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Cow With Calves – The Perfect Colors

Starting with the perfect colors not only makes this easy to paint, but gives you a professional looking result!

These are Lineback cows – an endangered species with distinctive coloring.

Click here  to download the original photo.

Wet & Wild Watercolor Washes – Glowing Cows in gold and brown from Deb Watson on Vimeo.

Three Colors:

1. Quinacridone Gold (you can substitute raw sienna or a transparent yellow)
2. Burnt Sienna (you can substitute with quinacridone sienna or transparent red oxide)
3. Ultramarine Blue (or french ultramarine)

Step by Step Instructions

 Step 1 – Lightly draw or copy the cows and hay trough onto your watercolor paper. Using a liquid masking fluid to mask out the white areas on the brown calf and a few pieces of hay at the bottom and in the trough. Also mask the white cow at the edges.

This student painting has wonderful knotholes in the wood and spots on the cow! Good job.

Step 2 – Work on a tilted surface. I tilted my paper up an inch by putting a roll of masking tape about 1 inch thick under my paper support.

Step 3 – Lay in the wet and wild washes with a big brush. Wet the top third of the paper (the area above the cows and hay) with clean water. Drop in quinacridone gold just above the cows and hay. Let the gold blend up into the wet paper, but try to keep some white paper at the very top. Add some burnt sienna to the same area. Mix burnt sienna and blue to make a darker color and add a small bit of that to the same wet area.

Step 4 – Use Saran Wrap to create texture by crumpling up a piece of wrap, then firmly pressing the slightly crumpled wrap into the wet wash. Let this dry before you remove the wrap. (Drying may take half an hour or so.) In the video, I painted most of the paper before applying wrap, but I’m a very fast painter. You may find it easier to apply the wrap at the top before painting the bottom area. Either way will work.

This painting from class has a cute star on the black calf’s forehead.

Step 5 – Paint burnt sienna over the middle area as shown on the video, and more gold at the bottom where the straw is. While this area is still wet, crumple and apply plastic wrap to the gold straw area. Let dry thoroughly.

Step 6 – Start painting the objects with a small brush. Mix burnt sienna with a touch of blue to tone it down for the side of the trough. I make the top edge a bit darker than the rest, then paint color and water in horizontal strokes so it will form a wood like texture. Next I painted the shadow area under the trough. When I get to the straw area at the bottom, I create the texture of straw by painting the dark behind it. You can draw the straw first on if it helps you.

This 6 x 6 class version was put on a cradle board and looked great.

Step 7 – Layer your colors to create form. If an area dries lighter than you want, paint it again. The colors on the white cow are mixtures of the blue and brown, with a bit of gold added where I want to make it warmer. Watercolor can make great grays. For the shadows on a white cow, you’ll need to keep the shadows very watery and light.

Step 8 – Remove the masking and evaluate your painting. Does some area still need to be darker? Some ways to ‘see your painting in a new light’ are to hold it up to a mirror, or take a photo and study the small photo version.

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Did you notice the first word in Happy New Year is happy?

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  What makes you happy?

Instead of resolutions on everything you need to do better, why not think about what really makes you happy and plan to do more of it ?

Here are some things that truly make me happy:

• teaching – seeing the joy in someone’s eyes when they realize they can paint
• nature – like watching the birds at my feeder -it makes me happy deep inside
• painting – creating something that inspires other people is so rewarding

Here Are My ‘Happiness’ Resolutions

1. On-line teaching.  I’ve been hard at work learning (and am still learning) how to translate my watercolor teaching into effective on-line lessons. It’s a bit of hard work, but should get easier as time goes by and I’ll be able to share the joy of watercolor with so many people!

2. Hiking. I’m planning to do day hikes on the Appalachian Trail, take photos and paint the hikers and the Eastern United States. ‘Western Art’ is a category in many art lists, so why don’t we make ‘Eastern Art’ a category, too? I’ll be posting my photos on my flickr photo site and everyone can download them to paint free of charge. Let’s start a movement in the art world.

3. Painting. I’m setting regular hours for painting. Since I’m a morning person, I’ll paint then, and let the housework and email etc. go until after painting.

Okay, I am hoping to get more exercise with all the hiking, but I am focusing on the positive, the Happiness factor, for 2013. You should go for happiness, too.

HAPPY New Year – and keep painting.   Deb Watson (P.S. Click on the clouds for a new video)

In my watercolor painting class last Tuesday, students learned how to paint sandy beaches and seashells the fun and easy way. Letting gravity do the work, by putting color and water down and tilting, was new and exciting. There’s a lot of layering in this watercolor exercise and we use hair dryers to speed the drying.

Removing the masking to show the texture made everyone “ooh” and “ahh.” And lifting the color for the shells was another new experience for many students. It was a day of discovery and amazing results.

Featuring artists:

• Carole Barnes
• Carrie Brown
• Cathy Searle
• Linda Baker
• Linda Benton McCloskey
• Lucy Weigle
• Me, Debi Watson