Julie Hill, "Capturing Life with Brushstrokes" coming to VHAA October 2nd

by Sara Griggs 

Julie Hill , who is currently teaching an online computer watercolor course, and has taught at the Creative Arts Group in Sierra Madre, was the VHAA demonstrator for October. Julie shared her palette colors and brush preferences with the group. She uses as a reference photographs which she has taken on her iPad. For our demonstration she did a street scene of the intersection of Hollywood and Vine - buildings, cars, people and the requisite palm trees. She had lightly sketched her topic and applied frisket to save some of her whites prior to the meeting. Working quickly, Julie's brush danced across the paper. Her tips were great. One was if you have signage, people, cars or a door, that turns out to be a paintings focal point. Any time you have lettering melt it up a bit so that it doesn't look contrived and take the viewer out of the picture. You want the eye to question what it is seeing - keeping the viewer engaged. Try not to distract from the story or focal point that you are creating. Using contrasting warm and cool paints she tells her story. I think the group thoroughly enjoyed her demonstration and I envied the person who won her picture.


Please visit her website www.jhillpaintings.com and her artistic blog for a real treat and a listing of her upcoming workshops and events.

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