Mel Stabin Watercolor Workshop ~ Student Paintings, part 2

"Steps of San Miguel:Doll Sale"
15" x 11" watercolor

"San Miguel Street"
15" x 11" Watercolor

Sketch with watercolor in preparation for painting. It's fairly apparent I hadn't opened my Carl Dalio DVD on drawing. I cheated by sketching in pencil first and paper got really abused by so many eraser marks trying to work on my perspective. Jan, one of the Artists' Showplace owners, gave me a quick lunch break course in perspective. After sketching the paper was wet front and back before the washes were applied.


"San Miguel Buildings"
15" x 22" Watercolor

These are 3 of some landscape and figure paintings from the Mel Stabin workshop that I painted. At the end of the post there is a slide show of the rest of the class paintings. The class worked hard in this 5 day workshop and many paintings were finished.

Many of these workshops are filled with mostly women but this time we had a "Colorado Boy" and we taught him the art of saying "Bless Your Heart". It seems in the south you can nearly get away with slander if you end the conversation with bless your heart and Max left us by repeating that phrase. Click Here and Here for other thoughts on the subject. The last link made me smile because I hadn't thought of "I swanee" in a long, long time. After all the bless your hearts be sure to ask "and how is your Mother" and all will be forgotten and maybe forgiven.

Some "Mellisms"
1. The worth of the painting does not depend on how much time you spend on it.
2. Indigo and Aureolin make a good dark rich green.
3. Develop good brushwork. Don't use the tip but press down on the brush and use the flat side (round brushes).
4. Have little echoes of color to create unity.
5. Make simple washes with subtle color changes and max of two washes.
6. Use fewer strokes.
7. Exhaggerate the essence of what you are painting.
8. This one is important and he stressed a lot....Make one shape of close values to fuse edges say a garment to a background.

Slide show with Mel demo using his backpack as his support/easel, and placing students' work in mats for the critique and lots of slides of students' work, part 2. See previous post for part 1 and the class dinner at Amore Italian and some of the best food.