2025 watercolor workshops with Leigh Ellis

I have taken several watercolor workshops with Leigh Ellis through the years.  I love her paintings.  They glow with light and energy.  So when I heard she had weekly small group workshops I quickly signed up.

The first workshop we worked on painting light.  We did two still paintings one of white flowers and the other of a hay field in the sun.    

The flowers were white on a dark background.  To retain the white of the flowers we masked them, then painted the background.

  

Once the background was dry, the masking was removed and we painted the branches as flower shadows.

The Hay field was painted in several steps.  First the barn and highlights of sun were masked.  Then a double wash of blue sky and yellow field were layed down on the paper.  Then the tree line at the fare end of the field and the grasses along the front are painted in.  

Below, you can see the painting with masking (pale blue on the barn and hay bales), the washes of blue sky and yellow field, pale green trees in the background and grasses in the foreground.

I did some color testing to determine how I would handle the barn and trees.  

I used quinacridone gold orange and rose; along with mixed greens from cobalt and phalo blue.  

I find testing the color combinations and mixes before adding them to the painting is an important step.  

                                    Below is the finished painting