Thursday, April 8, 2010

Kathleen Alexander Flower workshop


Picture of our workshop space

Reference photo for painting

My painting in progress
Finish painting!

Such a wonderful time I had at Kathleen Alexander's flower watercolor workshop. She amazes me every time I see her work. Her keen eye for color and details blows me away she'll point out colors in a simple photograph and I'd have to look real hard, but I'd start to see what she's seeing and wow! I never saw that, so the biggest thing I take away each time from her workshops is to pay more attention and really look, look for the subtle colors and color mixtures and hues.

In this flower painting we did, she had us start out with a underpainting of colbalt blue and a little sap green for the shadows in the flower petals, then with a bright rose pink on top of that. The background we used Holbein shadow green to get that rich dark background, the leaves we used green gold and sap green. She showed us to soften the highlights in the background to give that fuzzy look and where hard and soft edges were. It was a great workshop and I highly recommend her as a teacher.

8 comments:

  1. You've done a gorgeous painting, Sheila! Looks like it was a great time too!

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  2. Unbelieveable, Sheila! After seeing what you've done, I want to take a workshop with Katherine next time! We always say, "I want to be loose!" But clearly that isn't always where we need to go. I love Katherine's work and I love what she gets you to do.

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  3. Unbelievable! I just love it!! I hope you are feeling ok. Your paintings just keep getting better! I guess that is how it is supposed to be! Maybe if I paint some more I'llfind out!

    Pattie

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  4. Gorgeous painting! I've enjoyed reading through your blog and looking at your artwork. Very accomplished.

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  5. Wow! Maybe I should take her class, I'm very rusty! Your work is stunning! Love it!

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  6. Wow, this is beautiful! Looks like this was lots of fun.

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  7. Beautiful painting, looks like the workshop was fun.

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