Own Your Encore

My Encore Excursions

  • 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
  • The Color of Maps

    The Color of Maps

    The next few posts are going to include how color was introduced to the genre of maps and charts. The earliest maps were used for storytelling and wayfinding on land and at sea. Military planning and plant hunting were specialized areas using early colored maps. In the 1780s the profession of ‘topographic artist’ was introduced.…

    MSRitzman

    August 2, 2022
    2022 Color
    Color week, Jean Mackay, maps, watercolor maps, watercolor practice, Winslowartcenter.com
  • 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
  • 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
  • Solstice

    Solstice

    On this day, the Sun rises farthest left on the horizon, and sets at its rightmost possible spot. Sunlight strikes places in your home that get illuminated at no other time Almanac.com The solstice on Tuesday, June 21, 2022 happens at the same instance for all of us, everywhere on Earth. In my time zone that is…

    MSRitzman

    June 20, 2022
    2022 Color
    color choices, color green, Color week, color yellow, solstice, stonehedge, sun, watercolor practice
  • Italian Earth Colors

    Italian Earth Colors

    Raw Sienna. Burnt Sienna. These earth colors are associated with the Italian landscape and essential for a palette used for nature sketching in Italy – our color topic today. Jean Mackay is leading a Winslow Art Center workshop in Italy where I hope to up my skills in composition and page refinement while sketching outdoors.

    MSRitzman

    April 26, 2022
    2022 Color, Travel & Tours
    color choices, Color week, Italian colors, Jean Mackay, watercolor practice, Winslowartcenter.com
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