I started using watercolors about two months ago, and as we progress in lessons, I can see all the possibilities that offers us. For this exercise, I created my own palette selecting earth tones´ and other two for mixing, as the most suitable to representfossils´ focusing my attention on the left one (attached scientific names). About ¿any discovery? not sure, but draw all privilege information that fossils provide us to know about landscapes in the pass, for example, and be able to express with volumes, reliefs, shadows, etc. that watercolors offers me, it makes me feel like an enthusiastic archaeologist finding some hidden and precious treasure , thank you.

• I went outside and did a quick painting.  The outdoor temperature is 27 degrees F.  I was wondering why my paint was clumping when painting the tree trunk.  First, I thought I was lifting the paper, but then I realized that the water was freezing on the paper.  I finished indoors.  Not very happy with the result, but I did capture the squirrel’s nest.

   

I have used watercolors before.  I found them difficult to use.  Either too wet or too dry.  With Liz’s instruction I feel more confident to try watercolors again.  It is exciting when I mix just the right color!

I've used paints and mixed before. This practice encouraged me to really look at the specific colors within the picture. I found my first assumption wasn't always correct and was amazed by the nuance I can achieve when mixing colors myself. I was surprised by how detailed even the most gross areas of an subject can be.

1. I have been playing around with watercolors for a little over a year now and it just gets more fun all the time.  I really appreciated the tips from Liz on color mixing opposing colors and using tints, tones and shades.  I have had trouble getting the right muted neutral colors that I needed before.  I did get the colors that I wanted by using a very limited palette.  I was able to mix yellow and permanent rose to get the browns that I wanted by adding Payne's gray and white.  3.  I am realizing that I can get to the same color a number of different ways i.e. browns made from red and green or yellow and purple.  I love putting different colors together and seeing what comes out.  The more that I do it the better I can get at matching the colors that I want.

Very little experience with watercolors (usually work with colored pencils or pastels). I loved playing with the palette. I must say that the colors I got didn't reproduce well on screen - my orange and purple were much deeper for example.  Don't know how that happened.  This is "multi-media:" I penciled in the deciduous trees while painting the fir trees... I also tried using a wash as a background. I like the possibilities it provides for creating a mood.

The dark evergreens and the browniest brown on the finch were the most challenging. 

I have trouble coming up with the blaze orange. Nothing seems bright enough.

That was fun, just as you promised! This was the first time I've ever touched watercolors with a brush, so there was lots of learning. The main thing I struggled with was getting my colors saturated enough, and not too washed out. Also, just learning what colors the different colors in my paint set made: the way they look as dry cakes was quite different from how the look when activated.

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This was my firs texperience with watercolors.  I've mostly used colored pencils.  It was actually more difficult thanI expected.  In fact after it dried I went back in with some colored pencil,  a black gel pen and a white gel pen. I did have trouble mixing the browns in my palette.  I would get to a spot where the color wasn't quite right, but I don't know my paints well enough to know how to get to where I wanted. Yes, focussing on the colors made me notice the different shades of gray as well as the different sades of brown. I also became very aware of the patterns in the feathers and my own inexperience in capturing them.

the finch color palette

No previous watercolor experience except during the Watercolor Basics for Birds Workshop. I really enjoy attempting to use watercolors.  For me, blending seems to be somewhat difficult when trying to get the exact same colors as on photos.  I seem to be more successful with blending when painting my drawings.  Of course, that leaves a margin for slightly different tones, tints and shades. I worked on blending  colors for the bird.  Realized how many different shades of gray in that one photo and how to work with the white, gray, and black to achieve the desired colors.  The breast required much blending.

I dabbled a little bit with watercolors before but this is the first time I created a palette for a picture.  It was fun experimenting to match the color I see in the picture or of an actual subject.

This is the first time I have ever used a palette. I love the colors. It is a beautiful exercise.

I have used watercolors before. I am happy with my palettes even though some of the colors took a lot of experimenting. The palettes are for the two pictures from the lesson.

We have had torrential rain all day so I didn't go outside to practice and worked on a houseplant instead!  The colours are a bit pale as I used to much water - the red in particular should be stronger.  Hopefully this will get better over time.

I have done watercolour previously but never got the hang of it. I have trouble controlling the water.  I found these exercises very helpful in looking closely at the colours to match them - I realised that the colours weren't always what I expected eg the rocks in the Wasatch mountains have a hint of red in them, whereas I would probably have treated them as grey. As with drawing it is a matter of painting what is there.  Doing the palette adding small quantities of colour at a time and testing was helpful.  If you add to much of a strong colour it overwhelms the weaker one, especially when adding black to deepen the shades.   I also made notes of the colours I used for future reference.

I really enjoyed this exercise. I learned how to mix colors and handle the moisture issue I always have with too much water. I still can't seem to get the detail I want, but it will take a lot of practice. My columbine came out ok, but the leaves were a bit wonky--too heavy an outline rather that a thin edging of maroon. 

I have never seriously used watercolors before other than as a kid.  I've never felt like I had a good eye for color so I felt a bit intimidated getting started.  It was easier than I thought, I think because I got so involved in the process - studying my subject and then playing with the mix of colors.  I really wanted to focus on the birds that have returned to my backyard this spring.  The weather has been so terrible the last few days that they mostly disappeared, so I just looked their pictures up on the Cornell website.  I was pleased with the colors I ended up with, though I wasn't so sure about them at the time.  Knowing where to start was a challenge, that is, I wondered about which initial color to use and whether to start light or dark and go from there.  Focusing so closely on the colors made me realize that there was a relationship between the colors in the palette.  For example, I started with my brightest color and then worked on the more muted colors, and as I did this I found that I wanted to add the color I had previously created to the color I was creating as it was closer to what I needed than what was in the paint set.  Nature had a plan for these birds, I guess!

I found this to be harder than I expected. I had trouble regulating the amount of water that was going into the paint. I found the beak of the bird color to be the hardest to mix because it isn't a bright yellow, but when I would put in darker colors, it was easy to overpower the yellow and I would start over again. I can see how experience makes this easier! 

I've been painting and exploring with watercolor for a the past five years, beginner level. Watercolor is fun, but not easy to paint with. Yet, I'm learning so much through this course, I found it easy to mix and experiment. I created a color pallet for my pansies, which I bought a week ago so as to paint them.. I didn't think of creating a pallet though! Now I did. It is more fun and the colors pop out when I create a pallet. I noticed the brightness of colors, Also, I  noticed the same color has tints, tones and shade. This made it easy to paint the subject. Some colors relate  to each other. The color theory make is so visible for me. This was an amazing experience. Below the experimentation I did with colors, tint, tone and shade. The pallet of colors.    

This is my first experience with watercolours.  It's not as difficult as I thought but I find that my colours are fading a bit after they dry.  I am using my children's dollar store watercolours so perhaps I need to upgrade.