Watercolor Sketches

Wow! 2 posts in one day! I will even be posting one of my 10 minute sketches later so that will make 3 posts! I am posting some watercolor sketches my painting students completed awhile ago. I had them hanging on a bulletin board and was unable to photograph them well. These sketches allowed students to play around with watercolors and try different techniques such as masking fluid, rubbing alcohol, salt and lifting out colors. If you would like to see a cool site that has a ton of free demonstrations on these techniques, click here.. If you still have not entered my art giveaway please do so!!!! You can enter here.

Animal Paintings: Student Artwork

My painting class just finished their animal paintings using a limited palette. Students were to use only three colors plus black and white. I encouraged students to use the primary colors so they would be able to mix any color they needed. Some students did, some didn't.

These paintings were done in acrylic paint on a canvas board. Students started the painting by underpainting the canvas board with a color of their choice-anything to get rid of the white of the canvas board. An underpainting is the initial layer of paint applied to a ground (like a canvas board, canvas and paper.) I usually recommend painting the canvas with a complementary color of whatever is the dominant color in the picture. For example: If the picture has mostly greens and blues I would paint the canvas a peachy-red color. I think it just gives the painting a lot of depth and I like the underpainting to show through in spots to provide some interesting contrast. If you want to keep your paintings more natural and realistic a black and white or brownish underpainting works really well.

Next up we are doing a watercolor landscape, I will post those when we finish!