Blog

This is my first blog, and I call it Spanning the Globe. After a lifetime of working, painting and just living, I am now traveling and using reference material from the trips to paint my present images. This is an extremely exciting endeavor for me as I get to live my trips twice!

My daughter, Dianna, and I just returned from Germany and biking the Main with my group, the Tampa Bay Snow Skiers and Boarders. Besides skiing with them in the winter, we now see each other on summer trips called Bike and Barges. These 35-50 kilometer day trips take us along bike paths beside various rivers in Europe. We get “bum breaks” by stopping at enchanting places like old apple groves, Roman aqueducts, small stone churches and delightful medieval villages. The afternoon finds us back on the barge settling in with ice cold cocktails in hand, and circling each other with laughter about the day’s adventures and mishaps. In the evening, after a delicious dinner, exhausted bikers pour into their beds in our 2 persons-to-a-room. These barges are really wonderfully charming river boats outfitted for bikes holding about 24-34 guests. The crew consists of a knowledgable captain, competent cooks and a guide you want to adopt and take home!

Susanna Spann shows artists how to capture the unmatched beauty of crystal and flowers in watercolor by “building” paintings like a Polaroid picture, developing them layer by layer, value by value, transforming them into works full of drama and feeling. She shares her techniques through mini-demos, instructional art and a complete painting demonstration that cover everything from value and texture to composition and color. Readers will gain the skills they need to produce images of startling melancholy, wondrous joy and everything in between. Susanna’s clear instructions make learning easy and fun, providing artists with the knowledge and confidence they need to make their watercolor work glow with light and color.

In “Painting Crystal and Flowers in Watercolor,” Susanna shares her techniques through mini demos, instructional art and a complex painting demonstration that covers everything from value to compostion and color. You’ll gain the skills you need to produce images of startling clarity and wondrous joy.