NO SLIDE SHOW

After spending lots of hours trying to post a great slide show of last week's Batik Workshop, using Flickr, Picasa, and slide.com, I give up. Nothing worked. Help???!!!???

Nevertheless, here are a few of the fabulous pieces our class painted, using watercolor, sumi ink, and hot wax. More to come.....

First three batiks by - Anne Bongiovanni, (man to right,) Jenny Koch, (nets to left,) Sondra Karipides (landscape with sun)

Fish batik by Andrea Stewart

Circular designs by Emily Hostetter

Porch by DeeAnne Helm

Abstract design by Amber Michael

Abstracted design with border by Sarajane Steinecker

Fruit by Kathy Storrie

Color design by Linda Lyons

Waterfalls batik by Irene Friedman

FIREWORKS

All day long, actually for the past week, we've been hearing the sounds of firecrackers and other fireworks being shot off to help celebrate our nation's 233rd birthday. Fireworks are really tricky to paint with watercolor, so here's my effort for celebrating - a rendition of a gentle evening at the lake with a beautiful red, white, and blue sunset, without fireworks.

This is a very small (for me) watercolor done as a demo many years ago in one of my intermediate classes. With the exception of painting the little duck in after it dried, this landscape took about ten minutes to create.

The focus was to let the water and paint do as much of the work as possible. Using the paint brush to deliver the paint to the paper, then getting out of the way, was the hardest part.

It used to be so like me to want to mess and play and touch up, and it was way too easy to overdo a good thing. But it's so true that watercolor does its best when it's allowed to flow and mingle on its own.

Happy Fourth of July, America!

"CELEBRATION" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 11 x 7" COLLECTED