Update August 2025:

Thank you for the bonus lesson on koi fish! I loved the free-flowing way of painting them. The tips for adding details were absolutely on point throughout the lesson. In this lesson, I learnt how to scratch the paper to create white details, which was great! Thank you, Jane! I also repainted 'Day 2 – Ice Cream' on 100% cotton paper. It's not the best quality, but much better than paper.

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The course was a lot of fun!

I particularly liked the many tips for giving the picture "liveliness", such as setting highlights, painting shadows, leaving white areas etc.

Thank you dear Jane-Beata, you explained everything very well and clearly with your calm and friendly voice. Very nicely selected motifs that I was looking forward to at my next painting time (which was not 7 days in a row ;-)

And I have learned that 100% cotton is the best paper for creating beautiful color gradients. :-)

Day 1 - Peonies

I didn't have magenta and Prussian green, so I mixed other colors together.

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 1 - student project

Day 2 - Ice cream

I started painting with this picture. It was fascinating to see how the salt gave the colors effects and in the end I rubbed away just a little bit so that the crystals on the picture still glittered. I used it to make a birthday card for my sister. She was very pleased with the ice cream card. :-)

2024:

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 2 - student project

August 2025:

I used Schmincke Horodam Aquarell colors and Eseng Artist WP-300B 100% cotton. I painted the lines on the ice cream cone with white gouache because it didn't work to lift the paint with a flat brush.

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 3 - student project

Day 3 - Toucan

The toucan was pure joy - I loved painting the beak and the blobs with the bright colors. The tips with the white highlights were really great here!

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 4 - student project

Day 4 - Pears

I've never seen such red pears in real life ;-) I like how I was able to practice making the pears look three-dimensional by using dark color for the shadows.

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 5 - student project

Day 5 - Rose

At first I thought - oh dear, that looks complicated. But with the help of the great explanations, a rose was created step by step.

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 6 - student project

Day 6 - Red mushrooms

A great picture for using masking fluid. I really like the contrast between the red mushroom caps and the background.

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 7 - student project

Day 7 - Red parrot

As I liked the macaw parrots from the exercises so much, I painted them separately.

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 8 - student project

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 9 - student project

I could have painted more days together :-)

And there it was: A bonus lesson!

Day 8 - koi fish (bonus lesson)

In this lesson, I learnt how to scratch the paper to create white details, which was great! I painted the koi fish twice, bacause it was fun and I wanted to feel the difference between the quality of cotton paper.

Version 1 on Eseng Artist WP-300B 100% cotton:

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 10 - student project

Version 2 on Mangani 1404 Italia 100% cotton:

8 days and 8 ways - and a lot of fun! - image 11 - student project

Thank you Jane - it was a lot of fun!

Helena Mu

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