Welcome to my class!

I’m a watercolor artist and surface pattern designer. My subjects often feature botanicals, florals, landscapes and all sorts of creatures.

Today I want to focus on painting herbs straight from the garden. We will be working with an expressive style while emphasizing brush technique often called ‘dancing with the brush’.

This in depth course includes complete voiceover while I paint in real time. We will create a pair of paintings of lavender and sage while I teach some basic foundations of watercolor painting including brush technique, layering, wet into wet and dry brush painting.

I hope you can bring a piece of the garden indoors with you, and have a pair of beautiful paintings ready to hang on your wall.

Feel free to trace the attached images if it helps my paintings if it helps!

Supplies

N0. 6 or 8 round brush. A ten would work too. I’m using a princeton Neptune round number 8 and another natural hair number 8 (it’s an old brush so the brand is wiped off the handle, but I’ve been using it for over a decade.)
Princeton Neptune 1/2 Oval Wash (This brush is part of the Princeton Neptune Starter Set, it’s a great brush for florals and botanicals.
Winsor Violet by Winsor&Newton( a highly recommended purple shade of paint, as it has a wide value range ) but other brands will work great too.
Holbein Lilac (not a necessary color for this course, but it’s a softer paler hue. If you have just one purple tube of paint, you can also mix a bit of white watercolor paint or white gauche with it to create a paler hue.
Touches of cobalt blue
Sap Green by Winsor&Newton, but you can mix this shade easily with permanent green and raw sienna or another shade of yellow. Sometimes I add a bit of blue to make my greens lean a bit more sage.
Any shade of a darker brown, I’m using Vandyke brown, but raw umber, or burnt umber would work too.
Paper : cold pressed 140lb watercolor paper. It has some texture and works great with loose and expressive brush techniques. I’m using Arches, but waterford, fabriano, and other brands are great too. I’ve used Canson , but I’ve found that it dries unevenly sometimes. I use it mostly for color studies and practice.
White artists tape, but masking tape will do too. Artists’ tape is acid free so it won’t cause discoloration of your paper over time. But I often use masking tape and just remove it promptly once the painting is dry.

Any palette will do, I’m using a ceramic palette with wells and some room for mixing colors. I prefer ceramic because the water doesn’t bead up on the surface while mixing.

Paper towels or a cloth for dabbing off excess water.

A cup of clean water and a cup for dirty water

I will provide a sketch if you’d like to trace the herbs before painting them. Sometimes this helps to build confidence before attempting to paint without a sketch.

Bonnie Harger

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