Notes

Double Luck

Summer‘s long golden days are perfect for painting indoors or out. Gardens are brimming with blooms and mountains, forests and streams beckon us to explore. Experience all that Mother Earth has to offer; delicious locally grown produce, lush vistas and refreshing oceans, streams, and lakes. Take advantage of opportunities to be outdoors and gather as much reference as possible from which to paint. Consider leaving a small sketching or painting set in your car for those special moments or subjects you might encounter on the road. Always have your camera ready!

Make sure to keep up a painting schedule, perhaps setting up outside to paint from nature occasionally. If you love to paint flowers, as I do, try taking many photos of your subjects. Have them developed at a one-hour shop; bring some fresh flowers inside and paint using the photos as a guide for light patterns. If you paint only from life, the light will keep changing and so will the flowers as they continue to open. It becomes very frustrating to develop a painting this way, unless you have perfect recall.

Ann's painting, "Lovely Lotus", was selected by juror, Diane Maxey, for the Best of Show Award with a gold medal from the International Watermedia XIII Juried Exhibition. The show is sponsored by the Pikes Peak Watercolor Society in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The painting was done on Strathmore 5ply smooth Bristol Board and appears in Ann's book as a step-by-step demonstration.

Ann recently filmed three teaching videos which will be available for sale in the near future from this website, www.ccatprod.com and North Light Book Club.