MORE GESSO

We've enjoyed fabulous weather this month, even though there's a brisk chill in the air now - beautiful weather for painting outdoors! This painting is another oldie, painted on gessoed watercolor paper. Now a restaurant, the building used to be a working mill somewhere in Massachusetts.

First I painted over the entire sheet of paper with light to medium valued colors, using mostly burnt orange, yellows, greens, and some blue. After letting the paint dry, I lifted off the lighter shapes then painted in the darker shapes.

My hope was to leave as much area untouched by my brush as possible, but I had to do more adjusting than I wanted to. Still, I like the foreground area a lot in front of the mill, and, I remember sharing a wonderful dinner there, too.

This week in one of my classes, we'll be working with watercolor and gesso again, hopefully incorporating some of the special techniques Nick Simmons taught us here at the studio last fall. We sure have great memories of that workshop!

"EVENING CALLS" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Gessoed Arches, 22 x 15"