YUPO DEMO

We had a great time Sunday in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the Watercolor Society of Indiana's Winter Meeting. Mark Lemons does a great job as president to guide and lead this group of diverse artists. About sixty people attended... not bad for a cold February afternoon.

After the business meeting and a drawing for some great door prizes, it was time for my demo. Once that first wave of nervousness was out of the way, all went well. In fact, I had a blast painting on the slick YUPO surface and sharing several of the processes used to work with watercolors on YUPO.

One of my small oil studies of a couple walking under an umbrella was my source of inspiration. The drawing was completed ahead of time with gray miskit applied to areas that were to remain pure white.

A 4x6" value study, created earlier from that oil sketch of the photo, was the guide for the painting as well as the drawing. Paint was applied in each shape with the value of that shape based on the value study. Colors were chosen at random, with consideration for the mood of the rainy evening scene.

Edges were adjusted as I painted, and a foam roller was used quite a bit to move paint around and help establish smoother transition areas. Some shapes were extra juicy, and but most were very dry, with little water added to the paint. Many of the techniques shown are ones discovered and perfected by George James, YUPO master from California.

A window washing squeegee, (previously cut into smaller lengths by my husband,) did the trick of dragging thicker paint and helped add linear aspects to the painting. A couple of dried areas were spritzed with water from a Windex sprayer, then squeegeed off, creating a spontaneous, fresh, textured look.

The finished painting is posted here, as is, without any changes made since the demo. There's a possibility that the legs of the man might need to be adjusted. Also, it bothers me that the reddish brown oval shape to the right is about the same size as the woman's hair, so that may need to be changed, too.

Though the painting was finished in under two hours, the preparation time was considerable. It took well over six hours to get the composition tweaked and sketched, ready to paint, plus about 20 years to learn to handle watercolor. Add into that the two frustrating years spent fighting to control paint on YUPO before finally having a break through, and you can see why art can't be sold for the actual time it takes to create it. No one could afford it.

Overall, I was very happy with the results and really enjoyed being with so many Hoosier artists. In early May, Middletown Fine Arts Center is sponsoring one of my YUPO workshops - see the side bar here. If you're interested, check it out. I know we'll have a great week painting on this slick, slippery, challenging, and fascinating surface.

In June, there's also a YUPO workshop in Dallas that I'll be leading - see side bar - at a great workshop facility and gallery there. Hope you can make one of the workshops if you're interested in learning more about painting on YUPO.

Thank you, Betsy, for taking pictures during the demo. You are a blessing.

"RIVER WALTZ" Transparent Watercolor on Heavy Weight YUPO, 19 x 28" COLLECTED