Past workshops, classes & demos

As they say a good time was had by all!

Susie Short is one of the founding members of GWG. She grew up in the Bandera. While she lived in Seattle she was a paint tester and an instructor for Daniel Smith. They sold a signature cutter brush called the “Susie Brush” from the prototype that she designed. Daniel Smith have a couple of Susie’s tutorials on their website Susie Short - DANIEL SMITH Artists’ Materials . She has an upcoming a solo Texas Legacy Hall of Honors exhibit at the Frontier Time Museum in Bandera.

Susie’s demo had an abundance of tips and pointers for us about her supplies and techniques. She uses Daniel Smith paints. Her core palette consists of two reds, two yellows, two blues and neutral tint. Colors made with a combination of pigments, such as purples, are more like dyes rather than organic paint. Paints that are not made with a combination of colors mix so much better with her core colors. She doesn’t use cadmium colors because of their opaqueness, unless she’s painting something specific that needs to use a certain cadmium. She doesn’t clean her palette until she is ready start to painting, she then does it with a wet paper towel. The paint will bead up more if you use a dry paper towel to clean the palette. Later it will settle back down. In order to not waste paint that has become dirty when cleaning her paints, she wets the top layer of paint and then places a paper towel over it and dabs the paper towel with a damp brush to pick up the dirty color. She uses Arches 140 lb paper. She does not tape it down. She teaches about using masking fluid. Do not shake masking fluid. That will create bubbles which will cause it to congeal. Molotow Masking Pen can be turned slowly so that no bubbles are formed. She stores masking fluid, such as Pebeo upside down. It forms a seal that keeps it fresher. Water Barrel brushes such as Niji waterbrushes or Pentel aqua waterbrushes are great for plein air. It dilutes as you paint. She likes to use Synthetic brushes such as Princeton or Daniel Smith. She finds that Sable brushes dump too much water for her style of painting. Susie is really rough on her brushes. She scrubs a lot. After her abuse a brush can lose its point. It then becomes a perfect flower brush that will make rounded petals. Paper towels are kept in her hand. She can use them to blot and to minimize the amount of water on the paper. She has Canson 140lb Mixed Media sketchbook for experimenting, practicing and doing studies.

Bluebonnets: She does not draw first or use pencil lines on her paper. She sculpts directly on the paper with her brush and paint. When working wet in wet you have limited control. When painting bluebonnets, she worked wet in wet to show us how to blot or paint around an area where the bluebonnets will be placed. Cobalt and Ultramarine blue were used for the bluebonnets. Rich Green Gold and a Blending Brush were used to paint behind to create the white top of the bluebonnet. She uses a paper towel for blotting. When pollinated, bluebonnets white "buttons" turns burgundy. Bluebonnets have 5 leaves sections. She drew stems with green and pink paint, then blotted after a bit, but not too soon. She painted around the button. She lifted the stem out. Sculpting tools or a stick were used to splatter masking fluid to preserve whites of landscape flowers viewed from a distance.. They are bigger in the foreground and smaller in the background. Rubber cement pickup is used to remove masking fluid.

Other Wildflowers: Red flowers were made with Quinacridone Rose and Hansa Yellow. Hansa Yellow will make the paint move. Experiment with making a Primrose by putting a wet drop of yellow into the still damp pink to see the yellow move. She mixed a green using Ultramarine Blue Rich Green Gold. If you splatter red next to green in the field before the green is dry, it will make brown. Prairie Paintbrush was made with Quinacridone Coral or Quinacridone Red (Vermillion is too staining) and a Purple. Test colors to see which of your reds spreads when dropped in wet & wet. Darker flowers are perfect for lifting stems. Put water down to wet stem. Count to 10 and then rub with paper towel to lift nonstaining paint.

Trees: Trees have tops, sides, and the background limbs. The branches won’t go over the leaves in front. The branches need to be lighter on the top side and where the light hits the top of bow of the tree. They are darker underneath. On the sides the tops of the branches are lighter. The Susie’s Brush is made of hog bristle. She mixes greens rather than using green straight form the tube. She mixed Ultramarine and Rich Green Gold. Browns were made with Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Ultramarine. A cellulose sponge makes an instant rock. A torn scrap of paper was used to make grass. She demonstrated trees done with the Susie brush by skimming around, using the texture of the paper, remembering to leaving sky holes. While it was still wet, she made a darker color to go on the bottoms. She let that dry and then put in the darkest color, blotting it with a paper towel. Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Ultramarine makes one the best browns. It also makes a good gray and a good ground. While it is still wet, she blots and puts in a darker shadow side. She took a regular brush and turned it on its side and used the texture of the paper to lay down paint. She used a cellulose sponge to make leaves.

Landscape Tips: She used the sponge to put in grass, leaving holes for the flowers. She dragged the sponge to make grass. She used a scrap of paper to preserve the white of the paper while dragging the sponge up over the paper to make grasses and an instant rock. Distant mountains were made with Ultramarine and Scarlet Rose. A good warm up is to just paint skies. Whenever you want to paint a landscape, you have a sky ready to go. Notes by Marsha Pape, GWS