Workshops!

My watercolorist friend in the UK, Laura Moore, mentioned on Facebook that she's taking her first workshop this week.  That brought back thoughts of the first watercolor workshop I took which was one year ago.  Laura said in her post that she's nervous.  I was very nervous too, knew I'd be the worst in the class, etc.  But it turned out to be so much fun, I learned a lot, and I made some friends at the workshop that I still see at local watercolor events.

Andy Evansen from Minnesota taught the workshop.  I was so lucky to find out about it and get one of the last spots.  I knew of Andy's beautiful watercolors from his postings on Facebook so when I heard about the class in my area I signed up.

I'll share one of the paintings I did in the class.  It's from a photo of mine shot at Lotusland in Montecito, CA.  A year later, I would paint this differently I think.  Andy taught us to paint a value study (using Payne's Gray) as a first step before starting a painting, and he did the same before each of his demos.  Must say, a value painting or sketch really helps with planning the values, and I don't consistently do that.  I'll share a couple photos of Andy, one with his really nice value study.  Since the workshop was in Long Beach, one day after class we walked to a nearby marina so we could watch Andy paint a plein air piece.  Even though the sun was going down quickly he took the time to paint a value study.  I hope I can take another class from Andy sometime.