What a pleasure to have Sarah Guy-Levar come demonstrate and share her knowledge of working northern lights watercolors on top of a stretched canvas. If you missed it, here are the highlights:
Use Gloves in a Bottle lotion to protect your hands!
Use cold press ground on a stretched canvas to prepare for watercolor to be able to better float on the surface.
GO BOLD but Use a limited palette of 3-4 colors (green, yellow, blue in this example).
Create strong diagonals that switch directions to form a horizon line using the rule of thirds.
Allow for watercolor to dry thoroughly before next steps (Sarah Guy-Levar brought a previously painted background for the purpose of the demo)
Allow the paint to thoroughly dry for a few hours before next steps.
Sarah brings a dried background created the day before to demonstrate her next steps.
Using a dark silhouette color, paint cream consistency watercolor with a brush onto rubber stamps of trees and stamp them to create a shoreline.
Scratch in some tree trunks or use Dr. pH Martin’s Bleed proof white to paint them in.
Use a clear UV spray to protect the painting and finish with Dorland’s wax medium rubbed off with a coffee filter.
A huge thank you again for this fun demonstration by Sarah Guy-Levar!
Sarah Guy-Levar has been the executive director of the Dorothy Molter Museum in Ely since 2007. When not hauling cases of Dorothy Molter’s Isle of Pines Root Beer she enjoys reading, singing, community theater, scrapbooking, camping, dog sledding, entertaining, Tuesday morning breakfast club, and, much like Dorothy Molter, coffee with friends. She has served as the Director of Corporate and Founder Relations at Metro State University, an Interpretative Supervisor for the Soudan Underground Mine Tours, and is a Sustaining Member Artist of the Art and Soul Gallery in Ely, MN. Please join us for an evening of watercolor enchantment from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Monday May 12th.
