Donna Dickson painting workshop - Day 2 and 3

After a lunch out together, the afternoon was challenging. We had a much more difficult San Miguel de Allende street scene to draw out and then work on painting the dark sky, mottled plaster building, perspective and people. This was completely out of my comfort zone but I was here to learn so I took a big breath and began. Once again, we all painted from the same photo reference Donna provided.  I used one of  Donna's palettes and enjoyed the large mixing areas as well as her paints. Both these were done on 14" x 11"  Arches water colour paper.

This SMA street scene below was more challenging than it looks. Having to get perspective right, plaster buildings that make sense, crooked light posts, multiple sized flags and shadows were really challenging! Donna's demo's, instruction and encouragement made this class a really enjoyable learning experience. I would really recommend taking her class regardless of what your level of painting is, so much to learn and do. I really loved the local scenes and references. Donna also supplied a piece of local Mexican water colour paper which was different to paint on.

Paintings done by the class. You can see the variety of colours, sizes and centre of interest everyone chose. Amazing how different each painting is.

Donna Dickson water colour workshop - Day 1 and 2

Our kids gave me a coupon for a one day painting class in San Miguel de Allende for my birthday. That class was cancelled but I came upon a 3 day workshop by Donna Dickson that was starting a couple days after our arrival...perfect. What really intrigued me is that she was going to use a local scene or two in San Miguel de Allende (SMA) and Puerto Vallarta Mexico. I was in the class with 5 other artists and really enjoyed my time with them and under Donna's friendly and encouraging style of teaching. Donna did demo's as we gathered around her watching her mix and apply the water colours. Her encouragement in asking questions and explanations was helpful to all the different learning levels.

This was the first painting we did to put down a wash. Donna also teaches in Puerto Vallarta and all the references were hers. I had to borrow a palette and paints from Donna and brought a couple of brushes with me. The flat brush was actually an acrylic brush so the top colour did not blend as I was trying to start with the sky blending the colours down.

This is the second painting, but we did the sky first and let it completely dry. We painted a wide variety of strokes and mixed colours. I found it a bit challenging using a palette where I was unsure of what the colours were and it made for a lot of surprise mixing.

This was the third painting we did, again using local photos Donna took. I loved painting the mottled background. The photos below are the artists learning paintings.