October Aspens 3 30 by 24 inches

The vibrant Kootenay aspens glow in the late afternoon sun. This is the third in the series. I was fascinated by the way the sun caught and played with the delicate aspen leaves.

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How To Choose a Watercolor Brush

Buying watercolor brushes can be a confusing (and expensive) process. What size and shape? Natural hair or synthetic? Which brands of brush are better? I have been painting for many years and have strong preferences for my use but each artist is different and you may end up using a very different selection of brushes. The easiest way to approach brushes is by focusing on their function. What is the brush going to be used for? There are three main functions of brushes in watercolor. Broad washes (Skies, large areas of color) Details (Rigging in boats, eyes, patterns) Textures (Grass, hair, bark) While by no means an exhaustive list of uses I fine that most brushes fall into one of these categories. Natural or Syntheti...

Hagia Sofia Acrylic 48 by 36

Turkey was a fabulous country with inspiring architecture, and no buildings were more awesome than this one, built at the height of Byzantine power. I don't usually do paintings with such involved architectural drawings, but based on this one, I think I'll do more.

Poppies Three Ways

There are many ways to approach a painting. Using a poppy as subject I explored three of them. These are all quick sketches, 9 by 12 inches. The first watercolor is done alla prima, directly painting the subjects as positive shapes. This yields a strong and vivid image that grabs your attention. It doesn't have much of the transparency of traditional watercolors though. The second painting was done by painting the space around the poppy, using the background to "draw" the flower. This gives a more ethereal and transparent look. The third painting is a hybrid of the two approaches with the use of underpainting. painted a warm area where the flower would be and used cool colors for the rest of the background. The flower was then defined using negative space and then painted with stronger colors.

Quattrocchi Art

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