Eclectic Studio - Tammy Morrison-Koenig

Just a quick demo on how I painted this sailboat at sunset. Colors used: Indian Yellow, Napthol Red, Alizarin Crimson, Royal Blue, Burnt Sienna and Brillant Orange and permenant ink First draw out your image and mask off your sun spot - dry. I chose to use ink as a base to this painting applying it both directly and using it as a wash to add some shadows. Next wet the entire sky area. Working around your sun spot start by adding a graduated wash of indian yellow from the bottom to about 3/4 the way up, then add in alizarin crimson, and at the top work in a band of royal blue letting it run down a little. DRY The sky is not holding the weight I need it to so I wen over it again using the same colors and technique. This time adding a band of brilliant orange along the bottom. Looking better but still not quite there. So lets dry and move on to another area so that I can come back and judge the values. The sails were added using a mix of BS, brilliant orange and indian yellow. D...

It has been a long time since I posted a demo so I will take this opportunity and share with you my latest commission. This is Maia, her wonderful husband asked me to paint this gorgeous picture of his wife as a surprise for her birthday. Awe isn't he just so sweet. I have known this couple for many years and was so honoured when asked, and in all reality who could pass up such a beautiful model. :D Step 1: This is the third workup of the line drawing hence the 2 pieces of paper taped together, nothing fancy here. So I waited for a nice bright day taped her to the window and transferred her to my watercolor paper. The hard part is over. I think that probably my most challenging aspect of this project was the fact that I knew this lady and wanted to do her justice. Stage 2: Lets add color. So in this stage I masked out some key highlights, like the glints of lights from the underskirt and earring, and eyes. The other highlights, like the one on her shoulder I could work around be...

One of my students have asked me to post the demo that I did for a workshop on portraits from last week. This is a 2 hour painting (including dry time) using a limited pallette of quin gold, aliz crimson, Ultramarine blue, Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber.  Stage 1: Mask out any highlights or if you are really confident you can paint around them. Due to the small size of this little man I masked. Stage 2 Sunshine : Wet your paper into the hairline, background, even the whites of the eyes. Wait until the sheen is gone from the paper and start dropping in your mid mix of quin gold. I love this color for 2 reasons. 1 it lifts easy, which comes in handy when laying down your road map  and 2 it adds your sunshine.   DRY Stage 3 I added a little BS and BU just to place a few darks in the eyes and hair. DRY Then mix up a light mix of aliz crimson. This is a high power, staining color and should be used with care. It is way easier to add color ...

Wow it has been a long time since I have done one of these little tutorials/ paint alongs. Yesterday I thought I would paint up a little girl. I had no real person in mind, I just started with a basic line drawing getting her perspectives down and picking out my pallett of hmmm.... lets see... quin gold, perm red and cobalt blue, opera and i will toss a little burnt umber in at the end. Lets start by wetting her face and dropping in some color to get a base of where we want to go with this. At this point I will be working with only my yellow and red remember to work around your lights. Still working wet in wet and building up light layers of my yellow and reds all the time thinking about where the sun will hit her face. You will see I added just a dab of burnt umber to place the eyes. Dont forget to leave the highlights. Continue building up your layers of sunshine, but now it is time to start thinking about how and where your facial structures recede. The eye sockets ...

I really haven't been in the mood for anything this past week. And it has really been hard to get anything started let alone get anything completed. So when I saw this weeks WDE (weekly drawing event) and the challenge that went with it, I thought this would be just the escape that I needed. This is a small painting of an emerging hibiscus using only a 3 secondary color triad. For this painting, I chose Magenta, Brilliant orange and Cobalt turquoise. These are colors I seldom use so I thought I would try it out. Pretty flowers always make me feel better. :) Hope you enjoy 4.25 * 4.75 in watercolor on 140lb CP

I haven't posted a WIP is a long time so I thought I would stop by and show you this mountain bluebird painting I have been working on in between sewing projects. :) 9 * 12inch canvas board. Here are the first intial stages mostly just blocking in the large masses of color. starting to define the shape a bit more on the leaves and feather pattern Almost done! Went back in to reshape his head , eye and bottom breast a little. Added more shading under his body to tail feathers. I realized after photographing the last shot something was off - the lighting didnt match. So .... will be going back in today to try and give the tree more of a rounded shape by moving the shadows to the right side of the tree (hehehe oops... )and maybe pump up the highlights on some of the leaves. :)Till next time Happy Painting! 9 * 12 acrylic on canvas board signed and dated on both front and back Donated to Canadian Artists for the Poor

Full Sheet 22 * 30 in Mixed Media acrylic over a watercolor underpainting on 140 lb CP This is my first full sheet painting and it couldn't have been completed at a better time as I have just found out that my mentor/ teacher and friend has lost her battle with Cancer. I am hoping that she finds peace now. So I am dedicating this painting in her memory.

I have been experimenting lately with toned grounds. A toned background is a background that has been painted in a flat wash of color. This is done for 2 reasons, it seems to take away the intimidation of starting with a blank white canvas and it adds continuity to the painting as the undercoat will show through in spots. Some colors work better than others as a toned background. For this painting I use I started off by toning this little 2.5 * 2.5 inch canvas with cad. red and then applied my color dashes of color. For something so tiny it sure hold a lot of impact. The red under painting that is showing through seems to highlight the greens of the trees and the fields.

Another painting started .. i just love the expression on this teens face.. it represents that genre very well.(man i sound old all of a sudden) LOL Anyways just a simple pallette Skin tones - raw sienna, alizarin crimson, and ultramarine blue. Work slow .. develop your warms .. thin washes wet on wet and **let dry in between*** When you are waiting for the initial skin tones to dry move onto another area that does NOT touch and adjacent area that you have worked on. For the jacket I used just a simple wash of UMB and Burnt Sienna. Cobalt blue for a bounce of stronger color in the white shadows. Keep developing your skin tones. dampen a small area at a time, drop in your color and walk away. For the hat I used a light wash of perm. rose.. dry and then cobalt blue. Enhance the shadows and the stiching on the hat with a mix alizarin crimson and UMB that you have been using on the face. This will help to tie everythig together. I also used perm rose and cobalt underwashes on the s...

3.5 * 5.75 inch Inspired by this miniature painting I did of this street scene I thought I would tackle a 1/2 sheet version. Starting with the largest color masses I started to block in some local color, deepened the shadow side of the pillars and places the first wash of neutrals in the middle line of windows. and this is where I am right now. Popped in some more color in to the 2 remaining flags, some reflective shapes in the main cars window and added a little crimson to indicate where my darkest darks will be on the cars. This serves a 2 fold purpose. It will serve as a mapping system if my pencil lines get smudged, it also gives we a constant under painting color, which will add continuity once the subsequent glazes are applied. The rich darks are starting to get placed now. Keep in mind that this is just the initial glazes. It will become allot darker in the future. A little more work done on the foreground shadows and the reflections have been started on the cars. The ...

Hi everyone, Its been a bit since I posted last. Been kinda down dealing with all the snow we have been getting. From 25 to -2 and blizzard conditions in 24 hours. EEk. But my garden survived and is thriving.. now i just want the sun to peek out again. Anyways, here is a small painting I did for the WDE over at wetcanvas. I was drawn to this photo for the twisting winding shapes and the textures on the yellow bulbous masses. Now to try and capture that. After I drew out the general shapes and masked out the yellow bulbs I started an under painting with some gambouge for the sunshine and turquoise for the shadows with a little rose madder thrown in for good measure. ;) Next I came back with glazes of sap green for overall continuity. And some more glazes of turquoise and gamouge.. making sure the layers are dry. After the masking was remove I came back in and stippled in some lemon yellow, gambouge, lt red and orange. ** special note, take care not to cover the entire white space...