Wine and Paint

I tried something different yesterday - I went to a "Wine and Paint" workshop! A small group of us all painted the same picture in a 3 hour period. We were guided by our teacher, who supplied everything, even our plastic aprons.

The approach and techniques were very different than my usual, so I learned a lot!
- we painted from the top to the bottom, without sketching
- my brush was bigger and bristlier than my norm
- our paints (acrylic) weren't thinned with water or extender, although we had a spray bottle handy in case we needed to keep the canvas damp longer
- we did clouds and snow using a dry brush
- lake reflections used an up-and-down stroke, then edges blurred with a side-to-side stroke with the edge of the brush

Do I like the end result? No, not the painting; yes, the new ideas*.

I definitely prefer studying the scene and sketching out the spaces first. I felt like I didn't really know what certain parts of the scene were supposed to be, and much of the painting reflects that :-\  I may try a larger brush, and I'll try holding it different ways. I think I will try a few more paintings using unthinned paint, and I will definitely practice the dry brush and reflection techniques!

Details of areas I like:

Dry-brush snow

Reflections

~~~
*and *of course* I liked the wine! :-)