Watercolor of Colored Glass

Glass Menagerie by Lorraine Watry ©2013

I started this painting as a demonstration for a class I was teaching this summer on painting glass in watercolor. I don't usually paint still-lifes but the reflections and detail in the glasses were exciting. I began by setting up and rearranging all the glass pieces that I collected for the class. Then I tried setting them up with different backgrounds both inside and outside to provide different lighting. I ended up choosing this scene because I liked the contrast that the wooden bird statues played against the blue bird and all the other glass. It also felt like there was a story.
     The next step was to block out all the highlights with masking fluid. It is better to save more whites in the beginning because you can always paint some of them out later. Then I started with the upper right corner and just started painting the shapes in the white glass bowl. Having strong contrasts and looking for all the little abstract shapes when painting glass is important.
     One of the changes I made from my photograph was to paint the little glass pieces around the blue bird red instead of the blue that they are in the photograph. I did this for two reasons. The first was that the red helped the blue bird stand out more and the second reason was to spread the red around the painting a little more.
     After finishing a painting, especially a busy one like this, it is important to look at it for a while to make sure there are no areas that need adjusting. I looked at my painting from across the room and in different light, I also looked at in reverse in a mirror and saw a few areas that I wanted to adjust. After making the adjustments, I removed the masking that had saved the white of the paper and painted in the areas that needed color. The rest of the masked areas were cleaned up by painting some of the surrounding color to make them look less cut out or I scrubbed some of their edges to soften them to look like highlights on the glasses, ex. as seen on the green goblet in the upper right hand corner.
     

Watercolor Study for Parrot Painting

A Little to The Left - Color Study ©LWatry

This is a color study for a larger painting. Color studies are great tools to help a watercolor artist have a "plan of action" before starting a painting. A color study can be any size and done to any level of completion. These studies can help the artist decide where to start, what colors to use, and what possible composition adjustments that may need to be made.

When I began working in watercolor, I used to do very complete color studies like this for most of my paintings. It was a way to get a lot of the planning for the painting figured out before going on to the actual painting.

Now, I usually only do a color study when I haven't worked with a subject before or some aspect of a painting. I did this color study to show the students of a class I was teaching. The size of this study is 6.5 x 4.75 inches. It became a nice little painting in itself and helped me decide my plan of attack for the larger painting.

This painting is for sale on Daily Paint Works.You can follow this link to bid on these brightly colored parrots: "A Little To The Left" by Lorraine Watry.

Miniature Watercolor Available at Daily Paint Works

"A Friend of Mine"

SOLD 
$
click here to Bid - Daily Paint Works Auction

2" x 2 1/2" Miniature Original Watercolor

This is a miniature watercolor of a Black-Capped Chickadee on some beautiful read and gold berries. This watercolor painting is 2 inches by 2 1/2 inches and comes framed with a velvet ribbon ready for hanging or an easel stand on the back for placing on a table. Please check out my auction at Daily Paint Works.

Birds in Watercolor

Bird Workshop Photo courtesy of J. Cruickshank©2012

I recently finished giving a workshop on painting birds in watercolor. One of my students did a compilation of photos from the students art and my painting. She graciously said I could place it on my blog. I think everyone had a good time and learned a lot. I am in the lower left demonstrating and part of my bird watercolor is on the right side with two black-capped chickadees showing.

In the workshop, we worked on ways to depict the birds feathers whether they were soft and fuzzy or the stiff flight feathers. I also demonstrated how to paint the birds eyes to give them life.

Most of the backgrounds were soft focus because of the close-up look at the birds.

My painting was of 3 black-capped chickadees that I placed together from different photographs. I used a soft focus background and glowing light behind the birds. See Below.  This painting will be framed and matted and for sale during my featured month at Arati Artists Gallery, Colorado Springs, during the month of November.

Black-Capped Chickadees LWatry©2012