Nicholas Simmons' Workshop

Last week I was lucky to take Nicholas Simmons' "Watercolor Unleashed" workshop in Idyllwild, CA.  For 3 days we got to experiment with watercolors and acrylics used thinly as watercolor.  It's amazing how many different results you can get by combining the two.  Here is my first demo piece using only acrylics.

Nick gave us reference pages of chinese writing, the Geisha and bamboo leaves and we were to come up with a composition using all three.  He showed us several fun techniques and the day flew by.  And no, I don't know what the writing says - I hope it's nothing bad.  This group of lettering just fit my paper the best and I really liked the shape of that top letter.

Our other project was done by copying a picture of a photo that he had abstracted and we used both transparent watercolor and thinned acrylics.  By using the combination of both, we were able to employ different techniques and get very cool results.  Here's the painting:

Because we were all using the same reference photo, there are about 15 versions of this floating around California but each one has a different look as each artist put their own spin on it.

This was such an informative workshop and so much fun.  I can't wait to try these techniques some more.  I was not really successful with a couple of them so I'm anxious to try again.

I had watched Nick's video before and learned so much from it that I didn't think I needed to take the workshop but I'm so glad I did because I learned so much more by having hands on practice with Nick giving feedback and that is something you can't get from a video.  If you ever have the chance to take one of his workshops, I would highly recommend it.  If not, get his video.  He's an amazing artist, has a unique contemporary painting style and is very generous in sharing his techniques.  He's also a really nice guy and kept us entertained with lots of stories.  Check out his website and you'll see how crazy creative his paintings are.