We want to thank our wonderful guest instructors, Paul Wang and Barbara Luel, and Art Toolkit Founder Maria Coryell-Martin for leading workshops this winter! Stay tuned to our newsletter and Workshops page for future series announcements, and browse our archive of workshop recordings for these and other workshops.
Palette of Place: Discover Colors Around You with Maria Coryell-Martin
In Art Toolkit Founder Maria Coryell-Martin’s workshop, we learned how to create our own shorthand color notes and discovered limited palettes to capture the light, atmosphere, and details of our surroundings.
We loved the in-depth look at paint pigments: which paints granulate, which paints to combine to achieve a certain mood. For example, we learned that Deep Scarlet, an earthy red represented in the triad below, has informed many of Maria’s palette mixes in colder atmospheric landscapes!
If you’re interested in painting landscapes on location, this is the workshop for you! Maria shares so much knowledge about pigment composition and how to begin selecting colors based on transparency—when to use Cerulean Blue Chromium over Manganese Blue, for example—or add colors to your initial triad based on properties you’d like in your final painting.
Above all, Palette of Place offers principles to practice to translate the mood of a scene into colors, with tips and tricks for artists of all levels.
If this topic or approach grabs your interest, register for Recorded Access to Palette of Place, and visit Expeditionary Art to see more of Maria’s art. Recorded Access to Maria’s other offerings, Cloudscapes and Watercolor Fundamentals, are also available for to participants worldwide.
Nature’s Textures: Explore Density and Direction in Watercolor with Paul Wang
In Nature’s Textures, Paul Wang guided us through transforming flat surfaces into atmospheric, immersive environments. Paul began by systematically breaking down textures into the principles of density, direction, and design.
We loved the hands-on, three-dimensional aspect of this workshop, where we explored manipulating the surface of a painting in fun and interesting ways, using techniques such as blotting and lifting watercolor with a paper towel. Paul encouraged workshop participants to consider organic shapes and embrace them:
We left the workshop with a deeper understanding of both texture and the properties of paint, equipped with words to describe the nuances of surfaces, like bristly and crumbly, that went beyond just rough and smooth. We also loved Paul’s closing demonstration of his signature paint splatters!
We are excited to offer Recorded Access to all workshops, so if this topic or approach grabs your interest, head to our website to register for Nature’s Textures, and visit Paul’s website to see his artwork, classes, and other creative offerings.
Teacup du Jour: Practice Simple Subjects in Mixed Media with Barbara Luel
In Barbara’s workshop, we learned about the deceptively simple art of painting cups, and how painting one teacup a day can support the development of a daily art practice and help overcome creative blocks.
Barbara demonstrated how to draw ellipses in perspective and showed us the trick to artful splatters and splashes. We learned that adding a background helps define the perimeter of the subject, especially for white teacups.
We tried a variety of mixed media techniques, learning how to confidently combine colored pencils with watercolor for vibrant, bold lines, and accentuate highlights and fine details with gouache.
Barbara shared valuable techniques to elevate our watercolor sketches, such as enhancing textures and adding depth and reflection with dark and light watercolor pencils.
Register for Recorded Access to Teacup du Jour, and visit Barbara’s website to see her artwork, workshops, and other creative offerings.
Live Demos from Paul and Barbara
Recorded Access: Art Toolkit Workshops
Register for workshops and learn at your own pace! All of the workshops above are available via Recorded Access. Learn more on our Workshops page. If you are looking for free resource, we invite you to browse our archive of live demos for creative inspiration this season.
We always love to see what you make during our workshops, so tag us on socials @ArtToolkit! Thank you, and happy painting!