Blame it on Spring Fever...or Allergies?

In several cases I felt student-work slid downhill kind of like the nearest barn's doing in our picture this time (compare individual works from this week to previous posts)! I'll probably never know if it was because this view was considered too hard or the weather outside was just too nice to stay cooped up inside.

I include my own version in order to point out the main 'teaching points' for this painting:
  1. to experiment with a crumpled-paper(towel) effect for the stormy/cloudy sky (I likened it to texturing a wall at home with paint-dipped natural sponges);
  2. to practice leaving 'white space' when a dark or rich color will need to be 'covered' with a lighter one...it would be near impossible even with our terrific opaque watercolors - see especially where the long 'palomino' yellow grass overlaps the red of the closest, tiltiest barn;
  3. to realize that sometimes nothing other than a strip/stripe of permanently unpainted white paper will suffice to keep a visual distinction between darkish areas (where corners of buildings meet and where building sides meet roof edges);
  4. to be consistent in adding a touch greater 'detail' in the closest areas (foreground) of their picture, as that is closest to 'where the viewer is standing.'
It was my mistake for having the students 'ink' the sky's areas-of-deepest-blue, as many chose to paint a non-stormy/cloudy sky! From now on I'll remember to keep all sky-shapes in pencil!

Mrs. L's

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