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Deepened some of the shadows on the white flowers. Not sure if it helps or hurts. Also added a bulb. I really love drawing these dark bulbs on this paper.

Sooo pretty Pam!

Yeah Pam!

Love this study. And I love that it elicits memories of your mother. My husband’s aunt just asked me to draw a christmas cactus that was grown from a cutting from her mother’s plant. I’ll be getting the plant from her over the holidays. We can learn together 🙂

Thanks Pam. What an encouraging message!

Thank you for sharing your notes with us, Karen, sentiments that so many of us can relate to. – gives the drawing and observation so much more meaning. I think of my dad with the xmas cactus.

You are off to a good start Karen. The colors are great! The berries need more range of tones to establish their form. I would expect to see more highlights and a range of tones into the dark toning on each individual berry. Take a look at your leaves again. At the most basic level, leaves have a light side and dark especially along the primary…[Read more]

Hi Karen- It really helps to put the toning layer on first before you add the color. Also making sure you are leaving the areas where you want the highlights to be. That way you have the form established right from the onset. As you do add color some of the original toning will become obscured, but you adjust the toning as you go. Your original…[Read more]

Good reminder about the basics. I will try to be more patient!

Struggling a bit with the white flowers. I think I’m having a little more luck getting mostly there with watercolor, and then only toward the very end adding white colored pencil. What works for the rest of you when rendering white flowers on Kraft paper?

I can hear Wendy’s voice : make sure there are some obvious white highlights – like overdo them! – and some dark darks for contrast since we’re on a midtone paper. Wendy loves putting her obvious highlights in first and really saturating them.

Beautiful Laurie! Your toning is really good as is the color selection and saturation! I would tone down the reflected highlight a little. It should not be as bright as the main highlight. Wonderful job!!!

Sweet little pear! Lovely transition from red to green. My only comments would be that the cast shadow of the could be a bit lighter, softer and diffused as it moves away from the stem. And you could extend the cast shadow of the pear a bit more.

Beautiful Margaret! The colors are so nice and I love how you have positioned the subject on the page. The angle is really pleasing! Great leaves!

Great job Jane! You have wonderful smooth toning!!!! The one thing I would revisit is the highlight. It is too straight (they generally follow the shape of the branch) and it seems too bright. Unless the branch has very shiny bark the highlight would be softer. Highlights will often have breaks in intensity along the way, r.e. where a bud is…[Read more]

Thanks so much for your help!

Great Sheila! I really like how you have laid the subjects out with the weightier subjects in the middle and the wispier subjects on the fringes! I also really like how the subjects on the outside edges are facing the edge of the paper! Wonderful!

Thanks for your feedback, Doug! So happy to hear from you. I see what you mean about the arrangement. I’m glad I took the accordion journal class for a lot of reasons, one being segments of paper growing in both directions! Happy holidays to you all!!

Nice job Jane! The onion has really nice form! I would look at the highlight again. Onion skin highlights are more linear than round as you have shown, but I think it could be a little brighter and I would expect to see more highlight than what you have shown. I am confused by the area on the top left. It is the same color and texture as the rest…[Read more]

Thanks so much, Doug! I really struggled with that stem. It was the exact same color as the rest of the onion (before I ate it), just a different texture. I added some more dark shading after posting and it looks a bit better but I need lots more practice. Thanks again.