Watercolor Conversations with Cara Brown

We started this series with color. Now, with several episodes of painting experience behind us, we come back to it — and it looks different from here.
This episode draws from my second color workshop - where we limit the paints we work with.  I start with an idea that genuinely blew my mind when I first realized it:  the primary colors we all learned in grade school aren't the real primary colors.  
We also look at what happens when you deliberately limit your palette. I've painted with six paints, with four, and with just three. What I've found is that a limited palette doesn't just create harmony and cohesion in a painting — it grows you as a color mixer. 
And there's an exercise: invent colors in your head and try to mix them. Olive green. Straw gold. Terra cotta. Navy blue. Red wine. Sepia. It sounds simple. It's kind of mind-blowing. And it is how you actually learn to mix color — by doing it.
I periodically offer Color II - Limiting, Layering and Claiming Your Colors in person in the studio and live online.  You can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website:  https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!
Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

My antidote for overwhelm.  If when faced with a complicated section of a painting, you've thought:  how on earth am I going to paint this? — this episode is for you.  It's the other half of the Making it Real pair of workshops.  
Painting detail isn't about special techniques or clever tools. For me it's more about strategies to stay with it, keep from trying to "organize" the detail in your reference, and paint just enough detail to make the point, but not so much it becomes distracting.  
I've found that crazy-detailed sections reveal themselves progressively — once you've painted something, the next steps become clearer. 
Here's Blush - a painting I mention in this epside:  https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/gallery-floral-still-life/blush-2/  It was the lower part of the right-hand peony that sent me on tilt.  
This is a workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond.  I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website:  https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!
Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

This episode is one half of the Making it Real  workshops from Watercolor Basics and Beyond. Creating volume — when it seems like you could reach out and actually grab the subjects of a painting.  
In order to do so, we make use of what I shared in the past three episodes.  Water and edges. Shape, shade, color. Light and dark. Soft backgrounds. All of it comes together here, helping our art to look like its subjects come off the paper!
Link to the painting Fascination, I mentined:  https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/gallery-available-originals/fascination/
This is a workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond.  I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website:  https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!
Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

Besides "the light,"  a characteristic of my paintings are my out-of-focus backgrounds.  I'm asked often how to make this happen.  I this episode I share my thoughts - about working with the paint and brushes to make distinct shapes with soft edges.  it can be tricky!
They are more work than some artists want to put into the areas around their subjects, but I find them an important part of the story our paintings are telling.
This is a workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond.  I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website:  https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!
Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.

The illusion of light in our paintings is a magical thing.  Using just contrast between dark and light  - and the subtleties of relative shades between, we can create a world.  In this episode, the forth in our series, hear how in response to a short question, I came up with the four aspects of how it is that I (at least) create worlds of light in my paintings. 

Includes ideas from a post orignally published under the same title "Painting the Light" on May 31, 2017 which can be found  here:  https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com/life-stories/may-31-2017-painting-light/ 
This page includes photos of example paintings.
This is the second workshop in my series Watercolor Basics and Beyond.  I plan to offer it in segments online coming soon. If you'd like to be notified, you can sign up for my email newlsetters on my website:  https://www.lifeinfullcolor.com, where you can also see all my art and the workshops I offer, incuding this one!
Cara Brown - Watercolorist - Teacher - www.lifeinfullcolor.com
...where you can find all my paintings, workshop offerings and the entire archive of my writing.