Our specimens, laying out and ready to be chosen: Maple leaves and Black-Eyed Susans.
The tools of work in progress: specimens to choose from and observe, sketch or watercolour paper, pencils for labelling the painting, masking tape to hold the sketch paper to a hard surface when not working at a table, #2 watercolour paintbrush. The only thing not shown here are the watercolour paints.
A leaf outlined in yellow , ready to have colour added. Yellow is used for this first step as it is easy to cover over with green. This way you have an opportunity to perfect the details of size and shape before going to a less forgiving colour.
A Black-Eyed Susan in process. See how the stem was done in pale yellow first, then the light colours were painted. Green will come soon.
A red Maple leaf. Mixing the right shade is one of the trickiest parts, and intense colours can be achieved by layering the colours. 
The colour testing paper can be a beautiful thing in and of itself. There is no end to the variations of colour that can be achieved, and it's nice to have a scrap to test the colour on before it's applied to the painting.
This Black-Eyed Susan is almost complete. Light colours are finished, the small leaf and straight, narrow stem are done, too. Details of shading and colour variation have been added. Now for the black centre.
An autumnal leaf - just changing from green to golden-orange. This one has had details of shading added as well as dark edges for definition.
A completed Black-Eyed Susan. Lovely in its simplicity.
This leaf, heavy in reds, has striking green highlighting the main vein. Notice the lighter spot on the top of the leaf? See how the painter of this specimen tried to capture that in the painting? ::
Thank you to everyone who allowed their photos to be taken for this post. What a wonderful evening we shared together. We'd all enjoy seeing samples of how you've tried dry-brush with your family, so, if you have photos, please email them to Jennifer.
Beautiful pictures! Now, if I just had a little talent in the art arena. Thanks for sharing the process and some tips to make it better.
ReplyDelete~Erin
Thanks, Erin, for the comment.
ReplyDeleteYou might be surprised to know how many of those who tried the dry brush technique (myself included) are not 'art talented', and yet the paintings seem to come out beautifully, even when rather unsophisticated. I really think that the true beauty of this exercise it the transformation in the one doing it - the close observation required which makes us really look at the specimen, the attention to detail required which draws out our awe of the Creator.
Have you tried doing dry brush? If you haven't yet, please do. It's really straightforward and it becomes addictive - you might find yourself looking at everything in terms of 'can I paint that?"
Jennifer
After speaking with Amy at the meeting in December, I realized that it might not be clear that this post is from the actual dry-brush practical session we had in September. All the photos are from the meeting, most of them by women who have never tried this before.
ReplyDelete