Online Class: Watercolor Brushwork for Botanicals & Trees

Inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s trees and botanical-themed paintings, learn the specific techniques and concepts needed to practice and render expressive leaves, buds, flowers, and trees in confident, gestural brushstrokes in watercolor. Through interactive painting demonstrations and step-by-step guidance, teaching artist Sudeshna Sengupta will explain how to capture the sense of growth and life found in botanical subjects with sinuous strokes and expressive brushwork.

In addition to the reference photos provided before class, participants are welcome to set up their own plants or cuttings from the garden to draw and paint from.

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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 registration and again sent via email the day prior. Please register in advance to access the program.

Note that all program times are in Mountain Time.

Supplies needed for this class: 

• Paper: 11″ x 15″ or larger Acid-free Watercolor pad (tape-bound is preferable but wire-bound works as well). The recommended size of paper/pad is 12″ x 18″ if possible.
• Brushes:
  • Round and Flat Watercolor brushes (synthetic ‘Taklon’ brushes are fine): 4 to 5 Round brushes in the range of Sizes 6, 8, 10, 12, 14. 
  • Optional: A 1 Flat brush that’s 1⁄2” to 1.5” wide. Royal Soft-Grip or Simply Simmons Watercolor. Round brushes work well.
• Paints: Individual tubes are recommended but a box of half-pans may work as a starter set. Watercolor tubes if available, in these or similar colors:
  • Hansa Yellow; Indian Yellow or Quinacridone Gold; Pyrrole Orange or Vermillion; Carmine or Madder Lake Deep; Opera or Opera Pink or Opera Rose or Quinacridone Rose or Permanent Rose; Quinacridone Purple or Dioxazine/Carbazole violet or Permanent Purple/Violet; Ultramarine Blue; Manganese Blue Hue or Manganese Blue Nova or Pthalo Blue or Thalo Blue; Viridian; Sap Green or Leaf Green.
  • Recommended brands of watercolor paint tubes:
    • Student/Learner grade: Van Gogh, Grumbacher Academy, or W & N Cotman.
    • Professional grade: Holbein, M. Graham, Daniel Smith, or Winsor & Newton
• A 12-well circular palette with a larger center to mix paints. Jones Travel Palette is recommended.
• Additional Items:
  • A regular 2 pencil (a.k.a. HB) or 2B pencil and a white eraser.
  • Q-tips and paper towels or pieces of cotton rag. Cut-up pieces from a clean used t-shirt work well.
  • Masking tape if a watercolor pad is used instead of a watercolor block.
  • 2 to 3 empty glass jars or containers for holding water. Used plastic containers or wide-mouth smaller glass jars work well.
  • Toothpicks and or a blunt plastic tool such as a disposable plastic knife for sgraffito technique.
  • Optional: Hair dryer if available.

About the Instructor:

Sudeshna Sengupta’s career as a teaching artist spans multiple decades, continents, and cultures that inform her pedagogy for decolonizing studio art. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1985 from Visva-Bharati University, founded by the first non-European Nobel Laureate (1913) and humanist poet Rabindranath Tagore.

After teaching art and design at the college level in New Delhi, Seattle, and California, she taught at New Mexico State University-Alamogordo, where she established its first intaglio printmaking studio in 1995. Besides the O’Keeffe Museum, Sengupta teaches credit courses with the School of Art & Design of the Santa Fe Community College.

Her etchings and lithographs from the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi have been featured in a landmark exhibition on Women Printmakers of India at the NGMA-New Delhi in India. Her work is in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Association Musée d’Art Contemporain, France; Kala Institute, Berkeley, and more.

Sengupta also conducts workshops, short courses, lectures, and community-based art events focusing on multicultural and intercultural experiences that emphasize human, cultural, and environmental connectedness through creativity.

To learn more, please visit notes-and-doodles.com and visit her Instagram @santafe_online_art_studio

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.