Watercolor Self-Portraits

Tiphoni

Watercolor can be your best friend or your worst enemy. If you try to make watercolor do what you want, it never will. However if you learn to flow with watercolor you receive surprising and beautiful results. In this workshop we will be exploring this relationship with the medium through self portraits. You will learn what makes a believable skin tone only using layers of red, blue and yellow, giving you a greater understanding of "transparent layer" color mixing.

Although this is a technique class you will be leaving with at least one if not several self portraits.

Supply List:

• Watercolor Brushes: (look for the softest feeling brushes you can find)
• Round, size 8 (suggested size).
• 1in or larger Flat (optional).
• Round, size 1 or 2 (optional).
• OR I highly reccommend a size 4 or 6 squirrel hair quill brush in place of all three of the previous brushes. Do not feel obligated to buy one unless you are serious about watercolor because they are expensive. But they are well worth the extra money.
  
  
• Watercolors
• Cotman brand are cheap and work just fine. Winsor Newton and Daniel Smith are quality brands. Must be tube watercolors, do not get cake or pan watercolors.
• Pick one red, one blue, and one yellow. It doesn't matter which, each will give you a fun range to play with.
• Warm Reds: Alizarim Crimson (recommended), Rose Madder Genuine, Quinadrone Red.
• Cool Reds: Cadmium Red Hue (its cheaper than real cadmium red) (recommended), Flame Red.
• Warm Blues: Ultramarine (recommended), Prussian, Cobalt.
• Cool Blues: Cerulean (recommended), Pthalo.
• Warm Yellows: Cadmium Yellow hue (recommended)
• Cool Yellow: Aureolin Yellow, Lemon Yellow.



• Watercolor Palette
• Highly recommend the largest one you can find (the small 8in rounds are much too tiny).
• This is a good example but it isn't required.



• Watercolor Paper:
• Highly recommend 1 pad of Arches cold or hot press atleast 9" x 12" glued on all sides. This eliminates warping and the need to use heavy weight watercolor paper.
• If you prefer get sheets of watercolor paper atleast 140 1bs, perferably 300 l
  
  
• Pencil


• There are alot of expensive items on this list but don't feel obligated to buy them. They will enhance your experience with the medium but you can always purchase them later if you want to continue with watercolor.