I painted this scene for a watercolor challenge on the Idrawandpaint website in late 2008. It is 1/2 sheet of Arches 140 lb. coldpressed w/c paper. The leaves on the ground were particularly challenging and I got a little carried away with the detail in those areas. I sprinkled salt into a wet wash of fall colors, and after it was dry, I developed the leaf shapes by negative painting around the textural shapes created by the salt. I was satisfied with the reflections in the water, though. 
This is the final painting. I added a crow for interest and also for composition in order to direct the eye into the painting to facilitate eye-movement. I like to put crows somewhere in my vintage truck paintings. The finished size of this painting is 22" x 30, and the paints used were Golden fluid acrylics. White gouache was used in the area next to the hood for contrast.
The painting was placed on a large, old towel to stop drips from going onto the floor or table. After thoroughly wetting the watercolor paper, I dropped the paint onto the paper by pouring from the cups and also, for smaller areas, I dropped color in with the eye droppers. I used the spray bottle to move the paint around, allowing the paint to accumulate on the edges of the paper. I blotted this paint up with a paper towel to prevent back flows. Then more paint was added the the process repeated while the paper was wet.
I am still busy finishing my latest poured painting and house cleaning. I did two more cupboards this weekend - I am getting there, finally! So...I am posting today a picture of a greeting card I completed several years ago. The flowers themselves were done wet-in-wet and defined with negative painting. I also painted around the veins in the leaves - another example of negative painting. This painting is 5" x 7" and is painted on 140 lb. Arches cold-pressed watercolor paper.
I have been, for the last few days, working on a large (full sheet) poured watercolor. It is taking quite a while, so I thought I would post some watercolor sketches I did some time ago. This particular painting is 5" x 7" and is watercolor and graphite. It was painted on a wet-in-wet background on 140 lb. Arches, Cold-pressed watercolor paper. It is from a drawing I did in a life-drawing class from a live model.
Today's painting is my statement about the millions of women worldwide who are subjected to violence, treated as second-class citizens, and in many cases virtually invisible. I call it "Watching...Waiting," I suggested masks over their faces to represent the invisibility.
This painting was created in response to the Watercolor Workshop July Project #1 where the members were to all paint from the same photo. This painting is on 1/8 sheet of 140 lb.Canson cold-pressed w/c paper with assorted watercolors. I didn't do a great job of drawing the picture to begin with (as you can see if you compare to the photo above) and of course, got carried away with detail. The whole thing tends to be a little quirky - but was actually fun to paint!
I finished this painting this afternoon. It was painted for the July project for Watercolor Workshop where we were to paint "Something Hot!" After much consideration, I thought of hot peppers, which I love to look at due to their beautiful color and shiny surface. This is a small painting - 5 1/2" x 7 1/2 " and is painted on Canson 140 lb. cold-pressed water color paper. No special techniques were used except I tried to use primary and secondary colors without mixing them - trying to stick to pure blue, red and green for color contrast. I wanted the peppers to sort of vibrate the eyes:) Unfortunately, a lot of the color was lost during the photo process. Oh well................ lol! As far as the watercolors are concerned - I used a real conglomeration of paints and reds from at least 3 different companies.
This is a small painting which I did yesterday during my time with my Thursday Painters. I almost always do a small color study before I do a painting to make sure of my colors before I start the final. I wet this paper (5"x 7 1/2") and dropped in the indian yellow in the center and then the quinacridone red-violet around the edges and allowed it to run, mix and dry. I was happy with the results and thus, went on to the large painting in the demo below. Yesterday, I drew the rose again, more or less like the one in the photo I used for the demo. It is not exactly the same, but close. I had paint left over from the demo, so I used that. This painting is much more intense than the demo painting - I used much more contrast and color in this small study. This study will be nice for a swap painting or a greeting card. If nothing else, it was economical :) Want not-waste not!
This is the final painting. I used the paint I had prepared for pouring to finish the painting, this way you have the paint on hand and already prepared. I basically left the original pouring for the flower and only painted in the shadows and some accents and detailing. I did use some alizarin crimson for the center of the flower.
I mixed up a cup of blue-violet and painted around and inside the image using negative painting techniques. I used a #8 round for this task. When I do this, I use a 1 1/2 " flat wash brush to wet the area clear to the edge of the paper and lay in the paint next to the image and gradually diminish the color towards the edge. I always keep the paper wet with clear water to eliminate hard edges.
After allowing some time for the painting to dry a little, I began to lift out some areas of light with a damp paint brush. Then I left the painting to dry well overnight.
This is the final pour...you can see that the colors have spread out and some new colors have formed...fortunately I was still able to retain the focal point in the center of the rose. At this point, I removed the painting from the plexiglass and layed it on the towel to dry a little.
This is the first pour - you can see that the paper is very wet and I occasionally spray it with water to move the paint around. I also try to get rid of the water around the edges to prevent blooms. I use a paper towel for this. I poured the indian yellow in the center and the quinacridone red-violet around that. I used an eye-dropper to drop in the sap green for the leaves. I pour all my colors at one time. Some painters do it one color at the time allowing each color to dry. I prefer to do it together because I like the mix of colors I get this way.
This photo shows the supplies I use for pouring: a piece of plexiglass larger than the painting; the paint mixed up in small plastic cups for pouring (indian yellow, quinacridone red-violet, and sap green; a spray bottle of water and a large bath towel to catch the run off. A sponge can also be helpful at this time to wet down the plexiglass and both sides of the paper. The paper sticks to the plexiglass and this keeps the paper from drying out too quickly.
This is another quick study from my sketches during my trip to the North Woods of Wisconsin. This is an adirondack chair my friend has sitting on her dock - in fact she has two...I was sitting in the other. This was done with watercolor pencils, watercolors and water brush with some detailing from an Espresso black ink pen, extra fine point. This was also done on card stock.
