Learning how to paint with watercolors or acrylics is a journey. Painting, like going on a journey has hills of challenges and valleys of easy travel. Successful artists devise a road map of simplified steps that lead to an adventure with paint and creative thought. 
    In my "Fearless Painting" classes, I aim to assist my students as they travel a colorful road of painterly discoveries. In my programs we practice techniques, study the artwork of talented masters and share ideas about how to express who we are as artists. All with the purpose of learning how to successfully paint something we like.
    In one of my recent classes, my students and I were inspired by a photo that I had taken many years ago of a Foss tug boat moving logs on  lake Coeur D’Alene, ID. Our goal was to create a painting that captured the essence of the scene based upon my student's interpretations of the class’s inspiration. 
To help my students I have developed a program to assist them in their journey and I call it the "8 steps to success for Fearless Painting!"

    Enter the 8 steps to success for painting the Foss Tug!
 In using these steps to success, my students and I first learn how to "see" our inspiration with new eyes and  utilize our own creativity while we paint artwork that is fun to do! Following is the story behind the methods that I used to fearlessly paint the tug boat in the photo shown. I hope that these steps help you to better understand how you can paint successfully, simply by planning out your visual "road trip" to a successful painting.

STEP 1: 
Whether you are working from a photo or painting on location , it is important to make choices. Our first choice is to determine where  the lights and or darks are in what we see and want to paint. ​

​Which is why I always create a value study to help me make choices before I begin to using my brushes.
What is a value study? It is a black and white image that gives me information. I can make this study a drawing using my pencils or  I can turn a color photo into a "value study" simply by  printing the photo in black and white.  Once I have a black and white image/print, I look to "see" a range of lights to darks though out the composition. I, then, create a very simplified line drawing copying the contours of what I see & feel is important in my inspiration.

​STEP 3:
It is now time to pull out a piece of watercolor paper or a canvas. Your choice, what do you like to paint on? I am going to paint this image on a 11 x 14  canvas. Since, I am making the choice to create a painting that is representational I need spend some time drawing a fairly accurate image on my canvas. When drafting the "road map" of my composition, I need to keep in mind the relative sizes of one object ( such as the boat) to another ( such as the space delineated in the background) . I also need to remember and draw in the important details ( such as portholes and doors on boat). Including these small details  make the subject matter interesting and lend believability to my painting.
STEP 4:
Step four is based upon one simple word “CHOICE”!  As artists, we have to make choices because when we paint , we are in charge of our own visual creation. 
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Question #1: What styles of painting or techniques do you , as the artist, like and want to use, in order to create your own unique visual statement? 

Artist’s over the years have developed many different “styles” in painting. An artist can be realistic, impressionistic or even abstract an image. One can create a mono-chromatic painting based upon a value study. One can play with brush strokes to design a painting that is reminiscent of an impressionists such as the American: John Henry Twatchman. 

Question #2 What style should I choose to create this landscape? 
Option #1 I can choose to paint loosely and focus on shapes without details , like in this photo adaptation.

STEP 5:
Since, I have decided that I want to be bold with my brush strokes and use intense, vivid hues and I will be using two types of water- media....my next step is to pick out the colors that I will use and place these paint choices on both my watercolor and acrylic palettes. Now, I am ready to paint! 

​Paint Color Choices for this painting  :
Hansa Yellow (wc & acrylics) , New Gamboge (wc / Darilyde Yellow in acrylics) , Phthlo Blue - Green ( in both wc and acrylics) , Permanent Alizarin Crimson (wc / known as Quinacridrone Crimson in acrylics)

​STEP 6: LET THE FUN BEGIN!
           I have now  made choices regarding what colors, values and mediums I want to use in this particular painting. I have decided that in this work I will begin by using my transparent watercolors on a canvas that has been prepared with Golden's Absorbent Ground.

 I begin the painting process by making the choice of working wet into wet with my watercolors, so that I see soft flowing edges between my transitions of primary colors. Working wet into wet means that I am first brushing my canvas with a large flat brush dipped into clean water.  Once my canvas is saturated I then drop an assortment of puddles of primary hues across the canvas. Lifting my canvas I let gravity do the work of  mixing paint into some interesting secondary hues.
Allowing the initial strokes of water color paint to dry, I continue layering a series of washes and strokes of paint to build up the light to dark values that I choose to include in my composition. 
I focus on making sure that I paint a range of light to dark washes so that I can see the start of a three dimensional look to my boat and landscape.
In this photo, you can see how by layering my watercolors I  develop my seascape. I want to see the lightest areas of the sun shinning on the boat and the water and the mid values in my trees. I used fanciful brush strokes to capture the idea of the water movement on the lake. Finally, I focused on mixing a dark hue of phthalo blue + my alizarin crimson to paint the dark hull of the tug boat. 
 
STEP 7: PUSH AND PULL OF COLOR AND VALUES.
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To see and understand what my future painting steps need to be, I need to take time to study what I have done thus far. I use my cell phone to snap a photo of my painting. Then by using the "edit" and "saturation" slider options on my phone's camera, I turn my color photo into a black and white "value study" simply by sliding the "saturation" bar from the color option to the black and white option side.  
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Lets look at some close ups where I have used both of these mediums in this painting. Frequently ,when I paint with watercolors my values or colors or strokes are not quite what I want. By introducing acrylic paints into my creative process, I am able "correct" those areas that I feel need attention. Such as when my watercolors swim into areas where I do not want them to end up. Look closely and you will see in this photo that a dark drip of paint has migrated over the top of the white area on the tug boat.
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Acrylic paints let me correct what needs adjustment. All I have to do is let the paint dry and paint over the area with the acrylic color of choice as needed!
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In this photo , I am over - painting with titanium white on the dried region of the tug boat, where my dark watercolors flowed.

​STEP 8 : FINAL STEPS TO FEARLESS PAINTING SUCCESS!
Now is the time of the painting process, when I am ready to concentrate on those details that define what type of boat this is. After studying my photo, I can see that I want to "clean" up some of my edges around the hull of the tug boat. I want to add "punch' to my painting and emphasize the warm colors next to cool hues. I, also, want to enhance the contrasting light vs dark elements in my work.  I do this by layering with warm hues where I want my subject matter to come forward and I layer cooler hues in those places that I want to recede , such as the trees in the background. 

​I determine that I want to make some of my darks even darker. To do this I mix up phthalo blue and quinacridrone crimson acrylics to make a dark blue-ish purple to which I add a small amount of darilyde yellow. Yellow is the complimentary color of purple by adding a bit to my purple mixture I can get a dark blue/puple-ish black value that is more interesting than just painting with carbon black. 

​I continue to layer paint to create small, dark jewel-like areas throughout my painting. I pushed my darks in the port holes and doors to compliment the lights on the cabin.

    For many years, now I have been writing an informational blog.  Some posts were about my work as an artist or the classes that I instruct and others were written about the methods I use to create my fearless paintings. Informative yes, but, I want my blog to be of assistance to others; therefore, my goal is to write my future posts to help my readers search for personal creativity.
   Throughout my life as an artist, I have come to believe that the only constant in life is change. Unfortunately the changes that we face today are global.  Disease has changed all of our lives and left humanity in a precarious position! Our world has been turned upside down and all too many people around the globe are dealing with the horrendous effects of the Covid19 virus and are in social isolation. We are alone with our thoughts and fears, wondering what to do....?
    As a professional artist and adjunct instructor at a community college I have found myself, like many others, unemployed, lost in a sea of red tape without a plan about what to do while life and work are furloughed. It's not easy to go from experiencing life at full speed  and then be forced, out of caution and common sense, to park one's activities at the street corner, while we attempt to deal with a life filled with uncertainty . 
    I believe and am a practitioner of positive thought and action. I believe,nay, I know that these "unusual" times too shall pass! But until that times arrives...
         ALL OF US MUST STAY HOME IN ORDER TO STAY HEALTHY!  
    Under the circumstances and with that said, I feel that the best thing for me to do is to try to help others who are also asking "What now?" by writing informational blogs about how to be creative. I would like to help you! How by sharing my fearless methods of making art in ways that will help you spend a part of your day being fearless and creative. 
    Statistics show that spending time with a creative pursuit, whether it be painting, writing, dancing, singing  to name but a few forms of creative thought,  is an excellent way to improve physical, emotional and mental health. So how about it, come be fearless with me and let's stay healthy with art! 
In my next blog post I thought it might be of interest to my readers, to share the methods I use when I create a non-representational artwork. Creating abstract art is easier than you may think. in my post you will see photos of how I work + if you scroll down the page you will find step by step instructions of how you can be a little creative.
   I hope the following post inspires others to grab some tools and spend a little time being expressively creative.