We started the first meeting of 2020 with a dynamic presentation by our super talented member, Dana Daydodge. There was a large group of members ready to learn Dana’s secrets of Underpainting: Reworking old Paintings into new creations!
Dana is a classically trained artist, who has now made her mark in the Central Florida area. While her profession was as an operating room nurse, Dana also had the opportunity to attend the prestigious American Academy of Art in Chicago. Looking for “anywhere warmer than Chicago” to retire, lucky for us, she chose to retire in our backyard!
Dana said she tries to draw or paint every day. Her obvious talent in taking an old painting she didn’t like, and turning it into an award-winning painting works!
She suggested taking an old painting and finding shapes you like. Birds can be easily created from many shapes. Dana shared many examples of her reworked pieces, such as a portrait of a people, which became a colorful, whimsical painting of giraffes….a rhino was originally a painting of a cactus!
While still utilizing her watercolor paints, she added a big squiggle of white gouache onto her palette. But, she likes bold color (especially for backgrounds, bold color can cover up unwanted shapes)!
In addition to the tubes of Holbein watercolor and gouache, she had water soluble pencils (Faber Castell), crayons (Caran D’ache), ArtGraf graphite blocks, and Staedler watercolor Brush Pens to create these magical creations.
Dana also reiterated the importance of best quality paper. She uses 140lb. Cotton rag because she does numerous lifting and overpainting multiple times.
Dana, not only a talented artist but also one of our strongest supporters, not only generously gave of her time for our demo, but also donated one of her paintings to be raffled off! Needless to say, we quickly sold more raffle tickets.! Thank you, Dana, for donating your time, talent and passion to our membership. – Pam
Use gouache to overpaint areas with different colors.
Start with birds because they are easy to do.
A pink Faber-Castell pencil is used to form a beak.
You can overpaint only over a watercolor or acrylic painting. Oil will bleed through or crack.
Supplies she had: Gouache, Holbein watercolors, Staedtler watercolour brush pens, ArtGraf water soluble tailor chalk, Caran d’Ache Neocolor II artist crayons, and more.
