Description
Quick Watercolor Landscapes with Mary Smith
Date: Saturday, October 18, 2025
Time: 9:30am -3pm
Cost: Member $160/Non-Member $180
Learn to paint watercolor quickly with confidence. Enjoy painting sketches when you travel or go out to do plein air. Think of your watercolors as a visual diary.
The workshop will help watercolor artists to avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary detail and to enjoy the effects of working quickly.
This class will cover watercolor painting with an emphasis on sketching first, then painting quickly to capture an image. We will cover aspects of sketching and composition and then sketch from the landscape photos that I will provide. We might practice 10 minute paintings.
We’ll take a 30 minute break for lunch and chatting. Please bring a lunch.
We will paint from our sketches for about 2 hours each, then take a look at what we did in a short discussion at the end. These 2 or 3 paintings will be complete by the and of the session.
Supplies:
- Your own palette or an outdoor painting palette, foldable or with a cover (small white ones are sometimes available at Ocean State for a couple of dollars—see below.)
2. Pencils, erasers, sharpener, 6 x 8 spiral notebook.
3. Medium size brushes—-small, medium, large. Nothing smaller. Sizes 8, 12, 16 round and whatever else looks good, flat 1/2 and 1 inch brushes.
4. Watercolor paper pad or block—11 x 15 or 9 x 12 -—- OR a piece of 140 lb watercolor paper taped to a stiff backing, like foam core (not cardboard).
5. A roll of masking tape 3/4” or 1”, roll of paper towel. Kleenex, or old towel
6. Tube watercolors—5ml is fine, larger if you want. These can already be on your palette.
Suggested: Payne’s Grey, Ultramarine, Yellow Ochre, Aureolin, Brown Madder, Sepia, Sap Green, Alizarin. Plus any others you might already have.
7. Container for water.
8. A couple paperback books or a block to use to prop your pad up about 1-2” if needed.
Michael’s has watercolor tube paints (small size with 12 tubes is fine), sketchbooks,
watercolor paper pads, brushes available under the Artist’s Loft Brand.
Ocean State has small white palettes which are perfect for this class and for travel for $2.00.
Do not to bring dried out paint from years ago. Cheap paper. Blue tape. Tiny brushes.
About Mary:
For the past few years Mary has taught Plein air classes at the Cape Cod Art Center as well as Plein Air workshops at the Cape Cod Museum. Mary has also taught watercolor classes at the Sandwich Art Alliance.
In the past she taught private classes in painting and children’s art classes in Norwell and Pembroke, Mass. She also taught art classes at the Weymouth Naval Air Station and Landscape Architecture at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, Massachusetts. She has done a number of painting demonstrations in galleries and for various art groups. She has been painting for many years and has been lucky enough to win a few awards.
