Own Your Encore

My Encore Excursions

  • Blog
  • Home
  • Color of Bird Feathers

    Color of Bird Feathers

    As I continue lessons in watercolor painting of Shorebirds with Ian de Hoog, our bird subjects these past weeks brings color of feathers to mind. The colors in the feathers of a bird are formed in two different ways, from either pigments or from light refraction caused by the structure of the feather. www.allaboutbirds.org Of […]

    MSRitzman

    November 2, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Color week, Ian de Hoog, shorebirds, watercolor birds, watercolor practice, Winslowartcenter.com
  • Birds Eye

    Birds Eye

    I am back in class with Ian de Hoog painting birds, specifically Shore Birds. I have found that Ian’s unrelenting focus in his bird painting process – on the bird head and specifically the birds ‘eye’ makes this class a wonderful learning platform for watercolor techniques.

    MSRitzman

    October 22, 2022
    2022 Color
    Arches Cold Press Rough, color choices, Color week, heron, Ian de Hoog, killdeer, watercolor birds, watercolor practice, Winslowartcenter.com
  • More Landscape Color

    More Landscape Color

    Progress has been made in my understanding of successful watercolor landscape. Sarah Hansen has kept us on track in learning techniques for sky, mid-ground, fore-ground and today total composition. Included are

    MSRitzman

    September 27, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Color week, Sarah Hansen, watercolor landscape, watercolor practice, Winslowartcenter.com
  • Landscape Color

    Landscape Color

    Is watercolor landscape really that difficult? … YES! I am taking a class with Sarah Hansen- Watercolor Landscapes Deconstructed online via Winslow Art Center. Check our Sarah’s work here or Instagram here. My comment after the first session on clouds was that it’s going to take 1000 hours of practice to achieve that fresh painterly […]

    MSRitzman

    September 21, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Color week, landscape watercolor, Sarah Hansen, watercolor practice, Winslowartcenter.com, www.sarahhansen.com
  • Vegetable Color Wheel

    Vegetable Color Wheel

    This week’s watercolor sketching subjects quickly became a healthy meal. Before becoming a meal, the vegetables were a great way to revisit basic color mixing and elementary, easily overlooked watercolor practices – Keep your water clean. Keep your colors clean. Keep your highlights. The veggie motivation came courtesy of a Jean Mackay class via Winslow […]

    MSRitzman

    August 30, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Color week, Jean Mackay, vegetable color, watercolor practice, Winslowartcenter.com
  • Pollinators Choice

    Pollinators Choice

    Walking through the garden on a pollinator survey I noticed that PURPLE is the bloom color where most bees were foraging – making Purple the subject this week!

    MSRitzman

    August 22, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Color week, jane blundell, Purple, PV
  • Finding North

    Finding North

    Finding North became the focus this week as I was researching the history of the compass rose. First a little background. North on a map is a human construction that took hold in the early 1600s. Maps have always shown an up ‘direction’ but there have been variations – early Egyptian maps show South as […]

    MSRitzman

    August 15, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Color week, compass plant, watercolor practice
  • Art of Map Color

    Art of Map Color

    Color on maps has history ranging from aesthetic to symbolic, from decorative to the complex color theorems started in the 1800s to distinguish countries, states and bodies of water. In the 19th century before complexity set in and before maps were printed with color it was a popular hobby for society ladies to hand color […]

    MSRitzman

    August 8, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Elizabeth Person, hand colored maps, John Muir Laws, map color, map color theorems
  • Too Brilliant Color

    Too Brilliant Color

    If you pause and look around the environment where you are right now, do you see much Orange? Orange, our color this week does not casually creep into our personal environment… possibly if we are outdoors in the fall foliage, or maybe if we work in an industrial site surrounded by safety messaging or drive […]

    MSRitzman

    July 20, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Color week, orange, orange garden flowers, orange varnish, victoria finlay, watercolor practice
  • Yucca

    Yucca

    The Yucca has become a smart plant for urban gardens. The plant is low maintenance, copes well in sun or shade and brings an interesting heritage. Seeing the flowering Yucca on my daily walk route and a family members visit to the Fremont Indian State Park & Museum has inspired this post.

    MSRitzman

    July 13, 2022
    2022 Color
    color, color choices, Fremont culture, Pigment, sapoines, yucca
  • Getting Started

    Getting Started

    When starting the watercolor sketch for this post it was to explore the three watercolors that made it onto my palette when I first started watercolor. The plant I chose to sketch is – Akebia quinata or 5-Leaf Vine. Synchronicity set in … it was 5 years ago that I took my first ‘encore’ / […]

    MSRitzman

    July 8, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, Color week, Cynthia Armstrong, Ian de Hoog, jane barton, Jean Mackay, kathleen Mckeenan, lisa snow lady, Shari Blaukopf, watercolor practice, Winslowartcenter.com
  • The Perennial Daisy

    The Perennial Daisy

    A patch of daisies has started to bloom in my city garden, and I am prompted to make this cheery flower the subject of this week’s color exploration. The prompting came from a variety of angles. Jean Mackay posted an image done in negative painting technique on IG that encouraged slowing down to paint, I […]

    MSRitzman

    June 29, 2022
    2022 Color
    Brenda Swenson, color choices, color combination, Egyptian, History of the daisy, Jean Mackay, Negative painting, Quinacrodone colors, slow painting
1 2 3 … 5
Next Page

Proudly Powered by WordPress

 

Loading Comments...
 

    • Follow Following
      • Own Your Encore
      • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
      • Own Your Encore
      • Edit Site
      • Follow Following
      • Sign up
      • Log in
      • Report this content
      • View site in Reader
      • Manage subscriptions
      • Collapse this bar