Each day includes two demonstrations which are 40-60 minutes in length. The morning demonstration begins at 9am and the second afternoon demonstration begins at 12:30pm, leaving the student ample time to work on their painting using the subject matter of that day's demonstration.
Day one
Nature scenes: painting the quiet beauty of the high country; using mountains, trees, streams, lakes in a winter setting. The objective of this exercise is for the student to learn to apply the paint freely on the page and to start understanding how to use the white of the paper. When using transparent watercolor there is no white paint, so one must use the white of the paper to fulfill requirement for that color.
Day two
Country scenes: painting the rustic scenes that may include old barns, farm houses, silos, small villages/towns or other structures. The students will take the previous day exercise and place man-made structures in the natural landscape. Also at this time, the concepts of a light source and shadowing will be introduced.
Day three
City Scenes: painting the colorful street scenes, that will include cars, buildings, people, buses, street signals, signs, etc. The students are advised to carefully study all of the exciting little things one finds in a city scene and use them wisely. The trick to this exercise is determining what to include in your painting and, as importantly, what to leave out.
Day four
Beach scenes: painting the beaches, boats and buildings in the tropics, the confusion of a harbor scene with fishing boats, heavy equipment and working people; or the quite sea villages in any part of the world.
Day five
Nature Moods: The morning demonstration will consist of painting clouds, heavy with moisture; using any subject matter we have explored that week. The afternoon demonstration will consist of painting nature’s extremes: stormy skies, rain, wind, and snow, etc.
Frank Francese was born in Arizona in 1951 but has resided in Colorado for most of his life. He has been a professional artist since 1976 and achieved the groundwork for his profession while attending Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado.
Watercolors came to the forefront of Francese's artistic work in 1983. His liquid style is unique and distinctive. Frank enjoys working on a very wet surface, letting the pure color mix itself on the paper. His shapes are large and loose, often disregarding fine detail. Frank uses abrupt color changes of the same value with the white of the watercolor paper to bring his paintings to life. The subject matter for Francese watercolors is always varied, reflecting his national and international travels as well as local western Colorado scenes.