This past weekend was the annual Clothesline Sale at the Leighton Centre.  As has become my routine I did a demo on both days.  As always it was a very enjoyable experience.

This year my focus was promoting my up coming workshop on Transparent Watercolour Portraits.

What made it particularly interesting is because it completely shook up my thinking about these transparent portraits.  I thought they had to be done by means of a slow deliberate build up of transparent layers.  However, since I was painting in front of people I had to make decisions quickly and on the fly.  What I learned is simply that I can work quickly and still get  great portraits.  I thought we would only get parts of one portrait done during the workshop.  Now the goal has changed completely.

This first image is a practice a did at home to get familiar with one of my subjects. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday I finished this full portrait of Shelby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday I had the opportunity to work on another portrait. This was a very interesting portrait to do because it was the first portrait of a man that I had done.  Also I did no preparation before working on it on-location. I completed 60% of it on site and finished it in the studio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all it was a great experience and once again the weather was beautiful except for the occasional gusts of wind that did manage to topple my easel, water and painting once.