Faces in Watercolor: Expression, Light, and Mood with Dave Cook (Mondays)

In this 8-week class, artist Dave Cook guides students through expressive watercolor techniques that capture the moods and emotions of the human face. Using loose, fluid methods, we’ll explore how watercolor’s natural movement, its blooms, drips, and blends, can bring portraits to life. Lessons will revisit key design principles including composition, proportion, value, and color to create balanced and compelling images. We’ll study the play of light and shadow across facial features, discovering how warm glows and cool shadows define form and texture in skin, hair, and clothing. Students will create and work from reference photographs that emphasize contrast and mood, experimenting with poses that reveal attitude and personality. Class sessions include instructor demonstrations, guided practice, and supportive critiques. Whether you’re new to watercolor or looking to deepen your skills, this course offers an inspiring journey into capturing expression and spirit through this luminous medium.

Dave Cook, an artist and architect, explores the beauty of the created world through vivid, colorful shape-dominated paintings.  His approach to water media painting is varied and explorative; he paints landscapes often with references to buildings and structures as a natural outgrowth of his architectural background.  HIs cityscapes, portraits and animal paintings are expressive studies with dramatic light interplay.  The techniques he employs are often spontaneous with energy and emotion.  He paints somewhere between realism and abstraction, using water media on paper, often using various textures, strokes and effects.  www.dcookart.com/