Wow is all I can say. Finally, Austin's watercolor group was able to host the epitome of watercolorists, Laurin McCracken. He lives in Ft Worth so drove down to Austin to jury our Fall Show before starting an unforgettable work shop for three days with a fortunate few painters. Luckily, that included my daughter, Leslie and me.
This was our reference photo, a grouping of four antique bottles with their own shapes, scratches and color characteristics reflecting on each other with his signature black background. He had prepared a detailed sketch which we transferred onto Fabriano cold press paper provided by Fabriano. (Huge thank you!)
Laurin spoke throughout the workshop with information on achieving the best outcomes as we painted. He also encouraged us not to copy him but to make decisions based on what we saw. Some of these isms that he has proven included using warm water in a full clear container, flicking water off the brush before loading your pigment, protecting edges with a specific tape as we navigated the scene and just how much pigment to apply. I will likely never paint without clear shelf liner (thank you!) protecting unpainted areas of my artwork ...and the glove is genius.
We maneuvered around him as he demonstrated each phase, then did our best to approach ur own in the same manner.
Brushes by Escoda (Kolinsky Reserva being the ultimate) , paper by Fabriano and paint by Daniel Smith (huge thank you!) are his go to's. I agree with all of these selections but I knew very little of the history behind these companies and their products. Laurin has been to their businesses and corresponds with them regularly. He also uses American Frame which I do as well owned by two women who are not only very helpful but keep a simple profile of quality frames and turn around your order in a short time period.
The class was held at Bee Cave Arts Foundation in Hill Country Galleria. It included many of our local artists including Kathleen Stafford (who is the WWG Work shop chair along with Lonni Swanson), Beatrice Baldwin, Janet Fulk, Shevawn Eisman, Debbie Wilhite, Rashmi Thakur , our president, two male doctors who are solid regulars, a couple who traveled back and forth from San Antonio daily plus more ladies from Dripping Springs and Bastrop. Most of these are fine, award winning artists in their own right but we are not in Laurin's arena and we know it. It would be difficult to explain his academic approach to all of this. He is an encyclopedia of information from ruling pens to the way to store masking fluid to avoid bubbles, with a mind that wants to know the reason behind every brushstroke and the exact tool to use down to blotting paper!
My efforts as we navigated all of the information we needed to paint each bottle.
He gave d
etailed instruction regarding the use of McCracken Black ( we each received a tube from himthanks to Daniel Smith) in a yogurt type thickness for a scumbling application over a pre painted side of our paper. Here you see Leslie and me enjoying this experience! BTW she and Laurin had so much in common both being Rice/Princeton trained architects who, despite their age difference, had many of the same instructors. They really hit it off!
Thank you, Laurin!
