Tuesday's Tips & Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Color Recommendation Tip

MaimeriBlu's Permanent Violet Bluish is an awesome color to have in your palette. It is a color I would not do without.

It is a transparent watercolor that has a HUGE value range. Add a ton of water and it will be very pale, not so much water and it will go very dark.

It mixes well and plays nicely with other colors.

Mix a little Permanent Violet Bluish with almost any yellow, water it down and you have the perfect shade of sand.

Get ready to paint those beach scenes!

Memorial Day Weekend

Enjoy the Memorial Day Weekend!

We will be visiting puppies!

XiXi taking care of her 6 puppies, 15 days old. She's waiting with them in a playpen while her kennel is being cleaned. Dutch watches happily from the outside.

Hot Hot Pink

Verzino Dew Drop

by Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches

ACEO - Art Card

A sneak peek at one of my most recent dew drop paintings.

Last Class Project

The Lily Pond

by Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

Size: 11 x 15 inches

Last night was the last Wednesday night watercolor painting class for this session. We painted lily ponds.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Draw Ink Erase

When creating a pen & ink watercolor painting, I like to draw the image first lightly in pencil on my watercolor paper. Then I will use an india ink pen to trace over my pencil lines. When I have the inked drawing just the way I want it, I will erase all the extra pencil lines.

The kneaded eraser is perfect for this step because it does not leave behind a lot of eraser dust, it doesn't smudge the graphite or ink and it doesn't leave behind the color of the eraser.

I even erase over the ink lines incase there is a little bit of pencil line hiding along the edges of the ink.

Now my pen & ink drawing is ready for watercolor paint.

1. Sketch out drawing lightly in pencil

2. Ink over drawing with a waterproof, bleed proof ink.

3. Erase pencil lines with a kneaded eraser.

4. Paint away!

Dew Drop Series is Back

Blue Meets Yellow Dew Drop

by Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches

ACEO - Art Card

Looks like the dew drop series is back! I've begum adding to it again. I do love painting these tiny little dew drop paintings.

Click "Like" on Facebook today!

http://www.facebook.com/rasquier

Teacup Sized Art

Gloomy Day Drops

by Rita A. Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches

ACEO Art Card

What is an ATC & ACEO?

Artist Trading Cards (ATC) - Traded amongst artists.

Art Cards, Editions & Originals (ACEO) - Sold to artists and collectors.

Artist Trading Cards and Art Cards are one in the same.

They are referred to as Artist Trading Cards when traded and Art Cards when sold.

The only requirement is the size. The size is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. The same size as other themed trading cards. They fit perfectly into the sleeves and sheets that are created for regular trading cards.

Artists from all over the world create these little works of art in a variety of different mediums and subject matter. Artists trade them with other artists.

Artists sell them to those who love small art and to those who would love to collect art but cannot really afford to buy the larger pieces the artist is selling. This also allows people to collect a larger variety of art since they are only buying little pieces. The art cards are meant to be sold at lower prices and to reach a wider audience.

They can be framed in little frames. They can be matted and framed singly in an 8x10 inch frame for a very contemporary look. Mat them in groups in a single mat to fill a larger or longer frame.

The Art Cards I have created have all been original watercolor paintings. I store them in a 3 ring binder filled with sheets of trading card sleeves. I sell my original watercolor Art Cards through my Squier Etsy Shop.

Collecting Art Cards or Artist Trading Cards is a fabulous way to create your own art collection.

Start your art collection today if you haven't already!

Hope for a New Lawn

We've been tilling up the land ... well, parts of it.

Started with a small patch two weeks ago, in the backyard behind the magnolia tree. Then decided to do half the front yard. It has been tilled a few times, then raked and has had stones removed.

We reshaped a garden. Planted grass seed. Watered it for two days. Then it's been raining everyday since then. Little bits of sunshine here and there.

I was worried the rain would wash all the seeds away. To our surprise we have little bits of 1/4 inch high grass growing!

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Try a New Color: Neutral Tint

Every now and then I love to try a new color. This one has me curious ... neutral tint. Interesting title and interesting purpose. A color to make other colors darker without going warmer or cooler in hue.

How dark can it go? How light will it be?

To find out, I made a little value chart for this tube of paint.

Next I will mix this color with my existing palette colors to see how it blends with and tints the colors.

This tube of Neutral Tint is made by M. Graham & Co., an excellent quality American made watercolor paint.

Stuck in a rut? Try a new color. Create a value chart to see how deep and dark it will go. Create or add to your color mixing chart to see how this new color mixes with your existing colors.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Analogous Colors

Using analogous colors in a painting will help tie it together.

Analogous colors are those that are next to each other on the color wheel.

Creating a simple background of analogous colors for a still life, a portrait, a floral painting is a great way to create a background with interest and texture without having to establish a lot of detail.

Choose a complimentary color to that of the main subject and use its analogous colors to create a mottled background. This will make the subject matter pop. For example, red watermelon slices the complementary color is green. Create a background of green with its analogous colors yellow and blue.

My Magnolia

Absolutely breath taking this year!

Even after a hard, snowy, cold and icy winter, the blossoms on my magnolia tree were gorgeous. And now, they have fallen and have sprinkled the lawn with a dusting of pink and white petals. The pink petals now on the ground even look beautiful.

Enamel Chart

My Painting With Fire Chart

I have a variety of watercolor painting color charts and encourage my students to create them as homework projects. So I decided to make a similar chart for my beads.

I created myself a nifty little chart of colors to use as a guide when I create torch fired beads. I still need three more washers to finish this chart.

The color combinations are almost endless. I'm starting to wonder what various layers of transparent colors can create.

The colors remind me a lot of watercolors. The quill is neither transparent or opaque. It kinda falls under the semi-transparent, semi-opaque or more so the sedimentary category.

Recently Read

The Chocolate Lovers' Club

by Carole Mattews

This book was a fun, quick read. I picked it up at a bookstore basically because of the title. Never judge a book by its cover? Sometimes, why not? You may surprise yourself. A cute little illustration and a fun title got me hooked. I enjoyed the book.

After reading the book, I found out she has a website too:

The Chocolate Lovers Club

http://thechocolateloversclub.com/

And a sequel:

The Chocolate Lovers' Diet

I just might have to keep my eye out for this book too!

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

The Wash Brush

My all time favorite and coveted watercolor wash brush is the Winsor & Newton Series 965 Wash Brush - 1 1/2". The bristles are a blend of natural hair and synthetic fibers. It holds a lush amount of paint and water. Perfect for creating gorgeous skies!

Glides across the watercolor paper, twisting and turning helping me to create wonderful paintings. I can and have done entire watercolors with this brush. I have three!

It's simply fantastic!

Book Sale Finds

This past Friday, I went to a book sale at a somewhat local library. I was very happy to find six books to add to my stack of not yet read books. I only have two maybe three left from book sales I went to last fall. Somehow, I did not get through my entire stack of winter books.

Saturday, on my way to check on my in-laws' new dog which will be having puppies any day now, we stopped at a tag sale. There I found two fun Sophie Kinsella books.

Eight books for a total of $7 not bad at all. They're all in really good shape too. They look to have been read only once.

I had three books on my hope to find list, but I did not find them at the book sale. I definitely have a few books to keep me busy until I find them.