Taking a Watercolor Painting Class

A  nearby college has a new program offering discounted workshops and classes for area adults.  I wanted to sign up for the Paper-Making class, but they are offering Watercolor Painting classes first.

These are the exercises we went through today:

We practiced Graded Wash, Flat Wash, Variegated Wash.  Dry Brush, Dry on Wet, Wet on Dry Paper.  The Wet-on-Wet (purple/blue/red) effect was gorgeous until I ruined it by adding more water.  Phooey!  The rainbow line across the bottom was Watercolor Pencils scribble, with water applied after the colors were laid down.

Shown below, we used masking tape resist, crayon resist, alcohol dripped on wet paint (THAT was really cool!!!), resist liquid, scrunched plastic wrap and aluminum foil, paint on a sponge, sponge on wet paint (pleasing effect!), sandpaper on dry paint, Exacto knife scratched on dry paint, table salt and Kosher salt on wet paint, and straight-edge scrape.  

It was fun!  I especially liked the effect of alcohol drops on wet watercolor paint.  And of course, I had to play around with the drip method, which I've been using for a few years with the mail art group.

Here ares some of my watercolor paintings from a few years ago before I knew what I was doing:

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