Untitled
10  1/4" x 5  3/4"
260 mm x 145 mm
Watercolor on Arches 300gsm Hot Pressed paper
© Susan-Harrison-Tustain

New Watercolor Painting release

The aged door of a dry stone cottage built in 1904. Set high on a hill overlooking Fruitlands Central Otago, New Zealand - Mitchells Cottage stands as a poignant reminder of New Zealands early settlers.  Within these walls we feel their struggles and their challenges - but this home is also a testament to the resilience and incredible natural beauty of this area of New Zealand.

This is not just a watercolor painting of the time-worn door lock and latch -  and a tongue and groove wood door. This piece has a timeless character that epitomizes an era that was austere and very real. I wanted to capture the wholesome rawness of this place, but also a feeling of 'home fires burning'. My attention was drawn to this handle and the people who have used it, worn the patina on the old brass and lived their wholesome, hard lives with focus and enduring fortitude.

I was compelled to capture the emotion I felt when I stepped into this cottage. When I look at this watercolor painting I can feel there has been a presence of these stoical people and that, to me, is what my painting is all about. That is why I paint. My paintings are a tribute to the people or places that reach out and make their mark on my emotion and enduring thoughts and memories.

Feel free to contact me via my contact form if you have any queries.

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Learn about my Watercolor Painting Technique in my Watercolor DVDs.

Learn about how to paint in my Free Art Lessons.

© Susan Harrison-Tustain - Watercolor Painting on 140 Lb hot pressed Arches Watercolor Paper

I have just been asked a question regarding the surface of Hot Pressed papers. I will post the answer here as I am sure this explanation may also be of interest to you all:

I find the best surface for my purposes is Arches 140lbs Hot Pressed paper.

Hot pressed paper does require stretching if you are using water on your painting. However a study painted in dry brush probably would not require stretching.

There is also 300lb hot pressed available. This may not need stretching as long as you are not using a great deal of water.

When painting in my usual style of watercolor realism, no matter which weight of paper I was using, I would still need to stretch it as I use a great deal of water when painting in my style.

I generally use 140lbs Arches Hot Pressed for a number of reasons:

It has the hardest gum size on the surface which means you have more time to manoeuvre your paint before it is absorbed into the paper.

I also means it can take a lot of battering without showing distress to the surface or fibres.

Arches Hot Pressed paper is generally quite smooth so it is also ideal for reproduction purposes.

It is interesting to note that Arches 90lb and Arches 300lbs Hot Pressed has much less size on the surface so the paint and water is absorbed much more quickly than it is when using 180lbs Hot Pressed.
90lbs Hot Pressed also buckles readily even if stretched.

I immerse my paper for 3 minutes. Then stretch it using water activated watercolor stretching tape.
I dry it flat.

The heavier the paper does not mean it is a better paper to paint on. It simply means different weight papers have different gum sized surfaces as explained above. But each paper manufacturer will use a different set of criteria.

Fabriano Artistico is a good paper but the size is very soft. It is easier to damage the surface and the paper absorbs water very quickly.

It is a good paper but for different painting methods than mine.

I do hope that helps.

You can also find information stretching paper here:
Susan's Free Art Lessons

Learn  about my Watercolor Painting Technique in my Watercolor DVDs.

Here is my newest video clip created for you. It shows you how to mix the perfect green for your watercolor paintings.
The video clip is posted here on my blog but please wait until it is fully loaded. It may need a moment.
Enjoy!

My Youtube videos will hopefully inspire as well as give visual information and insight into my inspiration, my methods and my materials. If you enjoy the videos - do subscribe (it's free) and I think that will mean you will get to know when more new videos will be released.

If you find them helpful and enjoyable - do click the 'like' button because this will lift them in the ratings which then means other artists will find them more easily and will be able to enjoy them too.

Here is the Youtube link that will take you to all the video clips. The new clips are the ones where I am wearing a red top. You can see that easily in the thumbnail images. But do enjoy the other videos too. Full of information!

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=susan+harrison-tustain&aq=3&oq=susan+harr

Have fun everyone - these are created for you!

Great news! I have several new Youtube video clips that have only just been released.

The Video clips are posted here on my blog, but just wait a moment until they are fully loaded!

These cover:

- My journey to become a professional artist

- My magical palette - my limited palette of just 12 colors

- My brushes and paper

- My easy to make Isolating tool

- and others

Keep watching for future videos where I will show you how to create fantastic black and dark colors as well as the perfect green mixes.

There will be many others as time allows.

Click here to view some of these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNMEllAoY-w&feature=related

Don't forget to subscribe and click "like" if you enjoy them. Youtube loves to have that feedback

Have fun!

New painting release

With my 'Recollection' exhibition on the horizon at the end of October, it is time to release a new painting. As you are one of my subscribers to my blog you are the first to see each new piece as it is released into my exhibition sneak preview page!

Rush Cottage
13" x 6"
330mm x 150mm
Watercolor on Arches 300gsm Hot Pressed paper
© Susan-Harrison-Tustain

Here is my watercolor painting of a 1930's cottage wash-house scene. We love to stay in this cottage for a few day's break. It is nestled amongst the vines in a beautiful vineyard in Havelock North, Hastings, New Zealand. Often used for wedding guests, this cottage is full of character and in the Spring, Summer and Autumn you can eat at the outside table in the garden, surrounded by vines and while absorbing the old world atmosphere. Saturday morning Farmers Market is held just two minutes walking distance from the cottage. A secluded hide-away full of inspiration for many paintings!

I love to paint the ordinary everyday life scenes that are often overlooked. These things captivate me, the patina in the old concrete sink, the brass taps and pipes, the aged wood, and window latches, the beckoning scene at the window - all these things could easily go unnoticed. But when I look at this watercolor painting, my thoughts go back to this 1930's cottage wash- house. I imagine all the people who have used this work-space, scrubbed and laundered, while looking out to this restful cameo outside, framed by ivy.

This painting is about those people - a portrait of an earlier time. I hope you enjoy it.

Recollection Exhibition 2011

I love to hear visitors talk of my exhibitions and hear they still live in the memories of those who attended. My previous exhibition was no exception. As usual we saw approx 3000 visitors attend the two day event. Guests came from all over New Zealand, Australia and we also had some from the US.

As you can imagine a major exhibition such as this takes a huge amount of organization and time to prepare for. The oil and watercolor paintings were the result of four years work and the attention to every detail of the exhibition arrangements began over a year prior to the exhibition. Lighting, easels, scaffolding for the lighting, magazine articles and interviews, books, invitations, classical trio playing - dressed in white, staff, advertising, tickets, and of course not least of all - there is the four year's of oil and watercolor paintings that are unveiled at each exhibition. These paintings show-case my inspiration for all of the things that take my breath away. It is a huge show and one I love to create for the visitors.

My goal is to make my exhibitions something much awaited and also remembered. Many of you travel great distances to attend and I feel it is my pleasure to make the exhibition something you will enjoy in anticipation,

Click on the banner below to visit my painting exhibition page where you can find details on the exhibition including a sneak preview of some of my exhibition oil and watercolor paintings.

Feel free to contact me via my contact form if you have any queries.

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Learn  about my Watercolor Painting Technique in my Watercolor DVDs.

Learn about how to paint in my Free Art Lessons.

Learn more about how to create a glow in your watercolor paintings

Create form with monotone using warm and cool colors

Untitled Watercolor painting : Parrot Tulip
© Susan Harrison-Tustain

Richard and I were wandering around Victoria on Vancouver Island  Canada - such a beautiful place. Alongside a grand hotel I spotted a flower bed of stunning Parrot Tulips. I loved their frilled edges and form, especially they way they cupped the stamen as if protecting it from harm. Maybe it was to encapture a bee so it didn't fly away before completing pollination! I am awed by the beauty of such things.

Can you see the way the red glows in this painting? My underlayer of yellow creates this glow and even though there are layers of red over the top of the yellow - can you see how it still permeates through and lifts the red into a warm glow - despite being in shadow? Notice the highlights and the variety of red hues I have mixed to create the form of this glorious Parrot Tulip.

I will write a lesson in my next newsletter where I will discuss how to create convincing and beautiful form using warm and cool colors but limited to an almost monotone hue as in this painting.

Do ensure you are on my mailing list so you will receive my complimentary newsletters which are full of news and also inspiration such as this.

The response to my 15 page feature article "Is it Oil or is it Watercolor?" in the April/May issue of International Artist Magazine has been overwhelming and humbling! Thank you to you all for your comments. This article seems to have really hit a chord with so many of you - I wanted to write and share my thoughts and observations, bringing attention to important issues that haven't been highlighted before.

Passionate about painting and helping artists and lovers of fine art - I love to share all I know about painting through articles such as this - as well as via my art instruction Watercolor DVDs and workshops. I feel my teaching - using insights into my thought processes, reasoning and deliberation - are the best way to pass on the important breakthroughs that I have found to have made the biggest differences to my work. I believe teaching in this way is an enduring way to introduce new thoughts and open new concepts and depths of understanding for artists. I often liken it to opening a window and showing all the possibilities and potential that are there in the methods and techniques I use. It's so exciting to see you all fly.

Mount Maunganui, Pacific Ocean and Tauranga Harbour from our country garden

The excitement is mounting with my major exhibition only five months away:

I have heard from many of you who are planning to travel to New Zealand for my exhibition at the end of October this year. If you are planning to come to NZ for my exhibition, do let me know in advance so I can ensure you have tickets to my Friday evening invitation-only formal opening function. The exhibition is open for everyone to visit and view on Saturday and Sunday 29th and 30th but the Friday night function has a limit of just 320 places. These are taken very quickly  once they are announced in early October - so if you are travelling great distances and would like to attend this special function - please do contact us to avoid disappointment.

New Zealand is hosting the Rugby World Cup and the final is played the weekend before my exhibition. Our Tauranga Festival of Arts will also be running for the two weeks running up to my exhibition - finishing on the Sunday 30th - which is also the final day my painting collection will be on view to the public. It will be a busy time and is a great time to visit New Zealand and expecially our beautiful Bay of Plenty region. We are close enough to Auckland to make it a lovely drive - but far enough away that the busy-ness of the World Cup will not dramatcially affect our lovely peaceful and stunningly beautiful sanctuary.

You can visit the page below to view some of my latest collection of work. These watercolor, oil and mixed media paintings will be hung and can be viewed at my 'Recollection' exhibition in October this year. Below these paintings you will find information on my exhibition:

I will announce more exciting news as the exhibition gets closer, but in the meantime here are some links that may be of interest to those who have asked about our region:

Tauranga and Mount Maunganui

Click on the link below to see some images that will show you what is on our doorstep: (converted to a tiny URL for your convenience):

http://tinyurl.com/3qy5tce

Here are some sites that will give you more information:

http://www.tourism.net.nz/region/region/bay-of-plenty/attractions-and-activities/

http://www.bayofplentynz.com/presentation/tbopPres.aspx?ID=7939

Newsletter

I will be working on my newsletter this week. Feel free to register on my mailing list to receive my-far-too infrequent newsletters. I wish I had time to write more! In these you will read any breaking news on my art, articles and magazine features, books, new DVDs, workshops and I also often include painting breakthroughs that I have just discovered.

Click here to join up for this complimentary newsletter

In the mean time I wish you all the very best. I will get back to my studio and get my brushes flying as the exhibition is very close now! I like to make it a beautiful event that stays in the memories of all those who visit. We usually see approx 3000 visitors in the two days of the exhibition so you can imagine how I love to make it something very special for everyone.

Susan

"Back From the Brink"
Oil on Belgian Linen
size: 660 mm x 510 mm - 26"x20"
© Susan Harrison-Tustain

Time for sneak preview of another exhibition painting.

On the 'Endangered Species' list, the New Zealand takahe was thought to be extinct. In the 1948 a small number were found in the Murcheson Mountains.
Inspired by the prehistoric appearance of the large red beak and iridescent plumage, my oil painting grew from a drive to create greater awareness of this incredibly fascinating creature.

Crouched down and hidden by tussock, I was awed to see such a stunningly beautiful and large, rarely-seen bird come out of native bush into the tussock. It was a breath taking experience, not just because it is a rare bird - but also because the bird is incredibly beautiful with it's luminous opalescent blue and green plumage. I am sure I stopped breathing for a while as I didn't want to make a sound or intrude. To scare them or to influence their behaviour would have altered their demeanour. I felt privileged to be there at that instant when three (one adult and two juvenile) emerged from the bush. I lay silent, observing, sketching and studying how best to portray this bird, while trying to draw the detail and make field notes before the moment was gone.

I love my paintings to say something about the subject I am portraying. In this case this painting composition speaks of the journey of these beautiful birds which were, until recently, thought to be extinct. With the help of the Department of Conservation in Te Anau, New Zealand - these birds are slowly coming back from the brink of extinction. There are still only 280 birds in existance so they are on the endangered species list of New Zealand birds. My composition epitomizes this part of their journey as they emerge from the bush and tussock - back into the light. I wanted to depict the takahe in a natural setting, foraging, unaware that we, the viewers of the painting are observing in silence, just behind the broken fern frond.

I wanted to celebrate that we still have these stunning creatures. Help build the awareness of the takahe and to paint a tribute to them that will go on for generations to enjoy. To see these creatures was breathtaking and to capture them in oil paint and on canvas is an honour.

Please click to visit the Exhibiton page and see more
sneak previews of Susan's latest work

Learn  about my Watercolor Painting Technique in my Watercolor DVDs.

Learn about how to paint in my Free Art Lessons.

One of the most common things Susan is asked about her paintings is this: "Is it an oil or a watercolor painting?"

In this newly released issue (#78 April/May) of the prestigious International Artist Magazine, Susan reveals her decision making process when and how she forms her choice of painting medium for her numerous subjects. Susan paints many subjects: floral, bird, still life, portrait, figurative, interior, landscape - anything and everything that nature presents to her.

In this in-depth feature Susan shares her vast experience with the color palette and art materials she uses, the methods, techniques, hints and tips that have all been breakthroughs to her in both watercolor and oil painting. Susan discusses the all important composition and framing that make her paintings stand out. Susan's understand of color theory and the importance of warm and cool colors is a major influence on her work. Learn this and more in this 15 page article in the International Artist Magazine. This article is written for you - the artist and will help you lift your work to the next level.

Here is the International Artist website where you will be able to purchase this April/May 2011 issue : http://www.international-artist.com/splash.aspx

This magazine is also available in good bookshops in the US.

Susan highly recommends the International Artist Magazine. NOT just because they have published this feature. Susan has many features published in numerous International magazines and books. Susan buys this magazine because the quality of this publication is superb, the content is diverse, always excellent and it is an art magazine that offers help, instruction, information and inspiration for all levels of skill and expertise. Susan has subscribed to this magazine since the very first publication of it.

She hopes you enjoy her article - it is written with you all in mind.

You can see more of Susan's publications in International Artist Magazine and other Magazines by visiting her Publications/Press page on this website.

Susan's watercolor painting techniques and methods are shown and described in great detail and depth in her  Watercolor Technique DVDs. Don't forget to check the Free Art Lessons Page for more information about watercolor painting. Of course the very best way to learn is to watch over Susan's shoulder and listen to her thought processes as she paints and deliberates each step, method, technique and stroke of the brush, and mix of color.

All these things are explained in great detail on Susan's 3 DVD sets (each set has two discs).

Each set offers three + hours of tuition, ideally suited to artists of all levels. Observing how Susan uses her brushes in her unique way, how she applies her paint, the specific color mixing she uses to create paintings of naturalistic realism - and to listen to her thought processes give invaluable insight and reveal why Susan's paintings are so much in demand.

These things cannot be condensed into text. These invaluable DVD sets concentrate on 'why' each of her techniques work and this will help you to lift your painting level to reach your full potential. This is the next best thing to a one-on-one workshop with Susan.

With over 20,000 copies of Susan's DVDs sold and sent to countries all around the world, Susan now also has her DVDs manufactured and dispatched from the US. Delivery within the US usually takes two to four days. For other countries, the shipping is from NZ and delivery is usually within 3 - 7 days.

To celebrate another article in the International Artist magazine, for a short time Susan is offering free shipping anywhere in the world.

Susan's latest DVD:
Painting Watercolor My Way
In this 2 disc DVD set Susan teaches how to paint several subjects in one specifically chosen study. This study will introduce you to numerous textures and surfaces using all of Susan's methods, color mixing and techniques, color theory and magical layering to create a translucent reality that glows. Watch as the subject becomes three dimensional with her use of warm and cool hues. Understand how Susan uses hue and color temperature to mold form and create paintings with a true presence. This 2 disc DVD set will show you how to paint a beautiful, delicate rose, leaves and dewdrops, decorated porcelain, woodgrain, rich luminous backgrounds, shiny surfaces, how to create the color of gold and so much more. Most importantly Susan helps you to understand how to adapt these methods to any subject at all.

Susan's Portrait DVD
Susan Harrison- Tustain's Watercolor Portrait Workshop
Learn how to paint a portrait using natural luminous hues so real you feel as if you could touch the skin. Learn how to avoid the traps for young players. Full of all the hints and tips that will help you create portraits that glow with realism, Susan shares her skill and the essential knowledge that will help you paint portraits that speak to the viewers of your work.

Susan's Workshop DVD
Susan Harrison-Tustain's One on One Watercolor Workshop
Learn how to paint several subjects, delicate roses, lilies, leaves, a luscious apple.

Watch as Susan creates backgrounds and explains the benefits of each. Learn about line and creating form, velvet petals, shiny petals, colour mixing and so much more.

Susan is currently offering free shipping on any of her DVDs - no matter where in the world you live.

Click here to view previews and information on Susan's DVDs