Watercolor Projects on Yupo and Watercolor Canvas

Do you have too many projects lying around? It becomes difficult to focus with a lot of unfinished projects. I just finished teaching a class series focusing on aspen trees and now I have 4 demo paintings in various stages of completion that I need to finish up. I also taught a snow scene class earlier in the year with the idea that one of these paintings would become my Christmas card painting for this year. However, I never completed the painting. So, now that it is almost time to send Christmas cards, I am feeling the pressure to get this painting finished and printed. So, while I am in the process of cleaning up my studio and completing projects, I thought I could use these paintings as a blog demo. The following is a description of where I am in the process of painting.

 This is my snow scene for my Christmas card. This painting is on Yupo (a plastic that is used for printing in some magazines). Working with Yupo for snow scenes is great because the paint sits on the surface and remains very vibrant and the whites are brilliant. I have a lot of this painting completed. I started by painting in the sky with a mix of cobalt blue and manganese and then I mixed a purple gray for the back ground trees. I wanted these trees to feel like they were in the distance and  thick with branches. I then painted the green pine needles, the trunks of the foreground trees, and the shadows on the snow. I used masking on the snow that is hanging on the branches. It is very easy to lift with Yupo, so I could have forgone the masking, but this will give me cleaner edges. I like making my Christmas card scenes quiet and peaceful. Sometimes I will add an ornament to a tree to spruce the scene up a little and give the idea that someone has been there, without actually showing a figure. This scene lent itself to a trail of ornaments that invite the viewer down the path in the snow.  My next step will be to soften some of the edges of the snow on the pines and put some shadows on them. Then I will finish up the trunks of the foreground aspen trees and I think it will be finished. I will post the finished painting, hopefully soon.

 This is one of the aspen paintings that I need to finish. This painting is on watercolor canvas. I stretched a piece of watercolor canvas around 12x20 inch stretcher bars to get the proportion I wanted of a long narrow painting. I then did my sketch directly onto the canvas and masked the foreground leaves to protect them while painting in the background and shadows on the tree trunks. I decided to use very strong sunlight in this scene and the white of the canvas is the white of the trees on the right side. The background sky and leaf foliage was painted in first. I painted the leaves in while the sky was still wet so that they would have a soft edge. Next I started putting in the shadows on the left of the trees and the branches. For the purposes of my in class demonstration, I skipped some steps and took some off the masking of the foreground leaves to demo how I would paint them (the shiny spot on this photo is some of the masking that still needs to be removed).

 In this close up, you can see the foreground leaves and a variation of color in some of them, to give more visual interest. I have also started to paint some of the darker markings that are found on aspen trees around the branches and on the trunk.

I will post more steps as I work to complete these two paintings and hopefully get some clutter out of my studio and off my mind!

National Watercolor Society 91st Traveling Exhibit

Lorraine Watry, new NWS Signature member © 2011

Here is the schedule for the NWS 91st Traveling Exhibition 2012
There are some amazing watercolors in this show and well worth a little travel time if these locations are not local.


Feb 5-Mar 18 Fallbrook Art Center, Fallbrook CA

Apr 1-May 3 Kerr Arts and Cultural Center, Kerrville, TX

May 17-Jun 17 Grapevine Art Project Gallery, Grapevine, TX

Jul 2-Aug 4 Community Fine Arts Center, Rock Springs, Wy

Aug 17-Sep 28 Bloomington Art Center, Bloomington. MN

Oct 12-Dec 7 Zanesville Museum of Art, Zanesville, OH

Tips on Entering Juried Watercolor Shows

"Could be a future band painting" ©2011

I know it is now October, and I am really behind in posting to my blog. I am still trying to catch up from a very busy summer and start of marching band season for my son. I am the new bookkeeper for the band and now to the end of October a lot of my time will be given over to this duty. As a proud band parent I have to brag that they took 2nd place in a competition last night, moving up from 4th in preliminaries!
    Back to art, though. I was looking around at other blogs and saw this link about entering juried art shows. I think Deb Ward does a good job of describing the process of the entry from the show organizers stand point. http://debwardart.blogspot.com/2011/09/entering-art-shows.html
Something I would add to this is, when choosing your pieces to enter, try to see them from a jurors perspective. For most juried shows there are a lot of entries and the juror only has a few minutes to look at each entry. Make sure your values are strong and you have a good composition. Also, when photographing your artwork, only take a photo of the art, never send an image with frames, matts, or any kind of background in the image. You don't want anything distracting from your star - your painting!

New Signature Member National Watercolor Society

Stained Glass Waterlilies ©2011

I received word last week, while at the grocery store, that I am now a Signature Member of the National Watercolor Society. I was so excited!! I would have jumped around and cheered, but I think the other shoppers would have thought I was loony! I have aimed for this honor for many years now and it is still a little hard to believe! My painting also received the Holbein Award and will go on the traveling show for 1 year. If my memory serves, when my painting went on the traveling show in 2008, I think it stopped in about 5 different cities during the year. When I know the cities locations for this year, I will publish them.

If you don't know the process of getting into the National Watercolor Society show and receiving Signature membership, here it is:  The National Watercolor Society along with the American Watercolor Society and the Transparent Watercolor Society of America are some of the top US watercolor shows. As it says on their website, the National Watercolor Society began life in the 1920's as the California Watercolor Society. To enter this national juried show, you send 1 image. This one image is then juried along with about 1,000 other images by three nationally known watercolor artists. These three artists cannot talk during the jurying process. They look through all of the 1,000 images the first time without voting, then they begin the first round of voting. Each of the three artists says yes or no anonymously to each image and generally it takes quite a few rounds of this before they have selected the 100 images out of the 1,000 that will be included in the show. This year was different, though, in their long history, this was the first year that all 100 paintings received 3 votes in the first round of voting! So, it should be a very strong show!

Most watercolor societies have a tiered structure to their membership. In most, anyone can be an Associate member, at any level of their watercolor abilities or someone with just an interest in art or the watercolor medium. The next level is Signature Member. A signature member has to complete the societies rules for attaining Signature membership and these requirements vary from society to society. Once an artist has a painting selected for the National Watercolor Societies Annual Exhibition they can apply for Signature membership. To apply the artist must send 3 matted paintings, separate from the piece juried into the show. Then 3 jurors, separate from the 3 previous jurors and also nationally recognized watercolor artists, look at the 3 matted paintings that the artists sends. They are looking for a consistent high quality of watercolor and ability to repeat this high quality. All three jurors must agree in awarding the artist Signature Membership. If you see a watercolor where the artists signature includes the initials, NWS, you know the process they had to take and the honor it is to achieve this level.

Watercolor Classes

Quaking Aspen ©

My new watercolor class listings are available for September through October. I will be teaching a beginning/intermediate class and an intermediate/advanced class.  We will focus on Aspen trees in both classes. For more information click here.

National Watercolor Society 91st Exhibit

GREAT NEWS! I found out this week that my painting, Stained Glass Waterlilies, was juried into the National Watercolor Societies 91st Annual Exhibition. It was one of 100 paintings selected out of 1,000.
    The show will run from October 22 to December 3, 2011 at the NWS Gallery - 915 South Pacific Ave., San Pedro, CA.

Watercolor Workshop with John Salminen

     I just had the best three days taking a workshop with watercolor artist, John Salminen! You can see John and myself in the photo along with my workshop painting of a New York scene in Time Square.
     My painting isn't finished yet, but I took on a very challenging scene for a three day workshop! I think the next workshop I take, I will pick a less intense piece.
     I would highly recommend taking a workshop with John Salminen. John worked with everyone, no matter what level you are at in your watercolor ventures. We learned some great tools to enhance our paintings and there were a lot of demos by John and one-on-one time for help. John's wife, Kathy, was an added benefit to the workshop. She was there all three days to assist John and help and encourage the participants. She also worked with us on using a mouth atomizer, one of John's tools to adjust the values in his paintings. I have had an atomizer for many years, but couldn't make it work and after learning from Kathy the proper way to use one, I had no problems with it! I plan on experimenting and using this valuable tool in the future. If you would like to see more of John's artwork or workshop listings, see his website: http://www.johnsalminen.com/