Some views of my Santa Clara, California workshop last week

This was a five day watercolor portrait workshop that I taught for the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society. I had a full workshop with 20 very energetic, talented, and delightful painters. The first photo shows them waiting for my first demonstration. The second view is our classroom. The next is the start of a demo painting I did to show value control. The following photo is the finished watercolor with an overlay of color. The fifth shot is a watercolor study that was painted by one of my students. It is her mother and a very compelling piece! The sixth image is one of my students snapping a photo of one of my many demo paintings that I did over the course of the five day workshop. The seventh photo shows my workshop crew holding one of their portraits. We worked both in Payne's Gray and full color. The final shot shows my work table with Mr. Head.

Another watercolor painting progression from a reference photo of one of my college students

Draw the outside shape of the head, paint a few light and dark values, deepen some of the mid values, paint the last darkest values, and finish with a background.

Portrait by eyeball

You are not drawing a face, you are not drawing a face, you are not drawing a face. That's my mantra with anything I draw or paint. I draw and paint shapes, contours, and values. That is what any artist needs to concentrate on. That is pure right brain muscle power. The shapes need to be angled, proportioned, and positioned as accurately as possible, the contours also need to be as accurate as possible, and you need to see and control value relationships. Do that, practice that, and you too can eyeball it.

Check out my new website

I have a brand, spanking new website. Go to my sidebar on this blog and click on the link under "Website" or click here. I am beginning to teach more workshops outside of California at venues like Art in the Mountains where I am scheduled to teach a five-day watercolor workshop in August of next year, and this blog will serve to announce that information as well as showing my art. I am still in the process of fleshing it out and learning how to most effectively use it, but as of now, I have quite a good sampling of my watercolor portraiture work on it. I hope, dear reader, that you may want to pay my new site a visit. You can even submit your email address to receive periodic newsletters from me. There is a lot of digital technology for us artists to use, and I am hoping to use it effectively for my blog readers and followers, Facebook friends and fans, and my workshop participants.