Watercolor Pencil Workbook is ready!

I've been trying to decide if working on these workbooks is just another form of procrastination...because I DO need to do my 2009 taxes, and I DON'T want to. I do not have a mathematical mind, and even with a tax preparer (one of my few ~ but probably smarter ~ splurges) I can find a million other things to do to put off getting it all the little receipts and numbers together. Bet I have a lot of (gloomy) company, though....

Anyway, to avoid the inevitable taxes, I've been working day and night on the next Workshop Workbook, Nature Sketching with Watercolor Pencils, and IT IS DONE!

I kid you not that I have been working long hours. Even when I finish the final edit and print one out for my reference shelf, the job isn't done. Because at that point, it takes a whole day to write its webpage with descriptions and information, upload the book to PayPal, jump through all the hoops required to make it active on PayLoadz (which downloads it to you), rewrite and link all the webpages (7) on my website that have any mention of it, insert the new Buy Now buttons into my order form, and finally, upload the new graphics (4) and new and revised pages to my server. Oh, my, there's a lot involved!

But it's done, now, and hey, you can go look at it now if you want! And even download one, if it strikes your fancy! Here's the new webpage for Nature Sketching with Watercolor Pencils.

I need to tell you, though, that the $9.95 is an introductory price good only through April 15. After that, the prices on all the workbooks go up to $15.95 (which is actually what they're worth, compared with other similar art tutorials offered on the web). I still have a few workbooks to go after this (after taxes, actually), but they'll each start out at $15.95.

There's a lot of cool stuff in Nature Sketching with Watercolor Pencils, drawing (pun intended) on my last few year's adventures in using watercolor pencils. It covers, among other things, the color wheel (in a fun way, nothing boring there I promise!), lots of colorful examples from my sketchbooks, directions on how to fill a waterbrush, eight different ways to use watercolor pencils on your artwork, and applying and working over/around masks/resists.

I even wrote a tutorial on how to use a brush for different effects, simulating fur and duck down, how to draw your base drawings with media the watercolor pencils won't fuzz and blur, sunlight and shadow effects on foliage.....many tutorials, how-tos, step-by-steps...whatever is needed to show you how to get the watercolor pencils to do what you want them to do. And even then, there's probably enough more I know that didn't get in this workbook to write another workbook about .....Watercolor pencils are SO C.O.O.L!

I'd like to mention here that there is also a page from Susie Short's tutorials, How to Paint Rain Drops or Dew Drops (with her generous permission, of course!).

The workshop this workbook was originally designed for was aimed at people who already know how to draw (or could catch up to the intermediate artists in an hour or so), so there's almost nothing about drawing techniques in this workbook. You can find those in previous books if you need to brush up.

In fact, I took the drawing element almost entirely out by providing sketches for you to color. That way I could concentrate on what you want this workbook for ~ to learn how to color drawings with watercolor pencils. I even put extra drawings for you to paint in the back of the workbook to give you a second chance if you muff the first one. The Quintessential Coloring Book!

Here's a big thank you to the many of you who have downloaded workbooks so far. I hope they are what you were hoping for, and I'd really enjoy getting feedback if you have any, especially if it's about something I can improve.

So, there it is! And dang it, now I have to start wading through receipts and parking stubs and 1099s and mileage records and other grubby things that no artist should ever be expected to do. Fie! If you've any mercy atall atall, wish me patience and accuracy and oh, please, tiny glimmers of pleasurable memories about such unknown things as whatever it was I appear to have spent $14.99 for on May 13, 2009.

aieeee........

Masking Demo, watercolor pencil

Here's a quick masking demo I used to keep grass blades white so I could paint swirly ripple patterns around underneath, then remove the mask and paint the leaves. The end result wasn't perfect, but it's passable and with more practice it gets better. This was using my own resource photo, with a frog inserted from another photo I had taken.

Without the mask, I would have had to 1) try to paint the leaves opaquely on top of the ripples, which is very difficult since light over dark in watercolor pencils is usually less than satisfactory for fine details, or 2) try to stop and go with the painted swirls, leaving the grass blades white so I could paint them later. This is not a very good solution since it interrupts the swirl with unfortunate effects, destroying the smooth stroke. Remember to click for a larger image (and so you can read the instructions).

So here are the steps I took:











































































And finally, the end result.