Mark Mehaffey: Build, Design & Color Using a Mouth Atomizer

Shake up your watercolor world with Mark Mehaffey's mouth atomizer techniques.

In this video workshop, you'll test the limits of your design skills as you complete a floral painting without picking up a brush. You'll guide your composition with careful masking and extensive layering as you discover this unique painting tool. Mark grounds his atomizer paintings in design fundamentals.

Peek inside Mark's sketchbook as he works out shapes and values for the final piece. With his plan in place, Mark transfers his drawing to watercolor paper with frisket film. You'll cut away this ready made mask as you spray on glowing, transparent layers of pigment. You'll continually adjust values and hues as you develop smooth transitions and focus pointillistic dustings of color into the deep shades in the background. You'll hone composition and texturing skills that will enhance any painting.

Breathe life into your art in Build, Design, and Color Using a Mouth Atomizer with Mark Mehaffey.

BONUS CLIP: "Design"

Artist Statement:

I've been drawing and painting my whole life. I started painting with watercolor at the age of 10 and never stopped. My parents and my early teachers encouraged me to paint, I suspect to keep me out of trouble. It worked….more or less.

Some of my earliest memories include trying to match the colors I saw while using a child’s set of watercolors. Hours were spent in this endeavor. After 55 years of painting I’m now more inclined to paint the colors I feel than the colors I see. Paintings always take on a life of their own. Sometimes a work requires a studied design approach, making a plan and following that plan, at other times a more intuitive visceral approach is called for. I let the idea and content of my work dictate the materials and techniques used….not the other way around. Other ideas dictate an exploration of surface and textures, relying on the initial concept and intuition to bring the work to a conclusion.

Above all I value creativity and honesty. And although I follow many paths and speak with more than one voice, I am on my own journey. I have two wishes…one is to live a few more hundred years, for I shall never have enough time to paint all the ideas in my head. Probably won't see that wish granted. That second wish? That somewhere along my journey I will communicate with fellow travelers who will see something of what I see and feel something of what I feel.