Melinda Hannah "Portraits Painted with DANIEL SMITH PrimaTek Watercolors" Demo

Melinda Hannah "Portraits Painted with DANIEL SMITH PrimaTek Watercolors" Demo

Recently for a Special FREE Friday Demo at the DANIEL SMITH Seattle Store, Melinda Hannah was demonstrating Portraits using DANIEL SMITH PrimaTek Watercolors. 
 
This 3 hour demo we had scheduled in a “Hands On” period to work with the PrimaTek Watercolors in exercises that Melinda Hannah had suggested painting out….”Hearts“.
 
When she first suggested it I was thinking that hearts seemed a silly subject for an exercise, but I was game to support Melinda with it.  Well, was I surprised by the creative results - Great Idea Melinda!
 
"Hands On" painting PrimaTek Hearts with Melinda Hannah

"Hands On" painting PrimaTek Hearts with Melinda Hannah

Usually when people do paint outs to test color combinations they use a square or rectangle (maybe a circle or free-form) shape to apply their paint.  There is something inherently ridged about painting in some of those shapes, that dampens the creative process, you know….”keep inside the lines!”  Well, hearts are inherently an expressive shape and are fun to work with too.

 
Everyone began with tracing out the heart shape in pencil accross their paper and was the last of any formality….
 
Watching the hearts being painted out and seeing the colors blend in with one another, merging and producing beautiful painterly effects was almost magical.  There was no worry about keeping inside the lines of the penciled heart, in fact the painted outlines became expressive lines as people used them only as reference for fluid brush strokes.
 
Some of the combinations that were tried while I watched were Rhodonite Genuine (Rhodonite video), Serpentine Genuine, Zoisite Genuine, and
Bloodstone Genuine.  Melinda made suggestions of some color combinations to try, encouraged experimentation and sometimes called “STOP”, so that the hearts weren’t overworked loosing the cool effects. 
 
Here are 9 plus 9 more Hearts I played around with over the weekend in this slide show.  I used the 4 PrimaTeks listed above plus: Amethyst Genuine, Hematite Genuine, and Jadeite Genuine.  FYI, in the slide show I mislabeled the last two hearts of the first 9, they are actually Rhodonite and Hematite, and Jadeite and Hematite.
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I think this is a fun way (exercise) to get “unstuck” with creatively by playing with different color combinations in repeating heart shapes, sort of like a jazz musician doing jazz riffs to loosen up.,
 
Thanks Melinda for the demo and the fun “Hands On” exercise!
 
Every Day,  Express Yourself  with  ART….
 
~Deborah Burns
 
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