Painting with Kateri

The first art “lesson” I purchased was through The Great Courses program. Taught by Kateri Ewing, her course gave me a good foundation on color, value, and techniques for learning to paint with what many believe to be one of the toughest art mediums—watercolor.

A fun thing she does in the class is show several ways to add “texture” to watercolor paintings. In this case she had us swab several colors on paper then sprinkle table salt and water on the collective colors.

Once the painting was dry, our task was to try and “see” a picture in the resulting mass.

The trick was to try and clear your mind then look at the painting; right side up…which would that be? Upside down, sideways…you get the idea. In the painting to the left the face of a hippopotamus jumped right out at me. On the one at the beginning of my post I recognized the face of a fish and then became the whole fish.

The next step was to ever-so-carefully outline our figures just enough so they “popped” out of the painting.

This exercise served a number of purposes.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. It was fun!
            2. We saw how colors interacted together on the paper
            3. We see how the paints reacted to water “misted”, sprayed, or dropped onto the paint and paper
            4. We saw how the paints reacted to salt
            5. We had to use our imaginations and get out of thinking inside the lines

When my oldest granddaughter saw the fish she fell in love with it. Naturally she is now its proud owner. Don’t tell granddaughter number two that the hippo will be hers at her next birthday.

If you’re interested in learning watercolor painting I’d certainly recommend Kateri’s course, Painting with Watercolors, at The Great Courses and she also has other courses at MyBlueprint.com.

Now go out there and make some art!