I did purchase a brush for the workshop. And will be purchasing the whole set because I absolutely adore this brush. It is the Rekab Kazan Series 320S Pointed Squirrel Mop. This brush holds a ton of water and pigment and has a razor sharp point for drawing with.

Rekab Kazan Squirrel Pointed Mop 320S Watercolor Brush

The painting below was done with the bruash and just 3 pigments. I used Cobalt Blue, Burnt Sienna and a touch of Viridian added to the trees.

Painting done with Rekab Kazan Mop and 3 Pigments

I have been restructuring my art business, clarifiying my painting goals and organizing my studio.  I will start with the last first. I have decluttered my work space and rearranged my studio furniture and the space works much better. I will post photos in my next blog post. I, also, cleaned my palette and got rid of colors that I don’t use anymore. I am notorious for not keeping my palette clean!

Palette and Brush

I have a Ken Bromley enameled palette.  It is a great box and I love that I can just fold it up and take it with me. I use mostly whole pans and fill the boxes with my tube paints. I primarily use M Grahams with a few Holbein colors.  I find a work with fewer and fewer colors the longer I paint.

Next, clarifying my painting goals. I am so drawn to watercolors so I have decided to put most of my painting time and energy into becoming fluent in this medium. I don’t know where my fascination comes from but I love to work with this medium. I would love to hear why you, dear reader, enjoy this medium. Is it the way it flows and moves around the paper? Is it the way it  you can’t really control it 100%? It certainly can have a mind of it’s own…or is it the way it captures light? I’d love to hear your views!

Til next time!

Deborah

Okay, well maybe not so fast with one! But it is loose! I actually had the where- with- all to stop and photograph this painting while in progress. This is from a photograph I took in Burano, Italy a few years back. Burano is one of the islands off of Venice. I painted this picture a few years ago and thought I would give another go. I dig up the older version and post that alongside the final of this. Should be an interesting comparison. I must apologize for the darkness of the photo. I iook it in my studio from my iphone camera. WIll do better next time I promise. I am trying to stick to a very limited palette and limited detail I come from a backgrond of painting photo realistic paintings and I am so done with that. But old habits die hard. How do you limit the details? What is important? What is not?

Oh, if you click on the image you can get a better view!

One of my goals this year to attend a few workshops this year. And I am delighted to see that Alvaro Costagnet is doing a 5 day workshop about 2 hours north of me. If you are not familiar with his work..check it out here. Alvaro Costagnet His work is just incredible. Now how to afford this and what to do with my son for the week! I must go to this!

Til next time!

Deborah

I got to use my new Cheap Joe’s Field easel! This is rather large 24 x 20, M Graham Watercolor on Arches 140# cp. I have been working n lots of small sketching exercises these days and I am really happy when I was able to pull off this plein air piece. I particularly like the rocks to the right. I found the U Tube videos by Arnold Lowrey to be very helpful for painting rocks!

The next two images are from an exercise in watercolorist, David Dewey’s book, The Watercolor Book. A super read by the way! Each painting was done using one color and then you build upon the values. I apologize for the quality of the photos…my light was very poor!  Will do better next time!

Cheap Joe’s Signature Field Easel

Today I will be reviewing the Cheap Joe’s Signature Field Easel. As soon as I saw this easel I knew it was exactly what I was looking for.  Those who know me know that I love pochade boxes. I have my little Guerilla Thumbox and my Alla Prima Bitteroot boxes. Both are great for acrylics or oils but were lacking for me for watercolor. It says on the CJ’s website that this easel was designed with the watercolorist in mind. This looks very much like the easel that master watercolorist Joseph Zbukvic uses. I love this easel. It is super easy to set up and take down and it has plenty of workspace in all of the right places. The mast portion has a landscape orientation which I really like. You do need to tape your work to a board or use blocks. It can be set upright and flat as well. The legs are fully adjustable and super easy to fold up. The box also came with a free DVD that has set up instructions and a nice watercolor tutorial on painting trees. This is a great box for other medium as well but it may lack the storage space required for acrylic and oil. It is available in cherry or black and right now it is on sale for only $169. Cheap Joe’s also often has great prices on shipping. I only paid $4.95  to have this UPSed to my home. Follow them on Twitter for some good coupon codes and art deals.

I originally bought this as an extra work station for my studio but I will definitely be taking this one outside to do plein air work. Overall- a super box for a super great price! I have a lot of photos below.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

Cheap Joe's Signature Field Easel Folded Up

I did indeed give this English village painting a third go and I am so glad that I did. Third time really is the charm. I changed the support on this as well. I switched from Arches 140lb Rough Press that I used in the second effort to Arches 140lb Cold Press for this one.This is almost bordering on too fussy which I am trying to get away from. But I do like this.  Now forsome giggles I’ll also go ahead and post the very first attepmt at this. Keep in mind that buildings have not been my forte and the whole idea has been use this challenge as way to improve, hence, the three efforts. Scroll down to yesterday’s post to see effort number two. I’d love to hear what you think!

Watercolor Cityscape

Watercolor Gold Hill Shaftesbury

This was a fun watercolor piece to do for a Wet Canvas Challenge from a a very difficult (for me) reference photo. This was my second attempt at this image and I may go for a third effort. Third time’s the charm! Right? I really enjoyed this and learned a lot. I did this on Arches Rough Press 140lb paper. Mostly M Graham paints.

Maple tree study on watercolor

I have been working on my watercolor technique these days. I did these two studies last week. The first painting is of a maple tree. I am really tryng to learn my way aroud trees. Each variety has very specific details. So it has been quite an education learning about which way the branches grow, the colors of the foliage, etc.
The second panting is of a moody rainy sky. I love doing clouds and painting these kinds of dark skies. Reminds me of the rainy days in the Pacific Northwest. Watercolor just seems to be made for these kinds of scenes. These are both small, about 8 x 10 on Arches Rough Press paper.

Cloud Study in watercolor