Daniel Smith Store in Seattle's FREE Weekend Demo with Kay Barnes

Last Saturday's FREE weekend demo at the

Seattle Daniel Smith Store

was with watercolor artist Kay Barnes .

Kay began the demo with a very lively chat about her background, and some of her painting philosophy. Kay is not only an expressive artist, she is also a very expressive teacher, and here are a few of the things she said to us during the demonstration:

"...it's just a piece of paper, not canvas you have to stretch and prime!....Watercolor is the easiest medium to get started in, it's less expensive and you get results sooner." "Most people who don't do watercolor don't realize how flexible it really is." "God doesn't like a stingy painter!...How many of you have thirsty paintings?" "Water is the vehicle to get the paint to move...put the water where you want the paint to go...pulling the wet to the dry to evenly distribute the color." "...don't try to control everything - allow things to happen." "Take time to stand back in AWE to allow watercolor to happen!"

Kay's demo painting was already sketched in and ready for watercolor. Kay told us she often uses an Artograph Prism Projector to sketch out her image from one of her photos, it saves a lot of time especially when teaching! The sketch was a close up of flamboyant yellow and red parrot tulip. Kay began her watercolor painting showing us how she wets the areas she is working on, applies her watercolor, talking while she paints..."all your brushstrokes count, make them curved and directional." "if I don't mix the colors on the paper (because they will turn gray) and allow time to mix on their own - they keep their own identity."

One of the brushes Kay told the group she was enjoying painting with, was a Daniel Smith Platinum Series 24 Squirrel/Synthetic Watercolor Brush because it has the water holding power (the squirrel) and springiness, flexibility and strength (the synthetic). After the demo, several people were interested in checking out the brush, and Kay gave a bonus impromptu talk about the brush by the brush counter...a natural teacher!

I always enjoy seeing artists' palettes and how they actually set them up to paint, and Kay's was no different. She told me she squeezes about 1/2 a tube on to the paint well for every color, then allows them to dry out until there is just a little "give" when touched with a finger. Kay prefers not to paint from freshly squeezed paint...too easy to get too much paint on the brush. Then, when she is ready to paint she sprays water over the paint on her palette a few minuets before painting to soften the watercolor paint. Kay does it this way because she has found it preserves the "tips" of her brushes to not try and "jam" paint onto the brush when the paint it too dry.

The demo was as entertaining as it was informative, Kay is a natural teacher. Kay has watercolor workshops and classes scheduled through her Eden Gallery at kaybarnes.com

If you missed this FREE demo on Floral watercolor painting,

Kay will be doing another at the:
Bellevue Daniel Smith Store .
Sunday, June 22nd at 12 & 2 pm
WATERCOLOR: Florals
Kay Barnes

Northwest Watercolor Society's Tour to See How Daniel Smith Makes Watercolor Paint

Last Wednesday, 13 board members of the Northwest Watercolor Society visited the Seattle Daniel Smith Store to tour the on-site manufacturing facilities where the Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors are made. The same manufacturing facilities are also where the Daniel Smith Original Oil Paint , Daniel Smith Ultimate Acrylic Paint , and Daniel Smith Printmaking Inks are made.

The tour was in four parts:

Since this was a VIP tour, it began with Katherine Taylor, Manager of the Bellevue Daniel Smith Store introducing John Cogley, owner of Daniel Smith, to the NWWS board-members. The group met at the front of the store where the video of "How Paint is Made - The Daniel Smith Way!" plays in the foyer of the Seattle Store. John talked to the NWWS group about what was happening on the video by explaining some of the processes, sharing stories and answering questions. It was really interesting to find out a few new things I had not previously learned before since John is very involved in the entire process beginning with being active in finding new minerals for Daniel Smith Prima Tek Paints .

David Pruneda, who works in the Seattle Store, took over for the next part of the tour by leading the group through the store to the room where the weekend FREE demos are held, it's also used as a Gallery. The group took seats to listen to David talk about the minerals used for making Daniel Smith Prima Tek Colors by showing and passing around some of the corresponding minerals such as Azurite Genuine . There were "rocks", and jars of powered minerals and examples of Prima Tek watercolors painted out on watercolor paper. There was also a map on display showing where some of the minerals come from...literally all over the world!

The next part of the tour was conducted by Ron Harmon, the long time Daniel Smith Chemist, who took us back into the manufacturing room. There Ron showed us the the 5 large to huge mixers that the pigments are mixed with the various liquids. Watercolor with Gum Arabic and water, Acrylic with acrylic emulsion, Oil with either safflower or linseed oil, and Lithographic ink with litho varnish. Next, are the various three roll mills that "take the pigment particles and tear them down" to transform the mixes into Daniel Smith paints and inks. While we were there, one of the mills was being used to refine Daniel Smith Quinacridone Gold Watercolor , so it was extra cool for the NWWS group to see. Lastly Ron lead the group over to see the two filling machines, one for watercolors and the other for acrylics, where the tubes of paint are filled. The inks are actually too thick for the fillers and the cans are hand filled beside the mills. Here is a trivia question for you...how are the labels applied to the tubes? Answer: by hand! Bonus answer: by Ron's daughter's hand!

Next, David lead the group back to the demo room to answer more questions...there is always so much to learn!

At the end of the tour, most of the group were amazed that while they "knew" that Daniel Smith manufactures its' name brand paints and inks, they had not realized that the Daniel Smith Watercolors , Acrylics and Oil Paints and the Printmaking inks are actually made in the same building as the Seattle Daniel Smith Store.

Next time you are visiting the Seattle Daniel Smith Store to pick up more art supplies, just remember that a couple of walls over on the south side, is where the magic of COLOR for your paintings is made!

The tours are now resuming after a long hiatus, and Daniel Smith Manufacturing Tours are available by appointment for groups of up to 20.

Boardmembers of the Northwest Watercolor Society, thank you for coming, we were happy to see you, and show you how our Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors are made!

Kirkland Artist Studio Tour

Mother's Day Weekend was also the Fifth Annual Kirkland Artist Studio Tour and I came with John Cogley, owner of Daniel Smith Artists' Materials, to visit the studios on the tour. We were able to visit the studios of Ann Fiser and Robert Fiser, Elizabeth Kincaid, Chris Sharp and Layla Jacobson before fatigue from the Camano Island Studio Tour the day before set in and cut short our itinerary for the day.

While at the Studio of Ann and Robert Fiser , Ann showed us a unique way she has of keeping her watercolor paint examples. Ann paints the watercolor on watercolor paper she has cut out approximately 1.5 by 6 inches from full color strength to 50% to a wash, labels it, punches a hole at the top and keeps it on a ring in much the same way as an interior designer would with paint samples. The advantage is that when she adds a new color to her collection Ann can easily slip it into place. Really a cool idea!

Elizabeth Kincaid had a very unique way of organizing her workspace and palette, she uses an entire butcher tray for each watercolor and each tray rests on plastic paper organizers, four high, that you buy at office supply stores! This way her colors don't get corrupted as she feels they do on a smaller palette. We also got to take a peek at a work in progress that is a real labor of love for Elizabeth, her extraordinarily complex "Tree of Life" watercolor painting.

Trying to make the rounds to both the Camano Island Studio Tour and the Kirkland Artist Studio Tour in a single weekend began to wear on us, so we decided to shorten the tour that Katherine Taylor (Manager of the Bellevue Daniel Smith Store) had planned for us.

Our last two stops were a group exhibit at Sharp Studio where we chatted a bit with Chris Sharp, and stopped to see Layla Jacobson and Petra Fursman and the paintings on display at the Petranella Fursman Studio.

When visiting each of the studios, John brought some Daniel Smith Art Supply goodies to give to the artists we visited, in the form of a hand full of tubes of Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors!

Watercolor Artist Tom Hoffman gave a FREE Watercolor Demo last Saturday at the Seattle Daniel Smith Store

WaterColor Artist Tom Hoffmann gave a FREE Watercolor Demonstration last Saturday, April 19, at our Daniel Smith Store in Seattle.

Tom talked about his painting philosophy, his creative process, shared with us some of his watercolor "sketches" from his travels in Mexico and painted a watercolor street scene from one of the sketches. It was especially interesting to listen to Tom talk about watercolor painting because one of his street scene paintings is on the cover of our new Daniel Smith Summer Sale Catalog.

Some of Toms' tips for the attendees were that for him it's about "what not to paint" that painting is a process of editing out everything but the essential visual keys. He later added that he "prefers to leave something for me [the viewer] to add to the piece".

He also described it as kind of like a horizontal "graph" or timeline....

Photo (too much info) <----> An artists balancing ("how little can you do and still tell the story") <----> sketch (too little info)

Tom shared with us how he mixes really rich, "not murky" darks (shadows) in his paintings by mixing Daniel Smith Watercolors in Phalo Blue, Quinacridone Red and Quinacridone Gold. In the new Daniel Smith Summer Sale Catalog on page 3, Tom talks more about this and other watercolor tips that he has found, definitly worth reading!

The audience was very attentive watching the painting come alive under Toms' brush and watercolor, it was really amazing to watch it happen.

A couple of other things Tom said that I noted down because I thought they were interesting and motivational were: "The role of the pencil is to allow me to confidently put the paint down". Darks are the "narrative content, and the forms that are worth looking at". "I like gorgeous paint more than anything else". And lastly, "I want people to say: 'Hell, I can do that!'"

Tom Hoffmann is an instructor atthe Gage Academy of Art and will be offering workshops later this year through Daniel Smith, more information to be posted later. The workshops will be an excellent opportunity to learn from a very good instructor.