Mystery Painting

I wanted my camper students to have a successful experience painting a portrait. However, each painting must be completed in total class time of 2.5 hours, which causes a challenge. I decided to limit the portrait to three colors (black, cad yellow, cad red) and to use the upside-down picture concept - that people will often execute a drawing better when painting upside-down! I modified that slightly by teaching the class without showing a sample of the finished painting - it was a mystery! After the students had painted about half the painting (background and hair), I showed them the finished product for the first time. Most of the girls were really excited and intrigued. Some were doubtful that they could do it. Amazingly, the finished paintings were incredibly fun and creative... most people even gave their ladies a name!

I'd Like To Be There

This is a smaller painting, done as a sample for a class that I will be teaching this summer in Camp Shoshanim, Lake Como, PA. The girls are always wowed by how easy palm trees become with the help of a fan brush. Here I used a wet brush technique with the fan, and was happy with the results.

Bob Ross #1

This is one of my favorite paintings so far, perhaps because of the effort I put in. As a teacher, a lot of my paintings are executed quickly, and I don't usually push my limits. Here, I completed the painting but the sky niggled at me. I decided to redo it in a slightly different color scheme, and am really happy at the results. This is a Bob Ross painting, copied from one of his books.