I spent two weeks near Kiluea on Kauai in Jan/Feb at an incredible watercolor workshop retreat with Rene' Eisenbart and twelve other artists.

Rene' is an outstanding teacher who kept us enthralled with her knowledge and enthusiasm. We painted every day!

So much to paint - so little time!

The weather was typical winter northside Kauai, but there were plenty of places to visit in the sun, too!

We spent Christmas weekend at Cannon Beach in 2014. On the stormy Saturday we walked through Ecola Park and watched the waves on Crescent Beach. It inspired me to go back to our room and paint the scene while sitting in front of the fire. A perfect day!

I started with a half sheet of Arches #140 cold pressed watercolor paper soaked, stretched with staples on a board and taped with masking tape all around. I do this because I like a nice clean edge and no buckling of the paper while I work on it. After that dried, I covered the entire surface with a layer of acrylic matte medium as an experiment to see how the paint acted on that. I transferred the image by tracing with graphite paper onto the dried surface. Then I masked out the lightest areas with masking fluid, let it dry, and washed it with Lemon and cadmium yellows.

After the base layer of yellow, I added Phthalo blue, Lemon yellow, and Alizarin Crimson to start defining areas of color. These colors along with Cadmium yellow were the paints of my limited palette. Except for using some Permanent white gouache near the end of the painting, these are the only colors I used. Painting in the Pacific Northwest, everything seems to end up green no matter what I do!

I continued to use the same three colors to add more definition to areas of color and objects within these areas. Using a heavy pigment to water ratio, I am able to get intense darks into areas in the shadows.

I created the black with Phthalo blue, Alizarin crimson, and a little Permanent yellow lemon.

Almost finished! Now I go back over every area of the painting to see that it is finished (as in all twigs attached, shadows in the right places, etc.) With the matte medium base, from the beginning the paint has been easier to lift than on plain paper. I do think it gives the paint a more opaque look, though, which is not what I prefer.

Here is the final painting. I used Winsor Newton Permanent White Designers Gouache to add highlights.

We had three wonderful days of intense painting with everyone creating several keepers. What an ambitious group! The weather was perfect for outdoor breaks and lunch on the deck., even painting on the deck!