Have you ever had a cat hair on your paper when you were painting? 

I always have them, and often it leaves a line if the paint sticks around the hair.  I wondered if lots of cat hair would work to make a texture.  I brushed my cat and mashed the wads of hair onto my paper.  Then I put quinacridone gold paint into a spray bottle and sprayed it onto the hairy paper.  Just for more interesting texture, I flipped quinacridone sienna with a toothbrush and salted the whole thing.

Wet cat hair smells a lot like wet dog.

When it was dry, the texture was fairly light in value, so I just did my cat drawing right on top and started painting.  I didn’t feel like washing off the white areas and have been experimenting with American Journey’s Gessso for watercolor from Cheap Joe’s, so I used that to paint the white on top.

It’s fun to try new mediums and surfaces and techniques, but I think I’ll leave the cat hair crackle until my cat starts shedding again next summer.

The small fee I charged for this painting will go Lancaster County Cat Rescue.  If anyone wants to also donate, the mailing address is 359 College Ave, Lancaster PA 17603.

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This is a watercolor painting, size 16 x 20, done for an invitational exhibit to be held at the York Art Association in 2012.

Artistic License

When I photographed this stream, it was dead summer and everything was green – the trees and the water.  I used my imagination to add color to the trees.

One common mistake artists make is to draw the shore with a single straight line.  Real shore lines often disappear in and out under the trees.  If you try a scene like this, pay close attention to catch the reality of the weeds and rocks that border the water.

Make Your Subject Look Special

This is my favorite painting from all the demonstrations I did for my watercolor class this term.

I was demonstrating many ways of making you image look ‘special’.  In this case, I started with color around the figure, then added water and let the edges fade out.

The opposite, which also works, would be to make it darker around the edges, getting lighter in value as it approached the figure or center of interest.

Limited Palette

I promote using a limited palette, five colors at most for one painting.  (I’ve read that with only three colors, you can mix over a million different shades.)  I’m finding it true in my oils, as well as my watercolors.

Using a limited palette will make your paintings look more professional, as everything will be unified by color.

The Missouri Watercolor Society is doing a great job of promoting watercolor with a beautiful new on-line magazine  called ‘Watercolor Studio’ that’s free.  It has many pages of news about the watercolor world and several articles on how to paint, including one on how I painted the pier painting on the left.   ( My article starts on page 14.)

This week I had watercolor paintings accepted into the Illinois small works juried exhibit and the Colorado juried exhibit.  I received my award from the Baltimore Watercolor Society’s juried exhibition – a full pack of 300 pound cold pressed watercolor paper from St. Cuthbert’s Mill in England.  I can’t wait to paint something wonderful on it.

“Painting Shells with Debi Watson” DVD
Running Length: 42 min.
Price: $14.95

I wanted to do this watercolor painting as a video demonstration, but it didn’t work out, so I’m putting it in as a step-by-step lesson.  Let me know if you think it’s understandable.

This is my drawing.  The grey is Pebeo masking fluid and I applied it on the beach with a toothbrush, trying for a random pattern.   (I got the shadow of my head in the middle, but the rest of the photos I did right…..)

Okay, it seems like I did a lot, but it’s really just a first watercolor wash.  Using a big brush, I did a wash of cobalt blue and  burnt sienna to the sky and the water.

I used cobalt, sienna, quinacridone red and aureolin yellow on the beach, and spattered it with water while it was wet, to make the blotches.  When it was completely dry, I spattered the beach again with  a toothbrush and misket.

I painted the rocks and the beach again, using the same colors, but I added some ultramarine blue to go a little darker, and switched from aureolin yellow to quinacridone gold to jazz it up, spattering the golds into the purpley mix I had going.  I added salt while the watercolor was still wet for more texture.  Now I’ll take off the masking…

Now I start adjusting values.  I put in some dark values in the hair and blue jeans, and a dark shadow on the lower left.  I softened up some the white edges and smudged up some of the far-away rocks.  I start painting the seaweed, or whatever it is, with the quinacridone gold, burnt sienna and other colors.  I lifted out the hard line between the shore and the water.

I decided the rock on the right of the couple was too distracting, so I lifted most of that up, kept softening edges and painting seaweed.

I keep painting the detail.  I am using a smaller brush now.  I think the sky is boring, so I add a wimpy looking storm on the left and put some soft streaks in the water.  I put slightly darker streaks in the water and lift out a few lighter streaks.

Here is the finished painting.  I put some greys in the wave and shadows under the wave.  I added a faraway land on the right and felt that improved the painting’s composition.  I added some crashing waves to the rocks in the left of the ocean, so your eye has a lot to look at.

This is a detail from a watercolor painting I’m currently working on.  The white ice box has had four coats of paint so far, and I’m not done yet.

I usually paint dark areas in one intense watercolor wash, but I carefully inch up on the white areas.  I make puddles of aureolin yellow, quinacridone red and cobalt blue with just the barest hint of color in the water.

I put each color on my paper separately, but let the colors touch one another.  Then I tilt the paper so the colors flow together on the paper and blend a bit.  Hints of warm and cool in your whites will make them come alive  … or turn them into a dingy ice machine on a cold winter day.

Thank you Annapolis Watercolor!

On June 10, I drove to Annapolis to do a one-hour watercolor demonstration.  What hospitality!

The members took me out to dinner at a wonderful restaurant and then to the Maryland Hall For the Creative Arts for their monthly meeting.  I had planned the painting carefully, painted furiously and finished on time.  One member, Tisha, graciously let me stay overnight at her home and if that wasn’t enough, made homemade granola and yogurt for breakfast.  Of course, I gave Tisha the demo.  Thanks, Annapolis, hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Upcoming Classes & Workshops

• Aug 10, 11 & 12 Workshop at York Art Association 220 S Marshall St., York PA
• Aug 31 – Sept 4 Workshop at Cheap Joes  in Boone NC (contact edwina@cheapjoes.com)
• Oct 26 – 30 Workshop for Pennsylvania Watercolor Society near Hershey PA

“Fast & Furious” Watercolor Demonstrations

On Tuesdays, I teach two watercolor classes.  Here are two finished watercolor demonstrations of sleeping cats.

In the cat with pots, I showed two ways to get a smooth transition from color to shadow.  I used water to thin out the paint on the right side of the blue pot, using thicker blue paint in the middle of the pot and then black.  On the red pot, I painted just red to black.

After it was dry, I used Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser to lift out the highlights on the red pot.  The bricks, pots and shadows were done with cobalt blue, quinacridone red and aureolin yellow. It makes great grays when you let it mix on the paper.

To make the green, I used a bit of thalo blue with the yellow and perylene green for the black.  (And a touch of burnt sienna for the cat’s colored areas.)

The Trick Is Not To Overmix The Watercolor

In the second demo, I used all the leftover bits of watercolor on my palette behind the cat, working quickly on dry paper so I got soft blending. Then I used the mixture of the leftover colors to put a strip of blue gray across the bottom.

While that was drying, I went back to cobalt blue, aureolin yellow and quinacridone red for the shadows on the cat, putting the colors down and letting them mix on the paper.

The class said it looked too garish while it was wet.  There lies the trick!  If you let wet washes  alone, they often shape up nicely as they dry.

Then I painted the black face and the ears.  I rubbed the shadow edges with a soft brush and dabbed with a paper towel to soften the edges, and used a few strokes of white for whiskers.  I thought the stripe across the bottom was boring, so I used a stencil to lift out goldfish and painted sweet dreams for this fellow.