Clipper Ships

This project was inspired by Deep Space Sparkle's lesson
http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2011/05/watercolor-clipper-ships-art-lesson/

I found a painting of a Clipper ship online, and then drew step by step on the white board with my students. They did great! lots of sails and some complex shapes. I haven't done this with my second school yet, but will post pictures here when I get to it.
After the drawing, everyone painted the sails and I showed them how to do the shading along the left side and bottom to make the sails look full of air. I also showed them how to do a very light wash over the whole sail and then darken with more pigment in the shadow area and blend out. I had to show most of the students on their own painting what I meant, but eventually they all figured it out. Lots to learn!
I tried to show them how to paint the waves light on the peaks and darker down below, but I don't think that ended up coming across very well and I just ended up letting them have more fun with that part since the first part was more intense.
I also showed my students how to draw a dolphin and whale jumping out of the water, and I required each to draw one. Some of the students in my second class chose to do some outlining in sharpie pen. 

Lots of pictures this time! Grades 1-5.

Connor's harbor boats

My brother asked me to paint a "harbor" painting for him for his Christmas/birthday (two days after Christmas) present. He built a room for himself in our garage and wants art on the walls hah. So I started on a painting for him before Christmas, I got the sky done then...  Then a few weeks ago I painted the ships and water, and today I finished it up finally! It's not much of a sunset like he wanted, but it was the best overall picture that I could find for a source.

Click on the picture to see it larger!
I had fun painting the cloud, especially the edge of the cloud as it whispily blends into the sky. I used my new manganese blue mixed with lemon yellow to create the turquoise in the lower right corner and also mixed in with the blue in the ocean.  Ahh so peaceful :)

Chinese Brush Painting

This is a project I created on my own, based off of Chinese Paint Brush painting. For the first week I taught the class a little about traditional Chinese painting, and then we did two small paintings on watercolor paper with the Chinese brushes. Sadly I didn't get pictures of these.... We did two of the four gentlemen, which are the plum blossom, the orchid, the chrysanthemum and the bamboo. They turned out pretty good, although it was a little difficult for the students to use the Chinese brushes and the watercolors at times. They're good kids, and put up with a lot. If I do this project with my other school I may just use regular paint brushes.
The second week we did a painting based off of a simple painting in the Chinese Brush Painting book I was using. It is of an orchid dipping into the water and two fish. This one we did on rice paper which was even more difficult because it soaks up water like craaaazy and the brushes hold water like craaazy. They all practiced first and did quite well :)  I would say this would be best for upper elementary and up, but my first and second graders are incredible so who knows... haha
Maybe using regular watercolor paper and regular round brushes would make these projects, even if they are less authentic. Chinese painting is so simple and beautiful.

This was the one that my fifth grade brother did. He and my sister (one year younger) are in one of my classes, and if I forget to get pictures of the whole class's projects I just use theirs. My sister's is below.

Oh! we also painted ornaments! Most of the students painted a bird that was in the book, it was so cute :)

Oil paints and mediums, what I have learned.

Here's my experience from going to get "real" oils a few weeks ago. Hope it is helpful.

I went to Blick's art supply a couple weeks ago because I needed to get myself some "real" oil paints now that I'm moving up and trying to be a real artist... hah   By "real" oil paints, I mean more expensive, higher quality, than say, Winton or some other student grade stuff from Hobby Lobby. I mean, as far as I new they worked just fine, but I figured there was a reason why professional artists didn't use the low grade stuff.
Basically, what I learned was that the more expensive paint has more pigment in it and has a better, creamier consistency. 
I have always used a small palette- basically ultramarine and prussian blues (also experiment with cobalt and cerulean), yellow ochre, burnt sienna, cad yellow, cad red, alizarin crimson, sometimes orange and raw umber and sap green, and of course titanium white.
But I had been reading Color and Light by James Gurney, AWESOME BOOK, and he was talking about other pigments you kind of should/could have, and I thought YA! cause certain pigments make colors that certain other pigments can't!
A small palette works fine, and is good especially when you're learning and starting off, but I am enjoying the new colors I can mix with some new pigments that I got.
What brand to choose?
So anyway, when I got to the big art store and saw like 10 brands of oils I realized I had no idea about paint. (Why didn't they teach us this stuff in college? guess they wanted us to go to grad school.) Some brands had certain pigments that I wanted, while other brands didn't. Some were a little more expensive, while some were handmade and wayyyy too expensive like you've got to be kidding me.
So I started asking the people who worked there, and they actually were painters and knew what was up with paint! Score! So basically, a lot of them are good... Winsor and Newton is good, but Gamblin is a little cheaper and probably just as good. Winsor and Newton was the only one that I could find Pyrrole Red in, and that is also the only "real" oil paint that Hobby Lobby carries as I later realized.
BUT  Grumbacher Pre-tested is great too, and decent price :) A lot of artist like that paint, and I later realized that I had some of this at home somehow in a Thalo red rose that I love.
White: Soft formula and Transparent
Grumbacher has big tubes of Titanium White SOFT FORMULA. If you don't have Titanium white soft formula go get some! It will make your life so much easier. Have you ever realized how hard that paint is?  Also I learned about mixing white, or translucent white, i.e. zinc or flake white, both of which are toxic! gasp! But there is a synthetic! The only brand we could find the transparent white (the fake non-toxic stuff) in was Rembrandt, and I have been using this stuff like crazy! It doesn't dull your colors and make them super cool, it's just amazing. So definitely get some of that too. 
My Favorite: M. Graham
And here is my favorite I think....  M. Graham. Made with Walnut oil, which is non-toxic unlike some of the other oils and stuff that they make paints with. Back in college I had learned of walnut oil from a friend in my class who had learned about it from her fiance who was getting his MFA. So, instead of using Liquin or linseed oil or whatever for my medium (which honestly I never used a medium until after college, another thing we weren't taught much about) I use walnut oil.
Walnut Oil instead of Mineral Spirits
And here's the coolest thing about this. You can clean your brushes in walnut oil and not have to use mineral spirits! I have an extremely tiny studio space, like 12x5 but even less floor space, and next to no ventilation especially in winter, so this is awesome for me. No more wooziness and cancer. Heck ya. The nice lady at Blick's taught me about this, and it is working awesome, and I love the M. Graham paints.  So basically I have a mix of all of these brands and I like the consistency/feel of them all so far. Each small tube was between $9 and $14. I didn't get any of the more expensive pigments. It is so worth the money though.
So go get some good paint! This good stuff is so much more creamy and awesome. And get some Walnut oil and seal up those mineral spirits.
These are the new paints that I purchased.
Dioxazine Purple
Quinacridone Violet
Manganese Blue (this one is just cool)
Pyrrole Red
Lemon Yellow
Pthalo Green?
Sap Green
Titanium White soft formula
Transparent white
I can't wait to replace all my paints with these nicer paints.

And so flowers it will be.

There are many things that I like to paint. There is not much that I do not like to paint. One of the top on my list is portraits....  But there is something that I love in every area of life. FLOWERS. Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that I'm a bit coocoo about flowers. Flowers...... and Sunsets. Hmmm But mostly flowers. The thrill of looking at a flower lasts a little longer than looking at a sunset, and you can take flowers with you... does that make them a little better? Plus, my man can give me a bouquet of flowers, and I just think he's the best :D  
So anyway, I think I was just born to love flowers, and maybe my Dad had some influence in my life in that way. Come to think of it, he has a book of every flower in the world, and they are all paintings, but so photo realistic you would never know it! The flowers in that book were the sources for my first paintings in high school, and I think that they were a big factor in my deciding that I wanted to paint, especially in a photo realistic way.

Therefore, in this time of my life as I am just done with my undergrad and studying painting now on my own... while also teaching and working at the frame shop... I have decided to focus on painting the florals. And so flowers it will be. My goal is to have quite a few ready for sale by the end of the summer, both originals and giclee prints. Start saving your money! 'Cause they're gonna be gorgeous :)

Why I love flowers:
1. They are PRETTY, and BEAUTIFUL, and GORGEOUS
2. They are colorful. I looove color!
3. They smell nice
4. They make me absolutely giddy
5. I love to paint them
6. They are inoffensive
7. They are just the prettiest things in the world...
http://player.vimeo.com/video/27920977?title=0&%3bbyline=0&%3bportrait=0href]
Awesome stop time photography of opening flowers

Mom's Childhood Portrait

I finally finished this portrait of my Mom for her Christmas present. She had brought me a little picture one day that was taken of her (at Lake Michigan I believe) when she was three. It's a super cute picture, little toddler smirk on her face, very nice lighting, great colors. The photo was actually in great condition, not faded or yellowed, so that made it easy to work from. I did also scan it into my computer and enlarged it to work from.

For this painting, I was focusing on mixing the correct colors and not going over and over an area on my canvas a billion times. I did pretty good on this I think, trying to break old, bad habits. I could have payed more attention to colors and warms/cools etc. when I painted the sand, but I got a bit bored with that part. I really enjoyed using bright, clean colors to depict the sunny day at the lake.

I painted my first set of bare feet! They turned out great I think, I was quite happy. (They look better in the real painting). The hand, on the other hand, was all blurred out, so I had a little trouble with that, but it will have to do for now.

I'm still working on my brother's Christmas/birthday present painting, but hopefully that will be up shortly!

Christmas painting

This 6x8 little painting is what I painted for my boyfriend's parents for their Christmas present. He told me that his mom loved orchids, especially purple ones, so that was my subject. I also framed it at the frame shop I work at, and that added a pretty finishing touch.

I had originally painted this with a dark, smooth, boring background. But fortunately I realized that it could be so much better (I've been studying painting and great painters a lot lately) so I re did it with more color and in a more painterly way. It dried a little darker than I wanted, and the picture is not that great, but I am learning. :)

The images look much better if you view them after clicking on them!

I think I am going to start painting lots of small flower paintings... so be looking for more soon!