CTC Watercolor Tutorial Unit 25

Unit 25

A very fun wet working watercolor, we are doing clouds on wet. If you can work quickly you can get the cloud effects the first time. If your like us in a very dry environment I'll show you how we achieved similar results after the fact. 

Day 1

All your supplies, Please note today we are working vertically. 

Prep your paper by tracing the quarter on some masking tape. 

 Carefully cut out your circle. Like those scissors? I have had them since first or second grade :-)
They are OLD! 

 Put the tape down in the upper right hand corner. 

If you want your painting to dry flat tape down the edges. 

 About 2 large pea sizes of Dark blue and a large pea size of grey,
or a smidgen of black and some white to make the grey. 

If you need to, this is a good time to mix up the grey. 

 Wet down your paper... and Now I know why Little Miss Sunshine was giggling like crazy Sweet Potato was making funny faces the whole time. 

Lightly dry off the pools of water but leave it wet wet.
Since we are blogging ours dried out to much but have no fear!
I'll show you what should have happened. 

 Make some grey clouds in the sky... and even if you start out with puffy kid clouds...

 You can add bits and bobs till they look like "real" clouds.

Keep making clouds Don't put a cloud over the top of your moon, you will see why later.

 I was thinking about those anvil clouds we get right before a thunder storm.

 Don't forget to break the boundaries, Like my cloud in the upper right it give your painting a more realistic look.

 OK my water is really dirty if your not using 2 water sources change out this water.

 Ahh nice and clean!

 Ok my paper dried on me again! working really quickly I added water to the white dry parts of my painting.

 Opps caught some cloud.

 But look at the edges! The paint is drifting in the water and making a very realistic cloud.

Work fast :-) paint in the blue background it too will drift and float it will look so cool!

 Paint!

 keep going

 Like the energizer bunny!

 Ok here is Sweet Potatoes cloud painting I wonder if she thinks it's Cloud City?

Here is Little Miss Sunshine's painting at end of day one. 

Here is mine. Put in a safe place to dry 

Set up time 5-10 minutes, painting time less than 10 minutes. 

Day 3 

 Mix up your light grey paint save some white for your stars in another well.

Make the clouds near the moon lighter. Remember the light of the moon is lighting them up! 

 Really think about how the moons light would reflect as your paint this.

 Now use your tooth pick to make dots of white to be stars.

 Don't put to many around the moon as the moons light tends to wash out all the but brightest stars. See I put a really bright star next to it... can we say oops turned into a star.

 When you are done you can peel back the masking tape and reveal your bright white moon!

If you had painted over your moon the clouds would be blocking the light and the moon itself and it would look really funny right about now. 

Little Miss Sunshine painting away.

 Adding dots.

Sweet Potato making those close clouds light grey. 

See how small the dots are, but man they do look like stars when it is all said and done. 

My finished work of art. 

Sweet Potatoes. Little Miss Sunshine didn't take a finished photo... himm and she is the photographer!

Set up time 5-10 minutes Painting time less than 10 minutes. 

CTC Watercolor Tutorial Unit 24

Today we get to illustrate Robert Frosts most famous of poems. 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Day 2

 Here are the supplies that are listed in your guide. 

 Tape down your paper. 

 Here are your colors for today You only need the tiniest bit of black. 

Ariel's BFF we'll call her Gigi, knew the poem and asked a very good question, "It takes place at night so why is the sky light blue?"  Looking back I think it would be fine to use your darker blue or light blue paint as a base. As long as it is really watery.  I think the painting would work either way. 

 As always I put a arrow telling me when to quit with the first color. 

 Wet the paper.

Blot the paper. 

 Add water

 Water down your blue paint well. 

 Make even strokes on the top third of your painting. 

 Start mixing the grey by adding in very tiny amounts of black you want it to be snow,

 not dirty slush on the road. 

 Paint gray all the way down. 

 All done lets see how the girls are doing. 

 Remember paint the blue evenly. 

 Sweet Potato is hilarious "Mom look its a white Tauntaun in a white out on Hoth."  

Mom can you pull up the blinds! 

 Almost done! Set aside in a safe place to dry!
Total painting time: about 10 minutes. 

Day 3

 Supplies 

Lightly draw a road/path.  

 Use the thin side of your flat brush to make thin tracks at the far side of your road. 

 Slowly thicken the ruts as you come to the close side of your path. 

 Ok on to the next step. 

 ok photo shop did somethign gfunky with my shadows. really the pallet is not upside down! 

 Mix a bit of yellow in with your blue to make a olive green. 

 Wad up a paper towel blot clumps of trees in the distance. 

 blot... blot... blot...

 In the foreground paint large trees.  

 In the back ground paint tiny small trees. 

 Oopsie a Mistake!  I blotted up most of the paint with a paper towel. 

 Not so bad now. 

 Use dark brown to add details to the trees in the foreground. 

I wanted my woods to be very woodsy So I took my time and painted many trees. 

 Sweet Potato was so excited about her BFF being here she really didn't pay attention and we have a very calligraphic modern art style... It's growing on me. 

 Little Miss Sunshine made a big boo boo in the crotch of this tree. 

 We used water to paint off the brown below the limb. Adding a dark shadow took care of the mess. 

I really like Gigi's treatment. Those are obviously great big oak trees. 

Fabulous! 

Total amount of painting time; for Sweet Potato around 10 minutes, for the rest of us about 30.