Outdoor Painting - International Peace Gardens, Salt Lake City 7/14/26

Sample Itinerary:

6pm - Meet & Set-up

615-8 pm - Paint

Drive: International Peace Gardens (enter from the south east), Murray

Parkinglot is south of the entrance.

Activities: Outdoor Painting - Acrylic or watercolor flower painting. We will be finding a beautiful area in the gardens to work on painting close up flowers. There are so many places. We believe it's best to find good, comfortably shade and THEN find something to paint . The Chinese pagota is fun but detailed.

Watercolor Clinic:

Supplies (the big 3 of watercolor)

• Paper - Cold (better control) vs Hot (freely bleeds and mixes color) press; Arches paper the bestt; 140 lb (weight), Canson, blick, or arches brand, acid free (won't yellow), 100% cotton

• Paint - Buy Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna first; Magenta/yellow/manganese blue or cobalt blue second (printers colors); Watercolor pencils - fill in color and add water and move around color

  • Color - Alizarin crimson and thalo green make great black; Crayola has pretty decent color for cheap

• Brushes - sable (best); water-filled brushes

Step 1 - play with color

• Put down patches of water and add various colors to see how they react together. Just have fun with it. Practice putting down different amounts of water and adding color

• Use clear water to outline where you want colors to bleed. Thicken up the paint when you don't want it to bleed.

• Paint can be put on in different quantities with water - thin (tea), thicker (milk), thick (cream)

• Let it dry between layers

• You can use white pens or other markers after it dries to make things more sharp

Step 2 - sketch drawing

• Use HB or B pencil, harder the better, use mitten to keep from rubbing, can trace over online image, grafite rubbing, carbon copy onto nice paper

• Structure - create framework

• Gesture - flow of action

• Symbol of object vs drawing shapes of what you see (Betty Edwards - Drawing with the Right side of the Brain)

Step 3 - Block in colors, light to dark, use water liberally; dry between layers

Tips:

• Best Cheap Art Store - Blicks, Sugarhouse (best sales are in Sept and Jan - beginning of school semesters)

• Online Tutorials

  • Paint Crush - Kristy Rice,

  • Kristy Partridge watercolor 

  • Rebel Unicorn

  • The Mind of Watercolor

Gear: folding chair, easel or chair, 2 water bottles (one for dirty paint water, watercolor paints, pencils/erasers, palate or paper plate, brushes, watercolor paper on board, paper towels/tissues (for cleaning brushes), plastic bag (for garbage), sunhat, sunscreen