First Day - 364 to go

Here is my first day painting, I did paint this in class today, tomorrow will be a different story since my classes are in the evening and I am unable to paint for myself in that class (the reason for that is because most of the students are beginners and require more help).  I do intend to paint most of these in my studio, after all, that is the reason for this blog, to get me into the studio more than just those days of the week that I have to teach. 

I will explain this painting, I am really fond of painting wet in wet, I usually start most paintings wet in wet, although I did just paint the sky wet in wet for this one, this is the second time I painted this tree, the first time was last week painting those post cards for the Ella Sharp post card sale, I wasn't going to do it, I had made my mind up that it was a waste of time, then, all my friends decided to go to the Blue Moon over Michigan show at the Ella Sharp one last time on Saturday, well, they all had cards painted, so I couldn't be the only one that didn't so I painted like a mad fiend Thursday and Friday and came up with 10, I think I told you about that already.  Well, my friend and Blue Moon buddy, Susan Miller, decided to do a weekly blog I checked it out, now here I am blogging, it's a good thing, at least its about art and it will help me accomplish my goal of painting everyday.  Well, back to main subject, the painting, I wait for the paper to dry, very important in watercolor and that means bone dry, then it's wet on dry for the remainder, I like to gray down the greens with violet or purple, I never use green out of the tube, some watercolorists don't use the tube green but I find it convenient, then I mix it up with other colors, some dabs of orange here and there, some blue added to the greens for the background trees and I usually do the foreground grasses in dry brush, scraping sideways with the brush backwards (I know this looks strange, but it works).  I don't use masking very often, mostly I paint around the whites, I did do that a bit with the main tree trunks but then I did do some scrubbing out of portions, then, I am not adverse to using opaques, so I got into the gouache and painted layers of this with some of the transparent colors mixed in for the tree trunks and branches, I like it so I am happy with this one, I may or may not be happy with the others, maybe tomorrow I will try to try to do a couple step pics to give you more information on how I did it, oh yes, by the way, this painting is about 6" x 6".