New Workshops and Classes

Workshops and classes in my Kennett Square studio have been so popular that I added several more to the schedule for 2012. Reservations are required, and many of these classes and workshops are already close to being sold-out, so act quickly if you want to attend any of these events!

The Kennett Square studio is located in southeast Pennsylvania, an easy commute distance from the tri-state area of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The area is known for it's attraction to plein air painters from around the world, and it is only a few miles from the famous studios of the Wyeth family of painters. Rolling pastures, verdant forests, and bubbling creeks suround the studio. The studio is centrally located to national historical sites, world famous gardens, and museums, all of which are just minutes away by car. The spacious studio provides ample room for artists to work in comfort, and on plein air days there are plenty of attractions to paint within steps of the door.

So come on over and paint! There is ample parking, and lunch is provided each day.

Click on the Calendar link at the top of this page to see the full schedule and availability of classes. To reserve your space or request more information, click on the Contact link at the top of the page to send me an email.

New Online Classes Start Soon!

Starting February 14th, I will be teaching Watercolor for the Absolute Beginner at Artist's Network University. This is a 4-week painting course that is taught entirely online, so students anywhere in the world can now sign up to study with me!

Learn how to capture the beauty and radiance of watercolor—even if you’ve never painted before! Professional watercolorist Annie Strack will take you through the essential techniques and concepts of watercolor painting. You’ll learn how to use your watercolor materials to create washes, work wet-into-wet, suggest value changes, establish color and light, execute stunning compositions and much more.
Course includes downloads of course textbook and video!
COURSE BEGINS: February 14, 2012
COURSE LENGTH: 4 weeks
COURSE MATERIALS (included with tuition):

• Watercolor for the Absolute Beginner, by Mark and Mary Willenbrink (PDF eBook)
• Watercolor for the Absolute Beginner with Mark Willenbrink (video download)

TUITION: $149.99* ($135.00 for VIP)
INSTRUCTOR: Annie Strack (Bio)
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• Using essential watercolor materials with confidence
• Executing basic watercolor techniques including a variety of washes, working wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry, and positive and negative painting
• Suggesting depth and light with color and value
• Completing a watercolor painting from beginning sketch to finished piece

WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE:

• Students who have completed Drawing for the Absolute Beginner, Level 1 or Drawing for Beginners, Level 2
• Aspiring artists new to watercolor painting
• Experienced artists who want to learn proven techniques
• Watercolorists who want to freshen up their skills

SUGGESTED ART MATERIALS:
Pigments
Alizarin Crimson
Burnt Sienna or Sepia
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow
Cerulean Blue
Prussian Blue
Yellow Ochre
Surface140–lb (300gsm) cold-press watercolor
140-lb (300 gsm) hot-press watercolor paper
Brushes
3-inch (76mm) hake
No. 2 round
No. 6 round
No. 10 round
Tools
2B pencil
Facial tissue
Kneaded eraser
Masking tape
Mounting board (Masonite, plywood or watercolor board)
Palette or plastic plates
Table salt
Water container(s)
COURSE SYLLABUS
Lesson 1: Essential Watercolor Techniques

• Basic watercolor materials
• Mixing paint and handling brushes
• Working wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry and drywashes

Homework:
Complete the following exercises to practice key watercolor techniques. You may use the pigments recommended in your textbook or you may select your own pigments:

• Applying a Flat Wash, page 49.
• Applying a Gradated Wash, page 50
• Applying a Variegated Wash, page 51
• Adding Salt, page 57
• Lifting Paint, page 58

Session 2: Drawing, Value and Color Basics

• Structural drawing techniques
• Understanding value and color
• Using color intensity to suggest atmospheric perspective
• Composition basics

Homework:
Complete the following exercises to improve your understanding of how color and value work.

• Making a Value Scale, page 27
• Once you’ve made a value scale, practice creating value changes and suggesting shadow and light by painting the shapes on the bottom of page 26.
• Create your own color while, following the exercise, Making a Color Wheel, on page 33.
• Practice suggesting atmospheric perspective by re-creating the three groupings of trees you see on page 29.

Session 3: Positive and Negative Painting

• Suggesting texture
• Understanding positive and negative space
• Color temperature

Homework:
Practice working with positive and negative shapes by completing the following demonstrations:

• Positive Painting, pages 80–83
• Negative Painting, pages 84–89

Session 4: Basic Painting Approach

• Composition planning
• Mixing and layering paint
• Light effects

Homework:
Complete the Structural Drawing demonstration, pages 68–71, then use that sketch as a basis for completing the Painting with Three Colors demonstration on pages 76–79.

Cool New Paints!

I'm finishing up a few more watercolors in the studio, and when those are done I'm going to start playing with these new acrylic paints from Chroma. These Atelier Interactive Professional Artists Acrylics from Chroma have unique properties that allow artists to retard the drying process, and even re-work the paint after it has dried. It's totally different from the way we use traditional acrylics, so it might take a while to get used to it! Hmm. I'm not sure what I want to paint with these. I might do some tropical scenes, maybe some palm trees. Or maybe some still-lifes. Or maybe some landscapes. I'll let you know soon!

Warm and Cozy Holidays

Now that the holidays are starting to wind down, I have a little more time to tend to my work again. One of the new tools I'm looking forward to trying out is this really cool looking brush from Liquitex. This is from their Free-Style product line, and one of the neatest features is the unique shape of the handle, which makes the brush fit into the palm of a hand with unsupassed comfort. This particular brush is too stiff for watercolors, but it's perfect for acrylics or oils and the 2" size is just right for larger canvases. The folks over at Liquitex must have been reading my mind when they sent me this -- I've been looking for some new 2" brushes, and then suddenly the perfect brush arrives in the mail!

The 2" Liquitex Free-Style Brush is perfect for acrylics or oils!

Another surprise in the mail this month was this lovely portrait of me created by artist Scott Hamilton, aka @ArtBoy68. Scott's current art project consists of 100 portraits in 20 weeks, and he's archiving his progress on his blog. He bases the portraits in this series on the avatars of his twitter friends and on popular icons of social media. I'm flattered to be part of his project, and thrilled that he mailed the original portrait to me, which I've framed and hung in my office!

Portrait of @AnnieStrack, by @ArtBoy68

The photo that I use for my social media avatars is from this image of my husband and me, photograghed by Kathleen DesHotel. My friend Kathleen is an arts reporter for the Times-Picayune, and snapped this photo a few years back at charity function in Slidell. At the time, I was working on a charity art project that involved bird bouses. Funny how art projects connect us all to one another!

Photo of Annie and Brian Strack, by Kathleen DesHotel

Holiday Sale!

I'm having a small holiday sale! These nine paintings are all original watercolors, and each one is 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches. Each painting is $79, and right now I'm offering free shipping anywhere in the US. This event is limited to just these nine paintings on this page -- so you better hurry up and and buy the ones you want now, before someone else beats you to it!

1. Agat Beach, Guam, 2011(c) Annie Strack

1. Agat Beach $79

2. Agana Beach, Guam, 2011(c) Annie Strack

2. Agana Beach $79

3. Christiansted, St Croix, USVI, 2011(c) Annie Strack

3.Christiansted, St Croix $79

4. Dinghies, St Croix, 2011(c) Annie Strack

4. Dinghies $79

6. Cinnamon Bay, St John, USVI, 2011(c) Annie Strack

6. Cinnamon Bay $79

7. Shoshone River, 2011(c) Annie Strack

7. Shoshone River $79

8. Tchefuncte River, Louisiana

8. Tchefuncte River $79

9. Trunk Beach, St John, USVI, 2011(c) Annie Strack

9. Trunk Beach $79

All painting are original watercolors on 5.5" x 8.5" rag paper, and do NOT include any frames or mats. Paintings are packaged in padded enveloped and mailed via USPS.

Purchases are only available through PayPal. Free shipping is only available in the US, addtional shipping costs will be added and billed to all orders shipped outside of the US.

Oh my! Did I just stumble across the perfect watercolor palette?

I found this wonderful new watercolor palette while out shopping this morning. The thing that I love the most about this palette is the size of the wells -- as you can see, these wells are large enough to easily accomadate a 2 inch brush.

 The palette also came with a snap-lock lid to keep paint fresh, and as you can see by the label, it's actually an egg server! If you look closely at the label, you'll also see the price... $1.80.   Yep, that's right. I bought it at Big Lots for a dollar and eighty cents.  A great watercolor palette with 24 extra deep, extra wide wells, and in a great color-wheel shape, with a lid, for under two bucks. I'm going back again this afternoon to get a few more before they all sell out! If you go to Big Lots looking for them, look in the Food Storage Container isle, and don't expect them to be properly labeled as watercolor palettes -- they all seem to be mis-labeled in the store as egg servers!



 Below is the traditional watercolor palette that I'm currently using, and as you can see it has plenty of wells but they are only really large enough to use with a one-inch brush. I mostly paint with a one-inch flat brush, and that's because larger brushes just don't fit in the wells of traditional palettes. I prefer big brushes for a couple of reasons:
1. they hold more paint and water, so I can make larger more consistant brushstokes.
2. big brushes make me look thinner, by comparison.
Well, maybe not a whole lot thinner. But they do make it easier to to paint larger paintings and keep the work fresh and vibrant.

 Here's some other palettes that I have laying around the studio. These are foam food trays, and are great to have around as spares when I need extra palettes for various projects. I keep a stack of them handy in case a student forgets to bring a palatte to class, or for when I'm working on something that requires different paints that aren't in my standard everyday palette. Like butcher trays, these have the major drawback of not having wells to keep the paints seperated.

I've been thinking about placing an order for a couple of new brushes lately (my #16 round is finally worn out, after about 25 years of hard use!), and I really wanted to get some new nice large flats -- like two-inch and up -- but I haven't been able to find a good palette that works well with the larger sizes. This might be answer!

How to Paint a Boat

Here's another quick demonstration of my painting process, from start to finish.

This photo shows my drawing of a fresh fiberglass tender tied to the side of a large old wooden yacht. I've covered a few areas with masking fluid to contain my washes, and after it dried I painted the first wash of color in the water area where there will be reflections of the boats later.

Working from light to dark, I paint the water in layers, with each layer of paint a darker color or value than the last. I started with some light mixtures of violet and cobalt with a bit of ochre to get the nice grey color in the lightest areas of the water, and then layered cobalt, ult. blue, and indigo to get the progressive dark areas in the reflections.

Using that same grey that I mixed up earlier, I painted the tender a light grey color and then deepened the values in the shadow areas of the boat to give it depth and dimension.

As I worked, I deepened some of the lighter reflections in the water to match the colors and values that I used on the tender, and I darkened some of the shadow areas of the both the yacht and the tender to add to the depth of the subject.

At this point I can start adding some of the smaller details, and I paint in the trim and waterlines on the boats and refine some of the shadows.

I stepped back from the painting, and I realized that the dark values in the lower right area was competing with the subject for attention, and it was disrupting the overall composition of the painting. I washed off some of the paint from that area and corrected it. I also removed the rest of the masking fluild and painted in the bright reflections in the shadows of the tender's hull, which is the sunlight bouncing between two reflective surfaces (the water, and the hull).

And finally, using a smaller brush, I painted in the last few details and refined a few of the values to complete the painting! I'd love to know what you think -- leave me a comment and tell me your thoughts!



Grand Opening - Louisiana Art Gallery

Next week is the grand opening of The Louisiana Art Gallery! Be sure to stop by on Thursday, Sept. 29, 6-8pm. The event is catered by Bonefish Grill (yum!). 40 plus artists including me, Mary Andersson, Kelly Landrum-Hammell, and Garland Robinette.

a case for painting

I travel a lot to paint, and I often take my painting gear out of my studio to teach workshops, demo at artist organizations, or paint en plein air. For some small trips of just an hour or so, I just tuck a small half-pan watercolor case into my purse along with a bottle of water and a small pad of paper. I use both Sennelier and Winsor & Newton half-pan travel cases, and these are especially nice to have on hand when I go to the beach or for a hike, as they are easy to pack and take up almost no space. But for everything else, I need to pack a variety of supplies and materials to ensure that I’ll have with me whatever I need to get the job done.

Many, many years ago, I made my own travel case to organize and contain everything I need to teach a workshop or paint on location for longer periods of time. Since then, I’ve carried this case to dozens of workshops, scores of demos, and more paint-outs than I can count. My travel case gets a lot of attention from other artists at these events, and artists are often asking me how they can make one as well. So, I thought I’d share the details with you here.

cased packed and closed, ready to go!

First off, the actual case is something that I bought at a thrift store. I was looking for a hard-shell briefcase or suitcase for this project, and I came across this case that originally had been a salesman sample case for vinyl siding.

elastic string holds tools and supplies securely in place

To customize it, I cut some scraps of matboard to fit the dimensions of the inside lids. I stapled elastic to the matboard at random widths, then I glued the matboard firmly to the inside of the lids. This provides plenty of sections to securely hold brushes, paints, pencils, erasers, and all sorts of other little tools and supplies that I might need.

With everything packed in place, the case is ready to close

The bottom of the case is large enough to hold a large watercolor palette, two or more blocks of watercolor paper, water containers and bottles, paper towels, masking fluid, sponges, my apron, and other tools and supplies as needed.

open and ready for use 

It’s looking a bit beat up and worn, but it works and I still use it constantly. The case is never unpacked – when I’m in my studio, it lays open on my workbench next to where I’m working so tools and paint are within reach. When I go out to teach, demo, or paint on location or at one of my galleries, it’s easy to just close it up and take it with me.

More Swan Boats

I had such fun painting the swan boats last week, that I decided to paint some more of them! I think these paintings look good as a pair, don't you?
Like my previous painting of swan boats, I painted this one using only Sennelier watercolor paints. These paints have a smooth creamy consistancy, and the colors are very rich and saturated, giving my paintings an added vibrancy.

Swan Boats II

Swan Boats I

This photo shows the first washes of color and value being added to the boats, after the background area of the water is painted.

Here, I've deepened the colors and values of the boats with more layers of tranparent watercolor, and I've begun to layer a few colors to define the wooden dock.

The lightest areas of the painting are still protected by masking fluid while I layer the paint to develope the masks and bills of the swans.

At this point in the painting, I still need to deepen a few of the values even more.

And here's the finished painting, after all the final details are painted at the last stage.