The Utah Watercolor Society combined with the Intermountain Society of Artist for their meetings to watch me do a watercolor demonstration applying the John Salminen Workshop to my children’s book illustrations. The crowd started to gather.
It was great to have my Mom-in-law there.
When I’m working on children’s book illustrations there seems to be inspiration I can use all around. Some of the techniques taught by John Salminen seemed perfect for the illustrations I’m working on now.
There are a lot of things you can do to create texture with watercolors but they have to fit the mood and design of the illustrations. Spattering with a bit of miskit can create some great texture and great sound effects.
I masked out the trees and ravens with some masking tape so I could put a nice wash in the sky.
John Salminen taught us how to use a hockey brush to make a wash.
I told the audience that there was a bit of controversy on how to pronounce hockey brush or hake brush but that Salminen pronounced it “hockey brush” so I introduced them to my homemade “Hockey brush”.
I whisked the top of the wash lightly with the hockey brush. The audience was amazed with the technique.
When the wash was dry I took the masking tape off the paper being careful to pull towards the edge of the paper.
Once the tape was off, I painted in the trees and then used an atomizer to put some atmosphere into the sky. The ladies in the front row got a bit of the atmosphere on there knees. Then like Martha Stewart I pulled the finished illustration out of the oven to show the audience. My illustrations will be better because of the workshop and instruction taught at the John Salminen Workshop.
The evening was great. It was a great group of artists and we had a very enjoyable night.
Intermountain Society of Artists
Winsor Newton Masking Fluid