paint our breakfast! I love to have my coffee and breakfast right next to my sketchbook in the morning. I know I have posted my breakfast sketches before but you can never have enough practice, right!? There is no better way to start the day than with a good sketch! Every sketch makes you better and better. 

First I sketch in my breakfast quickly. It important to make sure my ovals are correct depending on my angles. Those ovals have a way of tripping you up in a sketch or painting. If they aren't right your eye will catch it every time you look at the painting. Your brain will say that isn't right! So pay special attention to those ovals. Depending on your angle, the more over the bowl I am, the more round the opening, being a complete circle if I was looking directly down on it. The more off to the side you are the more of an oval it becomes, here is my quick sketch to help you understand what I am saying. Looking directly down over the bowl you see the bottom and a circle, then as you come down the side you see more of an oval top until you are directly along side and see a straight line, then once you travel below the horizon you see the under side of the bowl so the oval is about the same only your view isn't of the inside but of the backside. I hope this helps you when you are drawing anything with a circle like glasses, bowls, cups, etc. 

So I started with my cereal bowl, defining the shapes.

Next I painted the shadow areas, or negative areas around the items. Notice that the shadows are all the same intensity. Make sure you are reading you shadow values too! Let each layer dry or your paint will blend and you will have a mess! It shouldn't take too long.

I now am adding the color on my Cheerios and adding some more dark browns in the shadow areas. The pre applied blue shadow helps to give depth to your first layers of color.

I continue to add color to the bowl and spoon

I add some more shadows, leaving some light areas and add a background. My page is either ready to journal on or I could add a few Cheerios to the page beside this one and use it as the text page if I have a lot to say this morning!

So here is what we went over today:

1. Ovals, get them right

2. laying in shadows first, taking note of softer and stronger shadows.

3. Using color to define shapes and tell more of the story.

I want to challenge you this week to put these three things into practice as you sketch your breakfast this week! I can't wait to see what your eating in the mornings!!! Happy Painting

Off to paint!!

I am so excited to be able to take a few days to actually just go and paint for fun! I haven't done that in awhile. Here I am painting plein air with my watercolors. Oils are a whole new adventure, plus we are in a studio, phew!

I am thrilled to be taking an oil painting class from Dreama Tolle Perry at The Randy Higbee Gallery in Costa Mesa! It will be three days of oils, which for me, is a huge change. I will be painting and posting so you all can enjoy the experience with me! I can't guarantee that I will paint anything worth writing home about though.  Its just about being out with other artist, playing, laughing and being creative, I can't wait. So check back often to see what we are up too in the studio!

Friday Challenge, Lets paint leaves!!

Its Fall, a perfect time for painting and sketching the wonderful colors that happen at this time of the year. Look around in your area and see what wonderful shapes and colors you can find.

 For my Mug Rug Club I did a video on painting leaves on fabric with colored pencils. Here is my little painted Mug Rug.

 I love this time of year and always go out of my way to catch the ever changing color and leaves!

Washes of watercolor leaves!

A page in my sketchbook! I can't wait to see what wonderful leaves you have in your area! Post your sketches or paintings on my blog with the Linky tool!