NINE PROJECTS!

There are nine projects in this class, so you can really have some fun with this. You can just do one when you have a spare moment! The projects below are the images I created in the workshop to guide you along. Watercolour is a wonderful 'watery' medium so you may get some slightly different results depending on your choice of colours and subject.

PROJECT 1 - Lots of Little Dogs

Okay so off we go. The first project is all about learning BIG THINGS in small images. You learn fast, but not investing too much in each little 'blob'. Strangely they come to life if you just keep going and trusting the process. You don't have to do dogs if you love another animal. Just have some ideas in your mind and even some photos if you wish to just get the general feeling from (the animal poses/shapes). I use my imagination but you can use pics. The main thing is not to get all tight here. Drawing from memory creates far better more exciting naive type pictures.

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PROJECT 2 - Enlarge a Single Simple Dog

We take one of the dogs from the small dogs and make him larger! The key here is to RETAIN the simple forms you achieved in the first exercise, not to get complicated - remember! :-)

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PROJECT 3 - A Character Dog from a Photo

Here we take that step a bit further and start to observe 'how to observe' shapes, forms and values. This will make it easier for you to create your paintings in the future. It's just a little bit of easy/light art training here.

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PROJECT 4 - A Corgi Type Dog (A more refined work)

Because we all have this feeling that we want to make a dog look like a dog or whatever animal it is, let's see if we can. Let's apply what we have learned and just put in a bit more effort. You may be VERY surprised by the results! I chose a corgi.

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PROJECT 5 - Lots of Dogs Again - (this time VERY fast)

This time I am not bothering with shading. I am just wanting to see if I have learned to loosen up and have fun. It's quite addictive, be warned!

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PROJECT 6 - Painting from 3D - Using Toy Animals

This seems like a kooky lesson, but the idea is to get you seeing things that are living (yeh, I know, they are plastic toys, but my imagination is pretty hot) - but seriously, to get over that worry of painting from life, we can try out first on toys! Also, look at the difference between painting something in a more realistic way and then a kind of expressive way.

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PROJECT 7 - Thirty Second Exercises (You can make as many terrible paintings as you like!)

This is pretty crazy... I put the clock on for 30 seconds and push myself to paint the same dog over and over. It was almost impossible but it forced me to see what I was constantly doing wrong. Try it, you learn so much!

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PROJECT 8 - Monsters (these are going to be very much from your own imagination OR the paints imagination!) Let it show you :-)

You may wonder WHY is she doing this? Well, again it's about pushing yourself to let the paint talk to you. You can discover where great artists get their crazy ideas in these following exercises. It might seem a bit dumb or unnecessary given your lovely dogs so far that look quite like 'dogs', but honestly, this is it! This is how we come up with ideas. Yes, you have to allow yourself to be a bit of a kid again.

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PROJECT 9 - Freeform Critters

(Similar to the previous exercise - but with even more letting go of control). Don't worry, you can steer it back to make sense with a few 'eyes, noses and mouths'. Do have fun with this. It's part of how we come up with incredibly unique ideas as artists.

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I would love to see what kooky ideas you come up with - so don't forget to post them in the project section so we can all really enjoy them. I WILL - I can tell you that for sure!

Thanks for joining me

Helen Norton xxx

Nicole Blais

Creating moments of joy...

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