Meanwhile Back at Water Color Painting Class...

Sculpture in Garden- water color on yupo paper

We ended up taking a couple of weeks off from water painting class due to death in my teacher's, Colleen's, family.  But last night class was resumed.  We started off by showing what we've been doing while class was out.  I had three paintings to show for missing two weeks.  She critiqued our work and gave up helpful suggestions on how to improve our painting.  I really like that about her teaching style.  She's positive about what we do but still gives helpful suggestions on how we can improve.

Tower Against the Sky- water color on yupo paper

Then we moved onto this week's lesson; Symmetry.  We went to the computer area and she showed us samples of water color paintings on Yupo (pronounce- U- Poo - with only 1 P-- I thought it had 2 P's and I was pronouncing it- YuP-Poo-- OOppps!)  We discussed and looked at good examples and some not so good examples of symmetry.  She talked and showed us how we can improve our paintings by getting our symmetry proper.

Biking Along Vine Street- water color on yupo

Next we were working on our own examples of symmetry.  I chose a photo with two different flowered vases to work on.  She had me softly draw one vase free hand.  Then, she had me stop and decide which half of the vase looked closest to the vase in the photo.  We measured top to bottom and side to side; to determine the center point.  I drew a line down the center.  Then, I erased one half and darkened the outline on the other side that was the "good side". 



Tracing paper was placed over the "good side" with the edge down along the center line.  Carefully taping the tracing paper along the center line but above and below the drawing area.  I, then, drew on top of the tracing paper above the "good side", and flipped the paper over and rubbed along the line I drew on the tracing paper.  It left a mark when I removed the tracing paper that I used then to draw a little darker.

 

Next I drew a second vase from free hand again.  I chose the "good side" and then erased the other side.  This time I measured up and down the vase from the center line to re-draw the "bad side" to look like the "good side".  Then, we got into the fun part.... PAINTING!  And thus, I ended up with this painting below...



Two Vases with Flowers- water color on yupo paper