Teaching

Here's some pictures of me teaching that one of my students took yesterday. I teach watercolors on Thursday and Saturday mornings from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm at Artistic Creations Art Gallery and Classroom. They just moved to a new location in Pembroke Mall in the hall going to the food court. They are having their Grand Re-Opening on Friday 6/17th from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. If your in the neighborhood stop on by and see the new space and all the wonderful art. I have a wall with my paintings there too and I demonstrate painting on Fridays from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

I have been spending a good deal of time planning my summer classes and workshops. The first workshop that I am teaching is next Saturday June 18th from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm at the Artistic Creations Classroom. I'm teaching painting a Magnolia in watercolor. I will demonstrate it step by step and take my students from the beginning to the end of the painting process. I will also introduce some of my "ways" of painting and explain why I do things the way I do them. I have painted so many Magnolias in the last couple weeks that I feel like I could paint them in my sleep. (I'm sure that I'm exaggerating just a little bit.) On Wednesday I will post some pictures of the Magnolia as well as some of the steps to painting it. If you are interested in taking the workshop there are still some spots open. Just contact me at katsart01@yahoo.com or 757 650-5765.

I want to give special thanks to Cherrie for bringing in the camera so that you could see me in action and to Laurie and Joyce for allowing their photos to be taken.

Magnolia

This is another recent painting of mine. It is currently hanging at the Gallery at East Beach, Norfolk, VA.

In it I used gouache in the center of the flower. (The off white and yellow is gouache and the pink is watercolors.) Gouache is an opaque watercolor. Watercolors are more transparent. The gouache allows you to "cover up" more easily.

Traditionally when painting in watercolors you do not use gouache. Especially to paint the whites. You leave the paper to show the whites. I do not use gouache in my watercolor painting as I love the transparency of the watercolors. But sometimes I use it to capture a more opaque area like the center of this flower. I also use it to add a little white as in my Central Park and Ocean Wave paintings. This is why I think of it as mixed media.

Some people use gouache with their watercolors. They mix it with the colors and paint beautiful opaque paintings. Gouache can be mixed with watercolor colors and or the different colors of gouache can be mixed together. Some people paint with gouache alone.

There are three nature books by Maryjo Koch that you should check out. They are Seed Leaf Flower Fruit, Bird Egg Feather Nest and Pond, Lake River Sea. Her paintings are beautiful and she uses gouache.