"WHAT MOOD DO YOU WANT?"

LIGHT HOUSE 

If you take Mike Bailey's 10-week class through Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society's workshop offering, "Watercolor Beyond the Obvious" he will have you go through your sketchbook and write on a number of pages in big, bold letters "WHAT MOOD DO YOU WANT?"   Why?  Because mood contributes significantly to content and content is what a painting is all about.  If you take the same image (one of the important concepts of the class) and change the mood, you have a very different response, a different message, a different content.  I have painted this same panorama from a scene my son photographed while on a boating excursion up in Washington State near the Canadian border.  By changing the color palette and the intensity, I created two different moods.  The composition and scale also contribute to the mood, but the color is the dominant contributor to the mood in these pieces.

These are small studies on Tyvek paper, in preparation for a larger painting.  

If you are curious about taking the workshop, it starts in January.  Just follow the link and check it out.  I have taken the class four times and it has been the most significant educational influence on my work.   Beginners to advanced painters gain significant value from this workshop.