It was a mildly crazy day today, because I had six reports to do for the 911 folks in the morning, that took nearly all of my four hours, and then I spent four hours in a watercolor class this evening with Ugljesa Janjic, a local watercolor painter.
The 911 stuff had moved from Friday to today because we spent yesterday on a small trek to the Stupa out in the Red Feather Lake area, and that had turned out beautifully. I have some wonderful things that I want to paint out of that hike, too, but it and a trip to Copoco's Honey in Fort Collins for some emergency mite control effects.
So it's been a full couple of days.
And Ugljesa was amazing and even though I was the only person signed up for his class, he held it anyway, and he not only held it, but he let me use his palette and board to get a really good feel for how he works and what he does.
He works on FULL SHEETS (30x22 inches) of watercolor paper, 140 lb, and just pure white, with a good tooth if he can find it. But they're enormous paintings, with more scale than I'm used to being able to play with. He had some really great ideas on how to do sketching and figuring out gray scale and where and how to make shadows and the deep darks that make the luminosity of the rest of the painting really stand out.
He did a demo, and then I got to paint the same demo. Starting with a freehand sketch, and then just laying down the paint, mostly from the top down. And that's my painting from the class! I'd highly recommend the class for anyone that wants to get their brushes good and wet on some really spontaneous watercolors, and get a good feel for how layouts can evolve from a sketches and trials on paintings and just ones own gut feel on how it should work.
I had fun, and now have a lot of good ideas for what I want to do, both large and small, and lots of paper to play with, as he asked that students bring 5 full sheets. I've broken one down into quarters, and I might play with those and with the half sheets just to see what comes out of my recent hikes. The boys and I had a hike last week, just west of Boulder that ended in a torrential downpour and a lot of very sad electronics, but the views and the Ponderosa pines were spectacular.
The 911 stuff had moved from Friday to today because we spent yesterday on a small trek to the Stupa out in the Red Feather Lake area, and that had turned out beautifully. I have some wonderful things that I want to paint out of that hike, too, but it and a trip to Copoco's Honey in Fort Collins for some emergency mite control effects.
So it's been a full couple of days.
He works on FULL SHEETS (30x22 inches) of watercolor paper, 140 lb, and just pure white, with a good tooth if he can find it. But they're enormous paintings, with more scale than I'm used to being able to play with. He had some really great ideas on how to do sketching and figuring out gray scale and where and how to make shadows and the deep darks that make the luminosity of the rest of the painting really stand out.
He did a demo, and then I got to paint the same demo. Starting with a freehand sketch, and then just laying down the paint, mostly from the top down. And that's my painting from the class! I'd highly recommend the class for anyone that wants to get their brushes good and wet on some really spontaneous watercolors, and get a good feel for how layouts can evolve from a sketches and trials on paintings and just ones own gut feel on how it should work.
I had fun, and now have a lot of good ideas for what I want to do, both large and small, and lots of paper to play with, as he asked that students bring 5 full sheets. I've broken one down into quarters, and I might play with those and with the half sheets just to see what comes out of my recent hikes. The boys and I had a hike last week, just west of Boulder that ended in a torrential downpour and a lot of very sad electronics, but the views and the Ponderosa pines were spectacular.
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