Botanical Landscapes with Roberta Rosenthal
Thursday mornings, 10 am – 1 pm
June 4, 11, 18, 25
$135, $125 members
Botanical Landscapes – Explorations into a variety of watercolor mediums
Suggested materials list (bring what you have):
Recommended Watercolor pencils:
Caran D’ache Supracolor II Aquarelle Soft pencils with a full range of 120 colors. Start with a basic set of 12 – 24 colors and then decide if you want to get more. Bluish Pale is a great blending color, warm and cool grays can offer some shadows without it being dirty graphite.
Tube watercolors and/or Gouache:
yellow light or lemon yellow, Burnt Sienna, Winsor red, cadmium yellow deep or Indian yellow, Vermillion, Permanent rose or Quinacridone rose, Quinacridone Violet or Magenta, French ultramarine (deep), Cobalt blue, Cerulean blue or Cinerous Blue, Hookers Green or Sap green. Winsor Newton designer gouache Rose Tyrian for bright cool pink/magenta. For darkest greens Holbein Shadow Green W 279. A tube of M. Graham white Designers gouache for adding hairs and veins.
Careful with over painting with dense pigments which may destroy the luminosity of a hues and tones in painting. Brands: Sennelier, Schminke, Holbein, M. Graham, or Winsor Newton. A warm and a cool hue for each basic color works well. Yellow, Red, Blue and Brown. I occasionally use Paynes gray and lamp black
Feathers are great for sweeping away any debris from erasing. Using the hand can add dirt or a thin layer of grease to the paper, and this inhibits the paint. Use a piece of tracing paper or paper towel under your hands to protect the paper from body moisture/grease and to keep finished areas clean. Blue artists watercolor tape. Scissors, single edge blade and emery board.
Paper:
Block or individual sheets 12 x 16 Arches hot press for botanical subjects using watercolor pencils. If using individual sheets, then a foam core board and artist’s watercolor tape all around for the paper to remain flat. If has backgrounds (landscape or still life) I prefer Arches cold press for color pencil and watercolor combined. Hahnemuhle hot press is excellent but more expensive.
Additional Materials:
.03 lead Mechanical pencil Kohinoor Technograph 5611 C or graphite pencil HB lead and good technical sharpener and a rubber cement pick up rubber.
Tracing paper my favorite is Borden Riley sheer trace parchment #90
Graphite Saral transfer paper or silver butter knife
Small disposable cups for mixing color, fine water mister, water dropper bottle, paper towels.
Porcelain Palette for watercolors, round watercolor brushes to blend or paint with. My preference for brushes is Raphael kolinsky sable 8404 #0, 1, 2, 4, and 6 or 8 for backgrounds. They are hard to come by. Try for Da Vinci, Escoda or another available brand.
Portfolio and tote bag to carry supplies.
For over 40 years Roberta shared her expertise with hundreds of students as an instructor in both Botanical Art and Business Practices for Artists at the famed New York Botanical Garden and more recently locally at Wallkill River Center for the Arts, Desmond Campus of Mount Saint Mary College, Wurtsboro Art Alliance, Catskill Art Society, Ellenville Museum Library and Pine Bush Library. Her art is exhibited internationally, collected by individuals and corporations. Roberta continues to travel finding unusual botanical specimens to paint or landscapes that she captures in plein air or sketches for future studio work. Her current home studio, Squirrel’s Nest, is located on top of Shawanga Mountain in Sullivan County, New York with a view of the Hudson Valley.
