IsabeauxStudio

Prior to the workshop,  I started to practice the little I did know about watercolors.  I started with the collage technique to get me started, and started to work in India Ink.  I wanted to practice getting different shades of black and grey.   I limited myself to one color so I could concentrate on my technique (or lack there of.)

Here is my collage for this piece "Me & the City, 2006."  Again I like the combining both vertical and horizontal elements in the piece.

Here is the unfinished piece as it currently stands.  It became much flatter and less three dimensional than the collage above.  It is a good start.  Things that I would like to fix at this current moment:

1. Would like to clean up the wobbly lines

2. Would like to take away the hard thin line at the left side of the face, and have it be softer.

What I do like about it, is the blending of building/body at the lower right hand side.  Eventually I will come back to this and finish it.

Matt always accuses me of starting something and not finishing it.  "Jack of all trades and master of none."  There is an element of truth to that.  Problem is that I get bored easily, and often when a piece gets "tedious" it is time to move on to something else and come back to it with fresh eyes.  This is why the piece above is still unfinished.  Also at this time the materials list had just come out for my upcoming workshop.  I spent some nice coin on all my new brushes (GOOD BRUSHES MAKE A DIFFERENCE!) some new watercolor paint and 140gsm cold press Arches watercolor paper.  Don't buy the watercolor blocks unless you are out "plein air" painting.

With all these new materials, it was like Christmas.  So once I got them home  I immediately put down the painting above, and began to mess with my new paints

Here is the image I was working from.

Here is my attempt at trying to copy the image.  As a whole it is very muddy and not very successful.  The challenge is to give "essence" of the background foliage without having to draw in each individual leaf.  I didn't get that far.  Once I saw that I had made a "left turn at Albuquerque"  and that the piece had gone in the wrong direction I stopped working on it.

Take a look at the difference in my work "post workshop."  There is a big difference.