Category Archives: Art Tips

Watercolor process demo

Check out my painting demonstration on YouTube! I recorded myself working at home, and media consultant Devin Walker (my son) gave me technical advice and edited the video into its final form. As I’m painting I describe the process of … Continue reading

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West Des Moines workshop

My watercolor workshop at Artisan Gallery 218 focused on the figures that bring a painting to life. We painted flowers as a warmup, plenty of little chickens to practice with colors, and animated figures the rest of the time. The … Continue reading

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Spring showers

Quality watercolor paper is made from cotton, and cotton shrinks. If it does that while you’re working on a painting, the paper will ripple and the paint will go into puddles and change the image. To keep that from happening, … Continue reading

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A road map for painting

People bring in a photo to class of what they want to paint, and it can be scary to look at and try to figure out where to begin. Often a photo is way too busy. Select what’s important — … Continue reading

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Las Golondrinas

During my stay in Santa Fe for Charles Reid’s workshop we visited and painted at El Rancho de las Golondrinas (“The Ranch of the Swallows”), a historic ranch dating from the early 1700s. It’s now a living history museum “dedicated … Continue reading

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Paper dolls

For a lesson at The Center, I showed the class how I cut out paper figures and put them on a painting to see where I want to place people and begin the story. The painting below left will show … Continue reading

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Finding community; finding the story

Last week I was in Cedar Falls for a watercolor workshop at the Hearst Center for the Arts. I arrived the night before to attend a get-together held by local watercolorists (many of whom also attended the workshop). It was … Continue reading

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Watercolor Tape Technique-Tape Resist

Stetch out your picture. Place tape (masking tape works well) on the areas that you wish to remain white. We did that on the roofs of the barn. We have overlapped many of the shapes (about 3 out of 4 … Continue reading

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Another Watercolor Lesson

jo’s class is running it all together as one interesting, flowing shape

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