Watercolor studies of Fall Flowers

 I love to garden, so I've been playing around with ways to paint flowers. Here are a few of my studies. This amazing October weather has been calling me, so I began by going outside and painting from my garden. Feverfew on the right, don't know the name on the left, but I couldn't manage to catch the periwinkle violet and burnt cranberry.

Went inside and added a layer of texture

I did another study, using resist first to keep whites, reds and yellows strong.

Trying to use a wet on wet style to give a feeling of flowers and grass

Another study, trying to combine what I'd learned.

More work to come!

Brian Lies visits Illustration III at RISD ce

What a treat I had last night.  RISD CE instructor, Emilie Boon, invited New York Times best-selling author/illustrator Brian Lies to her Illustration III class. Intelligent, well-spoken, down-to-earth, and incredibly talented, his "just us artist's sitting around" presentation was informative and inspiring.

Here, Brian is showing us one of his originals for Bats at the Beach, meticulously painted in acrylics.

Brian was generous enough to share his process, from idea to hand-written text, through multiple revisions, sketches, studies and tracing paper drawings, to color studies and painting. Here he lays a classic acrylic underpainting. 

 Brian also told us about his latest project, More, which he illustrated. It looks AMAZING!! It will be coming out in March.

Here, students from Illustration III and instructor Emilie Boon get a close up and personal look at Brian's amazing originals. Thank-you so much for your generosity, Brian. Let's hope "More" is a best-seller, too!