Michael Reardon's Wonderful Watercolor Workshop

A little late in posting this, but a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to take Michael Reardon's painting workshop through the Northwest Watercolor Society.  He is a wonderful teacher, and his paintings are amazing.  To see his work, go to www.mreardon.com.  He travels and loves to work plein air, which is so challenging!  Michael also won the Gabriel Prize in 2005--he was so helpful to me with support and great advice, before-during-and after my 3 months in France, I will be forever grateful.

As is the case with most workshops, you work completely out of your comfort zone with a completely new set of variables--different color palette, tools, paper--it's lucky to produce anything that looks decent! Of course, this was the case in Michael's workshop too.  I used his palette, had to dig out colors from my watercolor box that I have never used, had to buy new ones too.  To make a green, he underpaints in red then goes over it with Viridian--yikes! But it can work really well.

Another amazing thing he does is that instead of working in layers like most of us, he literally starts painting at the top of the paper and works his way down the sheet.  Such confidence and ability!  I have never seen anything like it, and yet, he is sooooo successful.  I really learned a lot. And he is just a really nice person too.  Thank you, Michael Reardon!

Below are a few small, quick studies, along with the painting I did the first day.

Vaux le Vicomte, Still Fountain