Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I found a photograph of these fishing shacks along the shore in New England and decided to paint it with a few changes. First I look for what is unnecessary and should be left out. There was a third fishing shack and I liked the composition better with just these two. Photo's show the dark values darker than reality and the area under the shacks and along the shore was to dark. There was a barely visible large rock which I lightened a

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I have been working more in my sketchbooks in preparation for my upcoming workshop in France. My sketchbook is a Hahnemuhle 6 x 9 inches with cold press watercolor paper. We finally had our first snow in Denver and I raced downtown to gather material for paintings. I love the wet snow which sticks to everything, streets, trees, utility poles, buildings, and vehicles. It also hides so many unnecessary details and helps me simplify. I h

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I teach an Introduction To Watercolor Class at the Art Students League of Denver and this is one of the demonstrations that I did for the class. It is one of my favorite classes because the students learn techniques and fundamentals that will save them countless hours of confusion and frustration. I get the students painting right away because I sincerely believe that they can learn faster and have more fun painting things rather than

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. I painted this Taos farm a few years ago and recently found some old photo's and decided to do it again. This time I used rough watercolor paper so that I could build more texture to create a different mood. I also rearranged a few things and changed some values to emphasize different areas. The rough paper did exactly what I wanted. When I dragged my brush full of paint over lighter dry washes, it created the dry brush textures I was

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Every summer I paint in different gardens in Denver and then when the weather changes I return to my studio and work on larger paintings inspired by those plein air garden studies. These are much more than just larger versions because I take different flowers from different paintings and arrange them as I see fit. My memory and imagination contribute quite a bit to these finished large floral paintings and I decided to create my own b

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Every year in May I teach a Watercolor Workshop in Taos New Mexico and sometimes we paint at the iconic Saint Francis Mission. The church has been painted by so many artists including Georgia O'Keeffe and it is a magnificent building with a romantic history. There is a narrow road that circles the mission and on the other side of the road I found this dilapidated adobe structure. It interested me because of its undulating lines, inter

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. One of my students showed me a photograph that she wanted to paint so we decided to work on it together. It held special memories for her so we couldn't deviate from the photo very much. With all the details in the flowers I thought it was important to keep the sky simple and choosing a blue gray helped to create a mood of a misty New England Day. Paintings should inspire thoughts or tell a story and, when I look at the two empty Ad