Bringing out my creative side~ Water color~ October 20th-24th

So the only real painting experience I have is from high school. I took a acrylic painting class my senior year. My feelings toward water color before we started-  I am really looking forward to water color. I am a little nervous because I'm not sure I will be able to paint.
Well I got over the feeling of nervousness. It's really great to have a creative outlet and it is something  I want to continue with for the rest of my life.
The first week our assignment was to paint something that was older then the 18th century. Jim said that it could be some master piece that we saw on our trip to Sicily or Rome. I looked through my pictures and I didn't see anything that I really wanted to do so I thought about what ancient master pieces I knew and I decided to try to recreate the girl with the pearl earring by Vermeer. His picture is just stunningly beautiful. It was really fun painting it because the original is amazing. One thing I have learned is that I am really slow at painting and I take my time. Also for my recreation I wanted to focus on the face and leave all of the other detail out.

Vermeer's painting.

My first painting done in black and white

Second painting done in color.

For the second week of class we had to do a modern art piece. This was a really easy pick for me because when we were at the Vatican we went into the modern art exhibit right before you enter into the Sistine chapel. They had some great pieces in there but the one that really caught my eye was a piece called The Embrace by Pedro Cano. For my recreation I did it on three separate sheets of paper and on a much smaller scale then the original. I really love this painting because 1. the blue tones are beautiful 2. it has so much emotion and 3. it tells a story/you could create any type of story you would like.

This Is Pedro's original. I just think its so beautiful and has so much emotion.

This is my recreation of Pedro's work.

The last week of class our assignment is to paint what every we want. I haven't completely decided yet but I think I will paint little birds of all shapes and sizes. I painted the two little birds while in Rome and love how they turned out. So for my final I want to paint birds and other things from nature like trees. So we will see how it turns out, but as of right I really love water color and am excited to continue on with it and other painting styles for the rest of m life.