Online Class: Clouds & Skies with Watercolor Gradients

Join us for this beginning-to-intermediate level class to develop and sharpen your watercolor skills creating blended gradients and soft textures for watercolor skies. In the first part of the class, you will be guided through the pictorial concepts around the dramatic tonalities and contrasts that we admire in Georgia O’Keeffe’s clouds and skies. Through interactive demos and instructions, you will then be introduced to the hands-on techniques for creating watercolor gradients as well as resist, blotting, and lifting techniques among others to indicate cloud formations. 

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This class is suitable for youth ages 12 and up. Children are welcome to participate alongside their adults.

Space is limited, reservations required.

This program will take place via the video conferencing app – ZOOM. Details for accessing the Zoom meeting will be with your receipt upon registering and again sent via email the day prior. Please register in advance in order to access the program.

Note that all program times are in Mountain Time.

Supplies needed for this class:

• A set of watercolor paints (tubes or half pan)
• Watercolor pad or block of Strathmore 400 series or any other brand 9 x 12″ or 12 x 16″
• A pencil and eraser
• Watercolor brushes: 3-5 round brushes in a range of sizes 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 1 flat brush at least 1″ width
• Watercolor palette with multiple wells (a plastic palette works well)
• Q-tips
• Paper towel, tissues, or cloth rag for blotting and lifting color (cut-up T-shirts work well)
• Masking tape if using a watercolor pad (vs. watercolor block)
• 3 glass jars or plastic containers for water (used wide-mouthed yogurt containers work well)
• Optional: White wax crayon for resist techniques
• Optional: Hair dryer

About the Instructor:

Sudeshna Sengupta’s career as a teaching artist spans multiple decades, continents, and cultures that inform her pedagogy of decolonizing studio art. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1985 from Visva-Bharati, an international university founded in India, by the humanist poet Tagore, the first non-European Nobel Laureate (1913). After teaching art and design at the college level in New Delhi, Seattle, and California, she taught at NMSU-Alamogordo, where she established its first intaglio printmaking studio in 1995. Since moving to Santa Fe, she has been teaching courses in online studio art at the Santa Fe Community College. She also conducts workshops and short courses and presents lectures and community-based art events for various age groups with civic, cultural, and community organizations in the US and in India, often with a focus on multicultural and inter-cultural experiences that emphasize human, cultural, and environmental connectedness through creativity.  

This class is being offered on a sliding scale:

$10; minimal fee.

$20; covers the cost of the class.

$30; covers the cost of the class, plus a contribution to support educational programs.

Georgia O’Keeffe. Untitled (Windmills), 1916. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 3 5/8 x 4 3/4 inches. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Burnett Foundation. © Private Collection*. [2007.1.3] Photo: Tim Nighswander/IMAGING4ART