Birds and Celtic knots at watercolour classes 2020

I have been having fun with the weekly studio classes this year. I made a change. Both classes are doing the same subjects, so I experiment (gently and with forethought) on the Tuesday class, take their learning to the Wednesday class and then take the learning from the Wednesday class back to the Tuesday class and everyone is benefiting! This term I arranged a field trip to Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary so we could do drawing of their taxidermies of birds and small mammals which we then worked in class using the background washes we had done the first week during the washes review. Then a few weeks later I share my process of designing a logo and Rob showed the Wednesday group a quick way to do celtic knots, I thought it would be marvellous vehicle for doing small areas of wash that moved from one colour to another and/or one intensity to another, allowing repetition so the lessons would stick. It was also a great vehicle for demonstrating how to do a wash all the way around a shape without getting watermarks so we did that this week. I am looking forward to seeing the finished practices. (some of mine below). There were some exciting variations in knots created during the class. 
Next week is another field trip to look at the ocean and beaches, colour and contrast and all that, if the weather is not absolutely prohibitive. Fingers crossed...

Coopers Hawk, ink and watercolour

Barn Owl, ink and watercolor

Long-eared owl, ink and watercolour

4-8 and 8 skip 1 knots. Watercolour on paper.

7 and distorted 7, watercolor on paper