Friday 2 October 2015

1st Watercolor Workshop Session, both beginners and advanced groups

Today we started the Watercolor Workshop for Seniors, both beginners and advanced groups, at the Community Center (2nd ΚΑΠΗ) of Patras city. This was our second meeting for the new "academic" year (2015-2016), as we met previous week to establish some of the administrative issues and get to know each other and our expectations. The beginners group has now already 7 attendants, although we were supposed to start only with 5. And we are waiting for one more to come next week. This makes it more difficult to come around with the materials coverage, but I am confident we will manage. As for the advanced group, I am very happy to say that all 7 ladies that followed the courses previous year joined me again this year! This makes me believe that I did something right previous year, and their excitement and joy to start again means a lot to me. In the advanced group we have one more lady, who is actually following also the beginners lessons, as she has already some drawing and acrylics experience. But she needs to catch up with the basics on watercolors.
So, what we did today?
Beginners: introduction to the watercolor media, materials needed, properties of the watercolor paints, first steps to handle the medium and the brush and paper. We did a small study of color intensity with 5 steps and a "flat wash" to get used to how the color reacts on paper. And that was pretty much what we covered within the one hour of lesson. I hope the next session, with an actual little painting (a seascape study) will be more exciting for the group.
Advanced: a fast pass through the basic watercolor techniques (color value, flat wash, graded wash, dry-on-dry, wet-on-wet, masking fluid, mixing colors on paper); a bit of composition theory and discussion about what a "reference photo" means and how we use it; selection of the photo and a pencil study on the composition; drawing on the transfer paper and transfer of the drawing to the watercolor paper. For the first painting of this year we actually had two reference photos to chose from, one with tomatoes and one with figs.
That would be the update of today, and unfortunately no photos. Next time I hope I get the camera with me.