Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Pat Kelly-Sistrand


I'd like to introduce you to my wonderful instructor, Pat Kelly-Sistrand. I've been taking her watercolor class for a couple of years now - every Tuesday afternoon. She has taught me so much about this craft, and I want to publicly thank her for that! In her class, we always do "Critique" first thing, bringing in paintings that we have done over the week. She has such a good eye for finding just "that thing" that will bring your painting to life, and make it sing! I find myself trying to figure out what she's going to say! I make sure that I have all my darks and lights in, know where my light source is, and check composition! But, there seems to be always something else that it needs!


Now that I'm teaching my own class, I find that most of what I want to pass on to my students are tricks and techniques that I have learned in Pat's class. She's truly a gem!


When we left class yesterday, she challenged us to paint something from life - so I went and got some flowers and put them in a pot. Actually, this is exactly what my class will be doing tomorrow! I'm bringing in lots of flowers, and they're bringing in some vases, and they'll be painting an arrangement from life. I'm really not so happy with this painting (who knew that sweet-smelling stock is so hard to paint?) Maybe tomorrow I'll be better at it!

12" x 16" Watercolor





1 comment:

Barbra Joan said...

oh ,come on Nancy, this is darn good, I'm not at all good at painting from life... Here
you have done a good job. Makes me want to get outside and do it.