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End of Season Golds
Color Week 32 captures the colors of the end-of-season seed pods. The early flowering alliums, the tall grass and drying seed pods are giving us signs that the flowering season is ending in the Pacific Northwest. Yellow Ochre. Quinacrodone Deep Gold. Raw Umber. Naples Yellow. watercolor choices
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Drawn To Class
To keep up with daily sketching means that ‘every day’ I need to put something on the page. Some sketches take a couple minutes, a ‘sketchbook’ entry typically takes 45-50 minutes and a botanical drawing can take many hours. So I’m always looking for new ways to fill the page of my ‘daily sketchbook’. When […]
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Choose a Color Scheme
One of the tasks in a watercolor class assignment this week includes selecting a ‘color scheme’. It seems like a simple task – thus the topic of Color Week 29. Monet loved to use a limited palette. He achieved more luminescence by having to utilize more mixes rather than from a variety of colours. Typically […]
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Vera Neumann Inspiration
Americans are likely familiar with the name Martha Stewart … But they might not recognize the name Vera Neumann a woman who was arguably an equivalent as one of the most successful female design entrepreneurs of the last century Elle decor ELLE decor ‘Vera Paints a Scarf’ exhibit Here at Color Week 28 I like to […]
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Vera Neumann Geometrics
Vera was encouraged to be artistic. Her father would pay her fifty cents to fill a sketchbook! She went to Cooper-Union and the Traphagen School of Design and gravitated toward textile design. Design Sponge Color Week 27 and we are exploring the ‘geometrics’ of Vera scarves. Vera used bold color and what better way to […]
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Vera Neumann Inspired
For the month of July my weekly color posting will be inspired by Vera Neumann. She was simply known as Vera, her iconic name was on all her boldly-colored scarves and cheery home furnishings. You could often tell it was a Vera before seeing the name. There are many online sources for her history & […]
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Color Week 25
This week we are exploring the colors and technique of my recent class ‘Cherries in Dry Brush Watercolor’ by excellent artist and instructor Carrie Di Costanzo. My logic for enrolling in a watercolor class that is truly the anthesis of my personal sketching style was twofold- it’s a standard in botanical illustration and its a […]
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Currant Colors
Last year I planted a black currant, ribes nigrum, this week black currant is our focus – Color Week 24. My primary objective for planting a black currant was to harvest the berries to make my own Cassis for cocktail making. I like to delve into the history and uses of each plant I grow […]
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Broken Windmill
Instructor Shari Blaukopf offered a watercolor lesson at the Pointe-Claire Windmill The mill lost a wing in a recent wind storm, but it remains a charming site with some good challenges for watercolor sketching.
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Garden Color Class
Another online class with Shari Blaukopf to focus on color and green tones in the garden. Working from a photo from Shari… but I have visited this little school house at ‘Christiansen Nursery Skagit Valley WA’ Other work from the week:
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Capturing Light Color Shadow
Time to learn some shadow techniques now that the sun is out. Shari Blaukopf is a master of strong color and shadow so I tried her techniques via her online class … she is a great instructor and keeps the technique instruction straightforward. I had some success in my practice and now have some confidence […]