My Newest Painting! Enjoy!

"Lowcountry Splendor" (acrylic) by Helen K. Beacham

When I wander through the plantations and gardens of our beautiful Lowcountry, I am often drawn to the scenes that are off the beaten path.  This particular scene is magical and can be found at Magnolia Plantation & Gardens on Hwy 61 between Charleston and Summerville, SC.  Driving down Hwy 61 is a breathtaking experience, in and of itself.  It builds up the suspense as you approach Magnolia!

2 New paintings

Just finished two more paintings in my latest series (on Yupo paper).

"An Invitation II" (watercolor on Yupo)

"Welcome Home II" (watercolor on Yupo)

Update on class painting

Initial wash (steps 1 & 2 below) and then the result of the first wash (or sometimes called a "glaze").  I usually always start this way and progress to darker glazes and more detail.  You can't focus just on one section of the painting...you've got to move around and cover the whole page before you know what to do next. 

This is actually a painting I've painted before (about 3-4 yrs ago?) and I'm forcing myself not to look at pictures of the first one.  Normally, if I re-do a scene, I'll want to make it look entirely differently than the first one, but because this is for a class, I want to give the students the experience of learning solid techniques that they can incorporate into their own memory banks...subsequent steps will be reflected in future blog updates.

Watercolor class tonight

Time for our new set of watercolor classes to start tonight!  We're going to focus on subjects such as this photo of a Charleston garden.  We don't want the background to fight the ironwork up close, so we're going to paint it much looser and allow the iron to play the leading role.  I'll post updates on our progress soon.