Gouache Painting Workshop with Libby Smith and Nina Warner

Saturday Class June 9

Sunday Class June 10

“The River’s Journey” was on exhibition at the Wildling, and it featured work by the Rose Compass group. The many small paintings in the exhibit were done with this unique opaque watercolor medium. Libby Smith and Nina Warner demonstrated how to use this medium to create colorful, small format paintings. They covered color mixing, composition, sketching and blocking in the image and how to handle the paint.

Meet Libby Smith

Libby Smith was born in Kansas City, MO and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She moved to Santa Barbara to attend UCSB where she received her BA and MFA with an emphasis in drawing.

Libby taught painting and drawing for 31 years at Santa Barbara City College and for 7 years at the Center for Life-Long learning, while she continued with her own work. She retired from teaching in 2016 and now works primarily on figure painting and plein air landscape, often with several friends. She lives in Goleta with her husband, Greg.

Meet Nina Warner

Nina Warner came to Santa Barbara in 1973, from Los Angeles, where she was born. She received her BA from the College of Creative Studies, UCSB, and her MFA from UCSB as well. She retired in 2011 from 25 years of full-time teaching in the Art Department at City College where she taught Color Fundamentals using gouache in the Foundations of Design course for many years, as well as Drawing and painting. Nina continues to paint both the figure and landscape in her professional life. She lives in Montecito with her husband, Jon.