Materials Needed for Workshops and Field Trips
Mini-Workshop: Crushing a Landscape into 2" x 3"
Materials Required: sketch pad, pencils (HB is a good choice), a view finder, and value scale
Ink Moist Brush Technique
Required:
- black waterproof ink — Kohinoor universal black (available in a squeeze bottle) or Pelikan no. 17 black, label "Drawing ink A." Note: I cannot vouch for other brands of ink, except to note that Higgins ink does not work well
- white for touch-up and highlights — Permanent white gouache or pro-white or bleed-proof white (not acrylic)
- brushes - watercolor rounds — Suggested sizes: #00 and #1. Note: Good brushes are imperative. "Good" means that the brushes come to a good point, and hold the point when loaded with paint. Sable brushes are recommended.
- eyedropper
- 6 - 8 small containers — babyfood jars work well
- water container
- rag or paper towels
- Arches hotpress 140 pound watercolor paper — 2 or 3 pieces, approx. 9 x 12 inches
- transfer paper — home-made or Saral-brand
- general art supplies — pencil, kneaded eraser, tracing or layout paper, removable tape, scissors or x-acto blade, ruler
Optional:
- small drawing lamp & extension cord
- colored ink — bring a second bottle of colored waterproof ink, if you would like to experiment. We will mix this with the black ink to create a "toned" ink, resulting a warmer or cooler ink wash
Note:
- Participants wishing to work ahead of time may bring a small drawing of a natural object(s) with good detail and indication of light and dark (5x7 or smaller). Drawing should be on tracing or layout paper.
- Small carvings or sculptures (like netsukes or small Mayan ceramic pieces) make good subjects. Seashells, botanical specimens, and bones (a small skull) also make excellent subjects.
- Questions?
Painting Objects in Watercolor with John Cody
Materials Needed:
- Pencil outline of a tracing from a photo.
- Arches 300 w. cold press Please note: No other paper will do.
- Windsor Newton masking fluid OR Incredible White Mask. Include the "Incredible nib" for the masking fluid
- small water color brushes, sizes 1, 2, 3 rounds
- cheap #3 brush round, for masking fluid. Synthetic brushes are acceptable
- 2 1/2" or larger Hake brush
- paper towels, scissors, plastic wrap, salt, pile of cheap drawing paper
- hair dryer
- water jars
- Plywood or other firm backing surface, size 11x 15 or larger
- masking tape
- Rubber cement pick-up gum
Drawing With Silverpoint
All supplies will be provided. Silverpoint drawing tools and other materials will be available for purchase from the instructor, if you wish.
Participants wishing to work ahead of time may bring a small drawing of a simple natural object(s) with good detail. Otherwise, the instructor will provide small objects/images suitable as subjects for silverpoint drawings.
A chicken, a duck, and a rabbit walked into a class — a refreshing twist on wildlife drawing
This class will begin in the out of doors, where we will bring live animals to begin the workshop. We may later go indoors to a classroom, if necessary, or if weather drives us indoors.
I usually bring at least a plastic garbage/leaf bag to sit on in case the ground is damp. If my luggage allows, I pack a gardening knee cushion as a seat. I would always recommend a hat, sunscreen, bug repellant, and drinking water. Binoculars may help you view an animal from a distance, which may lessen our impact on it. Also a camera may be helpful.
This class was also advertised as wildlife drawing and watercolor, so if you have watercolors, bring your existing supplies. If you are new to the medium, please consider from the list below. If you don’t wish to try out watercolor, bring any medium you are comfortable with. This is a drawing class, and really all that is necessary is a pencil and paper. We will experience adding other medias to our sketching.
Basic Materials:
- Medium-sized sketchbook (appx. 11x14” - just not a tiny one)
- Pencils, a variety of hardness
- Sharpener (manual, please. Electric grinders can frighten animals)
Optional Materials:
Bring whatever media you are comfortable with: watercolor, pen and ink, colored pencil... Watercolor is not mandatory, but the study will be fun if you had watercolors, so bring what you have!
Watercolor supplies:
- Paint: at minimum, a set of primary colors with which to mix neutral colors
- Watercolor paper: block or spiral bound, or a heavy weight sketch paper that accepts water. Most of these will have a hard backing, so you might not need a drawing board
- Brushes: at minimum: #6 or #7 round with point
- Several containers for holding water and cleaning brushes (pint size or margarine cups)
- paper towels
Flower Morphology Lab
Materials Needed: a loupe of some kind, a notebook and pencils, a 6" scale
Materials Provided: dissecting needles, razor blades, flowers, and dissecting scopes
Scientific & Biological-Based Designs in Leather
Materials Needed: cash ($10 or $20) for lab supply fee, a sketch of a design with a botanical or natural history motif in one of the below mentioned sizes
Attendees can choose from ONE of the following projects:
- Wallet/purse — measures 5" x 7", with a tooling area of 4.5" x (2.5" or 6"). Cost for materials for this project are $10.
- Small notebook — measures 8.5" x 12.25", with a tooling area of 5.5" x 8". Cost will be $20 (this project uses more leather).
Materials Provided: Instructor will provide all necessary supplies: tool sets, pre-cut leather, waxed thread, various liquid solutions, velcro closures and/or snaps. Participants may bring small buckles or other closure mechanisms if so desired.
Plein Air Chalk Pastels
Art Supplies
- kneaded erasure
- sketch book and pen or pencil
- masking tape
Pastels
- Soft pastels: Schminke, Great American Artworks, Sennelier, Unison
- Medium hardness pastels: Rembrandt, Art Spectrum, Winsor and Newton
- Hard pastels: Holbein, Nupastel
A Note on Buying Pastels
Buy individual pastels. (Full sets contain many colors you will never use. It’s cheaper to buy what you need.) You may buy them loose from an art supply store or from a catalog. If you order from a catalog try The Jerry’s Catalog or Dakota Art Pastels.
If you do buy a set, choose a set that says it is for landscapes.
You must have a wide range of values. If you are buying your first pastels, buy every other number of a particular color. For instance, Rembrants, Ultramarine Deep 506,10, 506,8, 506,7, 506,5. Do not buy any of the darkest Rembrants (any number with a suffix ,3). These colors have black added in.
Rembrandts are much less expensive than the other brands, but they are also not as saturated in pigments. I personally use Rembrants for the underpainting and then switch to the rich, saturated soft pastels. I particularly love and rely on Sennelier, Great American Artworks, and Unison. Please bring any additional pastels you have from home. Make sure that the colors that you buy or bring are lightfast.
Do not buy all the colors listed below. Do feel free to add any additional colors to what is listed below. You will need some warm and cool colors and a range of light to dark values of white, red, blue, yellow, orange, green, violet, and brown.
- Suggested Rembrants colors: Lemon Yellow, Deep Yellow, Permanent Rose, Red Violet Deep, Blue Violet, Ultramarine Deep, Phthalo Blue, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber.
- Suggested Sennelier: Van Dyck Brown, Lemon Yellow, Naples Yellow, Ruby Red, Chromium Green, Leaf Green, Cerulean Blue
- Suggested Unison: (Unison has very brilliant dark colors that have not had black added to them.) Blue Violet 12, Blue Violet 18, Brown Green Earth 14, 16, 18