Watercolors - Happy New Year's Eve

Another year under my belt. Literally! I don't own belts anymore. Painting isn't aerobic.Wouldn't it be great if every time I picked up a brush I burned off 100 calories! We'd have many more artists if that would be the case.

This is a nude watercolor I did a few years ago. I went to a class in Montpelier being given by Billy Brauer. More about him later. I was the only artist using watercolors. I'd notice other artists taking peeks at my work as the time passed. Seems they don't see many people using watercolor in life drawing classes.

Billy is an accomplished oil painter and his name known in many art circles.We've known one another since I took my first life drawing class from him back in the mid 70's. So it was fun being in one of his classes again. I wish Montpelier wasn't over 30 miles away, and I was comfortable driving that far in winter and at night, because I would love to go to classes all the time.

Notice all the different colors needed to create skin tones. There is a lot of painting wet into wet in order to soften edges creating roundness. The background is pure imagination on my part. Laying on a blanket looking out at water and sky?

Watercolor and Winter

It doesn't look like this up here yet. But it will. Skiers paradise. Big challenge for watercolor artists.

I painted this from a photo during the winter of 2001. I was border- line insane anyway, so why not? This painting was a lesson in patience. There is absolutely no way anyone should attempt to do this outdoors. I know people do set up and paint watercolors outside in the winter up here. But this winter scene uses the white of the paper for all the whites and I doubt anyone could stay outside long enough to pull this off before freezing to death.

There are a minimum of 4 layers of color applied over 2 layers of masking. I added my German Shepard Dog, Sadie, at the end in order to give the viewer something to measure the whole scene by. This painting is also large by my standards. It is 22 X 30 inches, known as a full sheet.

Of course, once I put my dog in the painting, I couldn't put a price on it and so the painting now belongs to my son.