Watercolor Utah Fall

SPRING 2011 – WATERCOLOR CLASS – "Utah Fall"

PV Class – You will have to go back into the archives for the finishing touches to the boat. Please be ready to start the fall picture next class by having the photo and the drawing with you and have a drawing on your paper. The drawing does not need to be exact, just close enough so you have a decent road map. This also goes for my Torrance class if you haven't done so already.

Now the sky in this painting is a bit blah so as artists we can create something more interesting. For this painting I didn't want anything over powering to take away from the scene itself, I wanted something to compliment it so I choose blue to compliment the oranges in the trees.

Before I move on, I so want to remind you to have some elevation to the top of your painting, this will let gravity work for you and it in this first step it is essential that you get some movement in your paint. You don't have to work vertically like I do even an inch or two will help so put a roll of tape or your brush box or something under the top of your painting to get an angle.

First, I wet the sky area and the area where the distant hills are going to be. The reason for wetting all this area is one, I want the color to run down the paper and I don't want a hard edge where it runs into the hills so it visually looks like it is going behind the hills. Second, I am going to need the hills wet anyway, this will give that area a chance to dry slightly so edges will soften but not blur.

In the wet sky area with my 1" angle brush right along the top of the page I applied blue. I used ultra marine blue but you can use any blue you like, though I would advise not to use pthalo blue because it is a powerful color and it will not lift off.

After I applied the blue, I rinsed my brush and along the bottom of this color with a damp brush, I moved the color down with just the water on my brush. The paint may move enough on its own so this step might be unnecessary but it is good practice, just remember to rinse your brush between passes. You might also find that you need to add a bit more color to the top of the paper so repeat these steps as needed.

Your sky shouldn't take too long to do so everything should still be pretty wet. If you want to add clouds, you can lift them with a paper towel or your brush or you can drop water into the wet sky, this is optional and you might want to try it out on a separate piece of paper before starting your sky but it is okay to add clouds.

If your hill area has dried, you will need to rewet the hills and the sky just above the hills by maybe a quarter inch, just enough so the paint will have some place to go when we are doing the distant trees. The colors I used for the hills was a watered down mix of sap green and a touch of purple, just enough to gray the green slightly. Remember that as things go into the distance they become less intense and grayer in color so keep this color very pastel. Also have an orange ready that is mixed with a lot of water and some of the green mix to slightly gray the orange, you will be working back and forth between these colors as you paint in the hillsides. Notice in the photo that there are patches of the orange color all across the hills, when you want to add the orange, just drop it in or lightly touch the tip of your brush to the paper and let it blend in on its own. Another thing I need to mention is not to worry about the dark foreground pine trees just paint the hills like the trees weren't there, you need that color behind the trees for one reason the second and most important is because the pines are so much darker the color on the hills won't affect them much if at all. It will save you the added misery of trying to put the hill color in after you have painted the pines.

If and you are painting the hills the paper seems to be getting dry, you can rewet as often as you need to. If you are working under a vet or it is a dry day, you paper may dry out faster than you can paint so don't be afraid to rewet if you need to.

Once you have finished painting the base colors in for the hills, there are some trees on them that need to be painted in while the paper is still wet or at least damp, you don't want it dripping wet but it should still feel damp to the touch. In that same green/gray mix you made add a touch of green and a touch of blue to darken it slightly. This value isn't much darker that what you have already, it just needs to have a bit of contrast against what is there.

These are distant clumps of trees and they are not phone polls, they should be various sizes should be clumps both large and small, as well as individual trees, also, don't line them up like a tree farm, these are wild trees. They are also suggestions of trees so no detail, just make a vertical mark or marks and let the wet paper do the rest. We may come back and add some features, not necessarily detail, just keep it simple at this point. Now let it dry completely before starting the next step.

The next area we will be painting is the line of green and orange trees in the middle ground. Actually, we won't be painting the trees we will just be painting their basic highlight color. The orange trees are pretty straight forward because they are orange we need a lighter version of the color to under paint them, the green trees aren't so obvious to most. Look in the lightest areas of the green trees you will notice they are very yellow so that will be our under painting for the green trees.

I wet the areas for the trees as I painted them doing the yellow first then the orange, if the colors blend a bit together that is okay, do not worry about it. The yellow was fairly rich in intensity meaning I used more color and less water, the orange was a bit different it was basically orange but I added a touch of red because it is more of a salmon color and a lot of water, I want to keep this light. You may also need to add a bit of water as you paint, remember this is just the under painting for the trees just paint the mass color and don't worry about whether they look like trees at this point. Let this dry completely.

The last thing I did was I started adding in the dark pine trees and as I did that, shaped my middle ground trees using negative painting. First the pines: I mixed my Hooker's green with a touch of purple to make a very dark green, there was only a little water. I used my angle brush and working on dry paper, I first made a straight line to mark the top of the tree – not the whole trunk, just the top – then starting from that line with a flicking motion, I made the branches of the tree. This is something you may need to practice on another piece of paper, the problem I saw around the room was people were either painting them too solid and too uniform or were making them look like fish skeletons, branches come out from all sides of a tree, there are gaps between branches, branches from one tree overlap the tree next to it there could be smaller trees in between…It is Nature, it is messy.

At the top of the trees you might see some individual small branches, but as you work your way down, the branches get longer and more congested there are also more shadows so add more blue or purple to you color near the base. There is something else you need to do as you get near the other trees and that is to create the shapes of the middle ground trees with this dark green color by negative painting the outside shape of the green and orange trees. Remember to be random in your shaping, these are not manicured trees, they will have odd shapes. We will do more of this next class. Negative painting is how we keep our light areas in watercolor.

We will continue this at Torrance and will start this at PV so be ready to work. See you all soon.

Spring Watercolor 2011

Spring 2011 – Watercolor – Fanta-Sea

For my PV students you will need to go back a couple weeks to see the beginning of Fanta-Sea. I have done nothing different just follow along as best as you can, any questions ask me in class. You might also want to download the photo and drawing for the next project because we might get started in the next class.

Before I get involved in talking detail for finishing up the boat, I want to go over how to create a graded wash, it is something a lot of you struggle with and it is one of the most versatile techniques you can use in watercolor. It can be used in big areas like a sky or small areas like the sides of buildings or petals of a flower, once you learn this technique it is simple and will make your watercolor cleaner and fresher.

What I mean by graded is it goes from dark to light in a very smooth blend and there are several ways you can create a graded wash. The first way is to wet the area where you want/need the color to go from dark to light. Wet beyond where is should be the lightest so the paint doesn't just stop when it reaches dry paper. Then, starting in the area where you need it darkest, apply the paint. Rinse your brush and remove the excess then with just the damp brush, run it along the edge where you need to soften the color. This can be done with most brushes whether they are round, flat or angled, just be sure to use most of the brush on the paper with the tip a bit into the color and the rest of the brush away from the color.

The next method is to work wet on dry paper again, you can use any brush but you do need to practice this so you know how your brush works. Load your brush with the color you need then apply it to the area you will be painting. Rinse your brush and immediately with your damp brush, run it along the edge you need to soften and lighten. You can't wait too long or the paint will start to dry and won't move. This is a good time to remind you it helps to have the top of your paper elevated so that gravity will work for you, helping g the paint to move. You may need to do this again until you get the desired look you want.

The third method works best with flat or angle brushes. Rinse your brush and slightly dry it then load your paint on to one corner (flat) or tip (angle) and then slightly work it into the bristles about a third of the way across by working it on your palette. Place the tip/corner of your brush where you need the darkest color but have the whole edge of your brush on the paper with the opposite end of the bristles in the area you want the lightest. Again, this takes practice but it is very effective.

Now to the boat.

Make sure that you have the color around your boat intense enough. You need the contrast between the color and the white of the paper to make the sail and the boat stand out. This is best done before you remove the masking, however, if you need to, you can add color around the sail or the boat, using the technique above to fade the color into the sky or sea, just find a color that is in the area you need to intensify, paint it around the boat or sail then with a wet brush, fade it out to the sides of your paper.

When you are satisfied with your background, be sure that the paper is totally dry before removing the masking. Moisture likes to gather at corners or angles. If you are using a hair drier, be sure to use the low setting for the heat and hold the drier back at least 18" from the paper. You don't want to melt the masking into your paper or you will have trouble.

Do not worry about the stripes on the sail for right now, just worry about the shadow that runs the length of the sail. You will notice it is a graded shadow: Darker on one side then fades to light on the other, this is where your practice comes in. Mix a bluish gray with blue, a touch of sienna to gray it, even a tiny touch of purple but keep it on the blue side, then do your shadow using one of the techniques I mentioned above. If you use the wet into wet method, do not wet the whole sail ONLY the pars of the sail that have shadows, this will give you a harder line on that one edge and keep the sunny areas bright.

You can use this color in the shadow areas of the boat. If you mix it darker, you can use it to create the canopies over the man piloting the boat and for the portholes and other dark detail.

The stripes can be any color you want them to be I will tell you my reasoning for my choices but the choice is yours. I didn't much care for the navy blue stripe in the photo but decided to have a blue stripe at the top part of the sail because it was the compliment to the colors in the sky (orange and yellow), but it was not solid blue. I wet the stripe (wet into wet) put blue at the top and bottom of the upper stripe and put a bit of sap green in the center and with a clean damp brush worked the edges of those colors together. This creates a sense of light coming through the sail.

On the bottom stripe, I needed a color that would stand out against the blue of the ocean, again I went with the complimentary colors of red with a touch of yellow at the center of the stripe, just like I did on the top. The stripes on the boat are optional but again you choose.

To finish this up I outlined some of the boat with my Sharpie pen to give it some detail and definition to areas. The rigging (rope/cables for the sail) I did using my ruler and a sharp, pointed knife to score the paper. this was another reason to have that area intense enough in color so the ropes would show up when the paper was scored. The important thing to remember here is this has to be the last thing you are going to do to the sky because once you have damaged the surface of the paper, it will take the paint differently, usually a lot darker so be sure you want to do this before you start.

We will be starting a new project on Monday so be sure that you download the photo and the drawing if you need it. See you soon.

Spring 2011 Watercolor

WATERCOLOR CLASS DEMO Week 2 – FantaSea

Because Blogger has taken away my ability to create paragraphs, why, I am unsure, I will separate thoughts with --- sorry I know it makes it hard to read but they keep messing with my format.

--------- Please read the last post for last week to get started, I do want to emphasize that you do not need to do your drawing until after you have done your first splatter, not do you need to have your boat masked out, however, if you have don't both before you started to splatter it is okay, I just like to see some of the splatter in the subject I am painting, it is neither right or wrong, it is personal preference.

--- Another thing I need to mention is there was method to my madness when I splattered, this is where a drawing or at least the horizon line will come in handy, I wanted to keep my warmer brighter colors up in the sky area behind the sail of the boat and the cooler, darker colors in the water area. Keep your paint pure as you splatter and let them mix on the paper, remember to stop before you start mixing mud.

--- I also want to mention again that it will help your painting, not just this painting but when ever you paint, if you raise the top end of your painting so it is on a slight angle. This will let gravity work for you and your paint won't sit in stagnant pool on your paper but will do what watercolor does best and mingle together with the other paints. You don't need much to start, maybe an inch or two but you may find that the angle helps you a lot. I usually work at an angle of about 4" at home though I am now pretty comfortable working almost vertically since teaching the classes. All it takes is a roll of tape or you purse or a brush box, just something to prop the top up.

---- Once you have finished your first splatter and your paper is completely dry, if you haven't done so get your drawing on and put masking on the entire boat and sail. The paper need to be completely dry before you add the masking or you will have problems when you go to take it off.

--- When the masking is dry, it should take about 20 minutes or so, you can do your next splatter, this time use more paint and less water so the colors are brighter. You want to increase the color intensity and also its value nearest the boat both in the sky and in the water, just don't try to do it all at once. It may take t or more times of splattering with drying time in between to get the depth of color and value you need, just remember to let it dry between sessions.

--- When you have the background the way you want, make sure that your paper has completely dried before trying to take off the masking. The moisture likes to pool up along the edge of the mask, especially if there is a corner, if you take it off while there is any dampness near the mask you run the risk of tearing the paper. If you use a hair drier, be sure to use the cool setting and hold it back at least a foot from the paper so you don't melt the masking into the paper. You may have to reestablish your drawing before you start because the mask will put up some of the pencil and paint with it.

--- From here I painted the boat just like I would in a traditional setting. At the top of the sail, there are some shadows and creases, I mixed my blue with a tiny touch of purple and sienna, I wanted a bluish gray. Starting right next to the mast I painted my darkest color using my ½" angle brush, I rinsed my brush, and at the edge away from the mast I blended the color out to get a graded look to the color. Next, using this same color, I painted the shadow on the sail. If you need to draw a line to show you where the shadow is, please do so. There is a harder, darker edge to parts of it but you do need to soften the back edge going towards the sail, so after you rinse your brush, with just a damp brush, tease that strip of color you just put down so that it fades back towards the mast. Next, rinse your brush, and draw the damp brush down the outer edge of that shadow just to soften it a bit, it will make the sail look rounded.

--- The stripes on the sails had two colors, you may want to wet the stripe first, then put blue at the top and bottom and hooker's green in the middle. On the bottom stripe I did a similar thing with red and orange, orange being in the middle. I did add some shadow to the side of the boat with the blue-gray color, but we will finish this up next class.

--- We are going to practice doing some graded washes so have some extra paper with you to practice on.

Watercolor Week 1

I need to apologize, apparently Blogger is letting sponsors put their links in my blogs without even bothering to ask! The hyperlinks that appear orange are not my doing ......also Blogger keeps screwing with this program and now it won't let me insert a blank line to separate paragraphs so I will have to separate thoughts with..... Watercolor - Sailboat .... This time Torrance gets the head start on the project so if you are a PV student, you will be using this blog for information from our class project. There isn't a lot to tell at this point because I have to do an orientation on the first day but we did get started so we can jump right in at our next class. Be sure to go to the picture page and download the reference picture and, if you need it, the drawing to have for class when we meet again on Monday..... . I am hoping that most of you will be able to at least get your drawing on your paper and even better if you can get your first round of splattering on. I know that some of my returning students masked out their boat before they started to splatter and that is okay, there is no right or wrong what to do this, I just like to have a bit of the color from the splatters in the things I am painting but I have done it both ways so don't panic, no one dies just because you started by masking the boat out. ...... For my new students, if you can get the drawing on for the next class, I will show you the splattering and also how to apply the masking. If you do the splattering be careful not to go too far with it. It can feel way too good and before you know it, it looks more like mud splatters so stop and let it dry, you will be doing more...... . Generally, when I splattered my paper, I kept the warm colors like the yellow, orange and red up in the sky area and the cool colors like green, blue and purple in the water area though I did put some blue in the sky area and I didn't care if the splatters didn't end up where I hoped they would. This is not rocket science, it is controlled chaos. Just have fun and don't mix mud. Be ready to go on Monday, if you have questions let me know. See you soon.

Spring 2011

Hi Everyone

I posted the photo and drawing for our first project on the picture page. We have done it before I think but this time I think we will do it with a twist to loosen up.

Please feel free to download and print the photo for class and I have a drawing posted if you need help with the drawing.

See you soon. - LP

Winter 2011 Watercolor Classes

WINTER 2011 WATERCOLOR – More Rocks

Torrance class: I didn't do anything different to the rocks in your class than I did at PV so the blog I wrote for them should be just about the same for your rocks. Just be patient and take your time.

Before I start the narration on the rocks, I want to talk a bit about "getting in the mood" to paint. Painting should be almost meditative. If you are in "the zone" when you are painting you should be startled when you look up and see the time and realize an hour or two has passed. As I look around the class most of you look dismayed that only a few minutes have passed since you last looked at the clock. This is not the mind set you should be in when you are trying to create.

I have mentioned before the Betty Edward's book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" it is a wonderful book for many reasons, the best being explaining to you how your mind works. The two side of your brain have different functions. The left side is concerned with Time, logic, math, language to name a few, the things you use in your everyday-get-through-life state of being. The right side of your brain of you brain is more concerned with spatial things, face recognition, esthetics, emotions sort of the background program that lets you walk through a room without watching every step – everything the left side is not. Together, they make up who we are and how we see the world around us.

One of the key things she talks about is how the left brain relates to the world. It has its own short hand for everything so that anything that looks like a chair no matter how ornate, it names it as a chair and moves on to the next thing, it is very impatient, it doesn't care. Your right side is the side that can tell the difference from a garage sale folding chair and a $1000 gilded antique, it does care.

There is another important fact she discovered and that is when ever you stopped learning art such as drawing, whether it was in grade school or college or whenever, that is where you start your journey again. This is a hard concept for adults, I think we assume that because we are adults that we have absorbed this knowledge or have access to it just by living and experiencing art. Well, I've flown on planes and watched countless movies and TV of pilots working all the controls, but I don't think you'd want me flying any plane you were on. You need to have not only the knowledge but also the skill and that comes through practice and patience.

Most of you are coming from this combination of being an adult and assuming you should be able to do this, plus, for a lot of you, you are in your instant gratification, left brain. Not a real good combination for learning. You will find you have trouble getting things to look like the pictures in your mind, they will tend to be more child-like (this would be more your left brain's shorthand version) or you get frustrated and start mixing mud. You need to slow down, picture the subject in your mind, sketch the subject either on your watercolor paper or on sketch pad and concentrate more on the process than the end result. You will hear that little voice in your head saying "Are we done yet?!" Ignore it and see how much detail you can see in your subject. Whether it is clouds, rocks or whatever, look for shapes, colors, lights, darks and patterns. You will start seeing things you never noticed before and the more you practice this, the easier shifting into that state of mind will become, you just need to ignore that voice when it switches to "This is stupid! Let's move on!"

I can't teach you this, I have tried. This is something you will need to find on your own before you will believe me, I know this from personal experience. The ironic thing about the left brain is it is also your own worst critic. It can see the picture you have in your mind and if what is on your canvas or paper doesn't match, it is quick to point out those "faults". Again, don't listen to it because it will drag you down until you finally give up which is what it wanted all along. Find something in your painting or drawing that you like and concentrate on the positive. I have had my "SHUT UP!" moment when I got so tired of the self criticism I about had myself in tears. It felt like I was being attacked by an internal pack of wolves and I didn't deserve it because I was still learning and art was a part of me I wasn't about ready to give up. It was my epiphany. From that point, my art took a dramatic turn and I've never looked back. Cut yourself some slack and enjoy the process, it will come with time, patience and practice.

::::She gets off her soapbox and puts it away::::

Rocks Part 2 – This week we worked on the river rocks, the individual rounded rocks that could easily be part of a cobble stone road or wall or house as laying on the bottom of a decorative pond. It is all the same, rocks are rocks.

You can start out by doing your drawing before you start or you might want to wait until after the first step because the graphite will tend to wash out and you will have to come back over with your pencil to reestablish the lines. It is up to you, I did my drawing first and went back over the lines when the first step was dry.

The first thing I did before I started painting was to totally wet my paper. I want the paper to be wet so the paint will spread and blend and create some really lovely blends and textures. I also had this on about a 4" slant when I was redoing it at home. Very seldom do I ever work totally flat on the table.

To that wet paper, I splattered, touched and dripped different colors of paint. Anything I've got on my palette is fair game the only caution here is to stop before you create mud. Let the colors flow together by tilting your paper other directions or by using water and no paint to splatter. Also, be sure that you use a lot of water in your paint so it isn't too dark when it dries.

When I was satisfied with my splattering I let it dry until the sheen was just off the paper and I added salt to create even more texture then I let the whole thing air dry to give the salt time to work. When it was dry, I went back over the lines of my drawing.

I am always asked about controlling the watercolor, I have to laugh because even if you get out the little brushes there will always be an element of chaos with watercolors. It is like skiing: At first you feel like you are flying out of control as gravity works against you and those trees come up real fast! But the more you ski the more control you have of your body and your equipment until gravity becomes your friend - or partner in crime – then those trees really are coming up a lot faster but you know what to do to avoid disaster. Same with watercolor though the consequences are only mud and not broken bones, the element of chaos is still there, you just have more control over it. Be patient.

The next thing I did when the paper was dry was I mixed a dirt color for between the rocks. This was mostly sienna though I did throw in some blue and/or purple and while I was painting it on, I picked up touches of red, orange and green just to change the flavor of the color. I painted around all the rocks, this is called negative painting because I wasn't painting the rocks, just the dirt around them. This could be mud, or cement or what ever is between them depending on what situation the rocks are in - road, wall, house etc.

Each rock was painted individually. Some I wet the rock before I added color others I did wet on dry paper, it depended on whether I wanted the paint to spread or I needed to control it. With something like this, you can work on another rock while one dries so you can keep painting for a long time, just be careful not to paint next to a wet area or you will get blooms though in this case that might not be a bad thing.

I used my sponge to create some of the speckles on a rock and then went back in with my brush to soften and shape the marks left by the sponge to make them look more natural.

Rocks have dents and chips on them that are subtle and require a gentle hand. For dents I might wet the area first then drop in a bit of darker color making sure that the edges stay soft with just a damp brush. For the chips, I just put paint on the point of my angle brush (this can be done with a flat or round as well), placed the whole edges of the brush on the paper and painted the shadow of the chipped area. I rinsed my brush and softened the color so that it would blend in on the ends. Sometimes just a little bit of paint can make a big difference, these chips and dips don't need to be dark but they do need to be there.

I finished my rocks by getting in the darkest shadows around each rock. I even pulled out smaller rocks in the dirt area just by painting around with a shadow color or lifting color first then adding shadows around it. While your rocks don't have to be exactly like the ones in the photo, follow the photo enough to give you ideas how to finish each rock. Take your time, you can learn a lot about controlling your paint and how your brushes work doing a project like this.

This week will be our last class in both places so please bring in something for critique it doesn't have to be something you have done in class it can be anything you would like help with or a second opinion. Remember that registration is now open if you want to sign up at either Torrance or PVAC.

Winter 2011 - Rocks

Winter 2011 Watercolor – Rock Demo

All classes we only have 2 more weeks of class and classes will start up again at the end of the month. Registration is now open at Torrance and pending at PV if you want to get signed up for any classes it is best to do it ASAP especially at Torrance where they close under enrolled classes the week before classes start.

The thing to keep in mind about most rocks is they are rough plus they have chips, dents, ridges and cracks. They also are not a solid color. While these rocks look gray at first glance if you look closer you will see all kinds of color in them. There are blues and greens, purples and reds, yellow, orange and sienna are also there so get those colors in you under painting.

I sketched in my rock shapes before I started painting so I knew where I needed to paint and I was using the photo of the big rocks, I will finish the small rocks next week.

With the excepting of a few tops of rocks I wanted to leave white, I wet the entire rock area with clear water and went over it a couple times to be sure that my paper was very wet. I painted around the areas I wanted to protect so they were dry. Into that wet I added all different kinds of color but I made sure that they were very watered down, I don't want the colors to be over powering. If they look too vibrant, quickly add more water and lift with your paper towel. These colors should be very pastel, I even splattered some color. Other options are adding salt or using the plastic wrap but it takes too long to dry in class.

These next steps are layers of subtle washes. Watercolor is transparent so each time you add a wash the colors will become deeper in value (light vs dark) and more intense in color (pale vs vibrant) it is a very important thing to remember when you are painting in watercolor because we have to work from light to dark so we need to save our lighter areas as we go. It is better to be too light than too dark because it is easier to add more washes to get the look you want but more difficult to remove unwanted color.

I mixed up a gray this time using yellow, a touch of purple and a touch of blue and lots of water, this should just be a tint but it should look gray, watch the purple because it is a strong color. On my DRY rocks, I added this color to everything EXCEPT to those few areas I left white at the beginning. Those will be the sunlit tops of the rocks so I want to keep them white by painting around them. Also note that I am not painting individual rocks just yet that will come next. If you want, you can splatter or drop more colors into the wet rocks just be sure that they are rather dilute still at this point. Let this step dry completely.

Each of the next steps you are going to need to really look at the reference photo so you can see the different shadows and colors on the rocks. I was still using the same gray color I just made it a bit darker by adding more color than water. I identified the NEXT BRIGHTEST areas and painted this color on everything else avoiding the bright sunlit and the next brightest areas. Just look for the shapes of the shadows and colors in the rocks don't worry about the rocks you should start to see rocks emerge from your paper with each new wash as the layers build and add value and color. When this paint dried I used virtually the same value of color and went over the next darkest areas now avoiding yet other areas. Build up your values and your colors – yes, you can add other colors to your gray mix – gradually to create the shape and texture of the rocks.

In the dark shadows I mixed my standard shadow color of blue, purple and a touch of sienna with only a little water, this should be very dark. This goes where you see cast shadows and the spaces between the rocks and the cracks, I used a liner for the cracks. You can also splatter more color onto the rocks or lift out some shapes in the shadow areas, just have fun finishing up the detail.

If you didn't do the underwater rocks under painting, you might want to have that ready for class on Tuesday. These smaller rounder rocks are a good exercise for not only river rocks but also for cobble stone roads, walls or any other place where people might use rocks as a building material.