Water Color Painting Class-- Saturation!

This week in class there seemed to be a theme—Saturation! First, Colleen discussed about how saturation of a color is relative to the vibrancy or brilliance of that color. Those colors that are lighter; like the yellows/oranges, naturally appear larger and carry more visual weight to that area of a painting. Also, those colors that are higher in intensity, i.e. pure pigments, tend to draw the eye to that area in a painting too. Colleen went on to show us several examples from Monet, Matisse, and other well known artists where they used the concept of color saturation in their composition.


Next we worked on Wet-on-Wet style of water color painting. In this we continued the concept of saturation as we literally were soaking cold press paper until it could no longer take any more water. This is the same method that we used in the prior class when we did the strawberry painting. Here again, we started by lightly drawing with pencil the outline of the painting. Colleen had us focus on the shading area of the painting. Concentrating on the darker and lighter areas of the painting would allow us also to think about the use of color saturation; as well as the values of color. I chose to do a painting based on a photo I taken up at a Sunday Silly Market in Park City. I call this painting—“Is This Hat Me or What?"

Is This Hat Me or What? - Wet-on-wet style on cold press paper



 And here are a few more of the puddle paintings that I worked on this last week...

Girls Checking Out Art - water color on yupo paper

Not too bad, huh? I might be improving just a wee bit?

Spur Exhange - water color on yupo paper

Sisters on a Sunny Sunday Afternoon - Water color on yupo paper