Interview with a Watercolorist: Jeff Atnip

Thank you for visiting Little House in the Suburbs. Please subscribe and you'll get great simple living tips and how-to articles delivered to your inbox, for free!This week we’ve got something a little different.Â* It’s a how-to, which obviously isn’t different for us, but it’s a bit more high-brow than our customary how to make lard soap or bug spray.Â* What it is is a step-by-step watercolor painting demo, something, I confess, I can never resist.Â* Turn on PBS when a painting show is on and I’m hypnotized.Â* And I’m not even the most <a href="http://www.salehandbagsbags.com/"><strong>cheap Coach handbags for sale</strong></a> amateur of artists. Before we post the demo tomorrow, today I’d like to introduce the artist and grill him a little about painting.Â* And for an extra treat, on Thursday, we’re going to give the original painting away.Â* We’ll tell you how to be in the running to win it at that time. Jeff Atnip is an award-winning artist with a master's degree in illustration from Syracuse University in New York.Â* He's a painter and graphic illustrator with thirty-plus years experience in various media, but his favorite is watercolor. Q: <a href="http://www.salehandbagsbags.com/"><strong>cheap Chanel handbags for sale</strong></a> Jeff, I love watercolor, too.Â* Partly because it makes me think of some of my favorite eighteenth century English novels filled with young ladies perched on pastoral hillsides painting landscapes.Â* Is this a romanticized stereotype, or was fine art instruction more a part of a young person's education than it is now? A: Watercolor goes way back to medieval times. Before the 20th century it was (with notable exceptions) used as a preliminary study medium to try out a composition before rendering it in oil on canvas. However, since then, it has achieved the status of a serious medium for finished paintings. I don't know about young ladies perched on pastoral hillsides, but I would caution them to keep an eye out for angry bulls. Q: Well, Jeff, I’ve got a whole new mental image of that scene now. Â* But still, when I think about life in a time before the computer or tv screen, I think about the ways people entertained themselves in their down time with music, needlework, recitation and the like.Â* I imagine painting must have played a greater role at that time, too. Do you think painting is becoming a lost art? A: Painting is not becoming a lost art. There are plenty of people out there painting, and new ones starting all the <a href="http://www.salehandbagsbags.com"><strong>cheap gucci handbags for sale</strong></a> time. However, even in the days before modern distractions, people who drew and painted were somewhat few and far between in any given community. I do wish more people would put down their iPhones and pick up a sketchbook and draw. There is nothing more fun to look at and read than an illustrated journal. Q: Many of our readers have chosen to or are hoping to retreat to the slow lane.Â* We knit or bake bread or grow our own food rather than buying things ready-made, not because it's easier, but because it helps nourish us in ways that are hard to explain.Â* I suspect painting has a similar effect.Â* Can you relate? A: Yes and no. Mastering any craft is long hard work with many frustrations. I still have to tear up bad paintings and throw them away on a regular basis. On the other hand there is no greater satisfaction than working with your hands and producing something good. It is especially satisfying to work "plein-aire" or outside painting a landscape while braving the elements. After a session like that I feel that I have been "in the arena". Q: We have a lot of home-schooling parents in our readership.Â* Do you think art instruction is important today and do you have any recommendations or suggestions in terms of incorporating a fine arts instruction curriculum into their children's education? A: Yes, there are two books I recommend: "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards "Drawing Made Easy" <a href="http://041823.com/view.php?id=33"><strong>Time Capsules: Best Men's Watches – Pierre Kunz Insanity ...</strong></a> by E. G. Lutz Q: You've painted a watercolor for our readers to win starting this Thursday, and you've created a tutorial describing how you painted it which we'll post tomorrow.Â* Can you tell us a little bit about what to expect? A: Sure. It is a semi-impressionistic watercolor of tomatoes on the vine. It is painted on an 8 x 10 inch piece of high quality watercolor paper. In the step-by-step tutorial I explain my process in detail with photos of the work at each stage from start to finish. Thanks, Jeff!