Spring Flowers Watercolor Workshops Series and Free Notecard Download
Topic: Watercolor Class

Watch flowers grow from your paint brush - from a recent press release:

"Let's Paint Spring Flowers!" Watercolor Workshop Offered by Catinka Knoth

Rockland - Catinka Knoth will teach "Let's Paint Spring Flowers!", a watercolor workshop, at Lincoln Street Center for Arts and Education, 24 Lincoln St. The four week class will meet Tuesdays, 10am-Noon, from April 27th through May 18th. An alternate schedule will run Wednesday evenings from 6-8pm, starting April 28th. Participants may sign up by suggested donation of $80 for the complete series, or $25 per individual session. Call Knoth at 596-0069 to confirm space.

Students will experiment with explorations in sumi-e inspired calligraphic brushwork, negative and positive shapes, contour drawing, variegated washes, and glazing. Photographs of spring flowers such as crocus, daffodil, tulips, and iris will provide a different subject for each session. Paintings by O'Keeffe, Charles Demuth, John LaFarge, John William Hill, may also serve as inspiration and models for study.

Download my free frenchfold notecard of this daffodil bouquet watercolor (pdf c. 3mb)
https://catinkacards.tripod.com/pdf/daffodils-frenchfold.pdf

Order notecards of these spring flowers watercolor paintings.

Happy Easter! - A Bunny and Some Easter Eggs
Topic: Seasonal/Holiday

Happy Easter!

Here is my my paper peephole Easter egg to download, cut out, color, and put together. Here you see how a friend has colored hers.

The printed side can be the inside or the outside. Make up your own design on the other side. You can use the images outside the egg to color and paste on the outside too. It just depends which version you want to peek into!

• Cut out the little oval after you color the template. This is the view hole.
  
• Poke a needle hole near the tip of each 'petal'.
• Gently roll up the cutout to form an egg shape. End panels should overlap.
  
• Run a thread through the holes, layering each petal on top of the previous.
• Tie off the thread so the egg stays closed. Tape or glue will probably work too.

Let's Draw April Awakenings - Spring Cherry Blossom Festival, Birds, and Baby Animals!
Topic: Kids Art Class

Learn to draw cherry blossom trees, baby birds, spring peepers, baby animals! April kids' drawing classes at the Public Library, Rockland, Maine. The National Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival  inspires an exploration of cultural  traditions of flying-fish kites, origami, lanterns, umbrellas, and woodblock scenes.  Birds arrive with their songs of mating and nestbuilding, putting a spring in people's steps. Baby animals such as lambs, calves, colts, fawns, and kids kick up their heels to play in the fields. Choruses of spring peepers signal the land's awakening.  Celebrate spring by drawing!

It is also National Poetry Month. Rockland Library has planned a series of poetry events. We'll do some poetry appreciation in the drawing classes too .  In Kentucky they're celebrating John James Audobon's bicentennial. At the Globe Theatre in England they honor William Shakespeare's 446th birthday on April 23rd and St.  George's Day around April 18th. 

Classes are free with all materials supplied, sponsored by Wendy and Keith Wellin. Every Tuesday, 4-5pm downstairs in the Community Room, 80 Union Street.

Cherry blossom tree coloring page.
Nestlings & spring peepers in the reeds coloring page
Baby animals coloring page 1 - racoon, rabbit, duckling, lamb, fawn
Baby animals coloring page 2 - bears, racoon, chicks

Cherry Blossom Tree demonstration drawing



Spring peepers and nestlings demonstration drawing



Baby animals demonstration drawing - racoon, rabbit, duckling, lamb, fawn


Baby animals demonstration drawing - bears, racoon, chicks

How to Draw Cats (and Tigers) - Step-by-Step Animations
Topic: Drawing Lesson

The two cats lesson starts with drawing a border to create a frame. Decoration in the frame gives you practice with cats eye shapes, which also look like leaves. The classes did this on St. Patrick's Day, so the corners have shamrocks. Decoration in the side panels is a modified version of celtic scrollwork. This provides practice of repetition and is good for developing fine motor skills.

Scroll down for the links to download pdf files of these "how to draw cats & tigers lessons"



Step-by-step cats drawing lesson to download and print out pdf page 1
Step-by-step cats drawing lesson to download and print out pdf page 2
Step-by-step cats drawing lesson to download and print out pdf page 3

How to draw a tiger step-by-step pdf, pg 1

How to draw a tiger step-by-step pdf, pg 2 

A Sharp Skinned Hawk and a Cardinal - Scene from the Kitchen, a Backyard Drama
Topic: Life
While chatting on the phone I look out my kitchen door onto the non-existent fire escape and there on the other staircase is a fluffed up hawk just sitting. Waiting for a bird to catch? I shriek into my friend's ear, "a hawk! Sharpskinned, I think. Hard to tell it's so puffed." "Probably cold. He'd have white spots on his back and white tail bars." advises my friend. "Coa-lld?" my barely concealed indignant reply. "What is he doing?" I wonder as he sits and sits. Then he shifts his position and reveals he's been sitting on his quarry - a red bird. I think it is a cardinal. My friend says it cannot be a cardinal as they just fight too hard. It must be a Hollywood Finch, also known as a purple (or house?) finch. To me this looks much redder than those birds.

Hawk shifts again. I thought at first he was shifting because his prey had moved. Now I clearly see the red beak of the cardinal. I must get off the phone to get some photos.
First photo was at 11:24 a.m. Hawk had already been sitting there at least 5 minutes but was giving some plucks at his feast. It struck me as a young hawk because of its posture. He was always fluffed, often with his head down into his shoulders, as if he wanted to do the baby bird 'feed me, feed me' ritual.
11:25 am.


11:31 a.m. After 23 pics through the glass door, I move to the other room so I can open a window and shoot from there. Instead of 12'(?) away he is 20' away. He does not move as I open the window. Still sits on the trophy occasionally tearing at it. I shoot boring pics hoping there will be some varied positions.




Cat enters the scene (enlarged view)
A cat has entered the scene. Neither cat nor hawk is aware of the other. The cat is coming to investigate whatever, and, not finding any cats to tussle or socialize with, and being unaware of the quiet hawk above him, he goes back where he came from.




Here you can see his breast feathers askew - the strong wind? the cardinal had put up quite a fight? or just a rumpled young hawk who doesn't yet groom his feathers well?


He turns around with his prey and moves it a few boards over.


Shifts the prey again and feeds a bit more.


He's turned around and moved the cardinal closer to the edge again. His  tail is pushed down against the boards more. Then in a flash, at 11:58 a.m., he takes off. I get a shot of him flying off under the porch eaves with his meal.