Fall in the Garden

The beginning. Shot the Barberry bush in my garden.

Photo one is complex, yes, but there’s something I like about the spotty quality. Photo two, lighting is warmer. Has more of a focal point. 
I thought I would paint this one.

The cool green on right contrasting with the reds, that shift to orange, 
even violet in the leaves could be exciting in watercolor.

Investigation of darks and lights, values. My handy Notanizer App wasn’t much help to me on this image.

It is giving me ideas about the path of darkness that sweeps diagonally through the picture from the top right to the left bottom.I want to play with color, keep the background loose in contrast to the sharp edges on those berries These are the things I’m thinking about before I put paint to paper.

Thumbnail. Figuring out my colors. These are the colors I investigated in my thumbnail.

A warm up exercise. Athletes and musicians warm up. Artists do too. It’s helpful to do exercises that get your right brain talking to your hand. Something to quiet that critical, fussy left brain. Here’s one way to do that, requested by fellow student, Lely;

Choose maybe 5 colors. Get ready to paint.

And then, let’s see what you can do in 5 minutes : )

It’s a good way to loosen up. No time to worry.

My table after the barberry demo. I had a lot of fun with this one!

The two paintings I did, during the demo with finishing touches at home in the studio.

The beautiful work of my students.