I made a mixing chart with cool, dark colors running down the left side and warm, brighter colors across the top of the page. With each warm color, a drop of dark color was addded with each stripe downward. The many shades of greens and purples are amazing. One of my goals with painting is to keep a limited palette, so now I understand color mixing a little bit more, and I’m confident I don’t need to purchase a ton of colors.

Today, I attempted to paint a little sketch from a photo–no tutorial. I have to say, it doesn’t even resemble the photo.

I also practiced using the large, flat brush with a Peter Sheeler tutorial.

And I painted four tiny “spontaneous” paintings where you quickly add color here and there, and then after it dries, add detail to turn it into something. The top right is inspired by artist Millie Gift Smith.

More attempts at using watercolor. I’m using an inexpensive Prang oval set on either 90 lb. or 140 lb. cold press paper. With the last few, I’ve starting using Winsor and Newton Cotman (student) paint in tubes. The color is smoother and the dark browns and blues are deeper:

My favorite so far. This is one of the exercises from Zoltan Szabo’s Landscape Painting in Watercolor.

Another exercise from Zoltan Szabo’s Landscape Painting in Watercolor. When it dried, the sky was far too light for the dark island, and so I splashed black on it, giving it a strange look.

This is from one of Grant Fuller’s amazing demos on Youtube. My paper was very small and so I opted to skip the house and trees. At the last minute I added a boat:

Here are some of my first attempts at watercolor:

Bob Ross: Bridge into Autumn (Prang Oval Watercolors)

From Zoltan Szabo’s Landscape Painting in Watercolor

From Grant Fuller’s demo on Youtube