Intermediate Watercolor: Where does the painting need hard edges?

When we walk through the world, it is natural to focus on whatever is in our path. We need to know where we'll be safe, after all, and whether that shape up ahead is good to eat. That's the world of content. As we shift our gaze from one object to the next we bring the new part into sharp focus.

When we paint, however, all we need to know is form. How dark is that? What color is it? What portion of that shape is hard-edged? Is that neutral warm, cool or both? Assuming we've set up in a safe enough spot, we can totally forget the demands of the world of meaning. In fact, we have to.

A painting, no matter how realistic, can't carry all the information we can see. We need to edit out most of the specific information that we pay attention to in the "real" world. Much of what we decide to include in a painting is in soft focus, so that we can be in charge of where we want to direct the viewer's attention. If everything is distinct, the painting will almost certainly be difficult to take in. But, how can we decide what is essential and what is optional? That, right there, is the big question.

The best way I've found to tell whether something needs to be in the painting is to leave it out. If you don't miss it, you didn't need it. Regarding distinct edges, then, why not make a study that is entirely soft? No hard edges at all. The finished study would then be a basis for asking where you want to bring something into focus.

I like to place an imaginary limit on how many hard edges I have at my disposal. If I have only three, for example, I'm forced to look very carefully at the painting to see where a hard edge will have the most impact. Proceeding in increments increases the likelihood that I will recognize the moment when I should stop.
Remember, a hard edge is a hard edge, but there are an infinite number of degrees of softness. You don't have to throw up your hands and say "whatever".

Give it a try with the images you brought home, or use one of these:

Beginning Watercolor: Who's in charge?

Our first session felt very good to me. It is exciting to see that everyone is focused and willing to take risks.
For homework, start by reading the post below, for the Monday night class. You'll see the similarities to what we discussed in class.
I'll add some comments about the specific image you brought home, although, I'm sorry to say, I can't find the original to post here.

Start by standing back a few feet from the photo. Look for places where the illusion of space becomes ambiguous. See if you can identify the source of the confusion. It is most likely because adjacent shapes don't separate sufficiently. If so, what accounts for that? Which variables are too similar?

The list is short: color, value, edge quality (or, wetness), and composition. One of those, or a combination, is the culprit. How can you adjust the relationship between the shapes to increase the difference?

It can be tricky to stay aware of how your changes will affect to overall image. Fixing something over here may create confusion over there. Yesterday, while we were assigning values to each of the shapes, someone noticed that solving one problem created another by making two adjacent shapes the same. This gave rise to the question of whether turning up the color difference would take care of that. As painters, we need to cultivate a blend of engagement and detachment.

Remember that you want to enhance the illusion of depth, so one shape should look farther away than its neighbors. In terms of value, for example, would making the darks lighter and the lights darker bring a shape forward or push it back?
Regarding color, what would using more intense (purer) colors do to a shape? How about introducing a color that hasn't been used elsewhere on the page?

Dark/light, warm/cool, hard/soft. simple/complex. Twist those dials.

YOU are in charge of the illusion. The photo is just a starting place. There is no obligation to duplicate reality, and no guilt associated with lying.  Enjoy the freedom.

For this first exercise, let's give more attention to shapes and less to texture. Play up the walls, and play down the bricks. Have fun!

Monday Night Class: Separating shapes to create an illusion of space

The shapes in this photo, though they overlap, don't separate enough from each other to create a convincing sense of depth. The shapes in the top right look squashed together, more like stickers than 3-d objects. What's going on there? As often happens with photos, the darks contain no information. They are all the same - merely black - so they read as if they are all holes in the paper. As a result, they are calling attention to the picture plane rather than supporting the illusion of space.

The lights and medium value shapes are all greenish. Is that necessary? What if the differences in color of the wall, the street and the vehicles were emphasized, rather than the similarities? Would the feeling of depth be enhanced?

That's better. Not perfect, but much improved. How might you further adjust color, value, edge quality and composition to increase the sense of depth in the image? Something odd is going on where the top of the truck lines up with the roofs of some of the buildings. Can you clarify that ambiguity? What else needs adjustment?  

This is a charming scene, full of engaging information, but it would be a mess of a painting as it is now. There are half a dozen conflicting areas of focus, all competing for attention. Time to let go of some of this flood of information. The painter's main job, often, is to edit reality. Compromise, sacrifice, whatever you want to call it, we have to choose what is essential and what is optional.

What would you do here? Would you call attention to the little boy, or the old man? Try covering one corner at a time to see what that does to the overall cohesiveness of the image. What if you cover two corners at once. How could you turn up the presence of some parts and turn down the others? Which of the four main variables would you adjust to make the changes you want?

Each of you brought home a photo. Use that as a starting place (or  use one of these two). Begin by making a thumbnail pencil study of just the outlines of the major shapes. Look for unfortunate convergences that confuse the eye. Move, or remove, shapes relative to each other as necessary (those green fruits in the market scene, above, for example, are all teetering on top of the little girl's head. Get rid of them!)

Write down your thoughts about how you want to use color, value, wetness and composition to separate the shapes that you decide to keep. You're more likely to remember them that way. Don't let the photo push you around!

Now, dive in, and have fun.

Monday night and Wednesday morning: One Step Beyond...

The portrait studies we did in class were deliberately over-simplified. There were probably moments when you wished you could have mixed up more subtle washes halfway between the dark and middle values, for example, or where a fourth or fifth color might have been fun to try.
If there were no guidelines, would you want to move toward greater subtlety and specificity, or toward a personal expressionism? Perhaps both.
Start another portrait, and see where it leads you.
Here are some approaches that may give you ideas:

Ted Nuttall

Schuchin

David Lobenberg

Gretchen kelly

Jia-jia

Intermediate Watercolor - The Figure: Taking off from your live studies

All the work we did in class this week can be a good resource for poses and color ideas. With a live study as a road map, you can see how to simplify your efforts and apply the paint with more certainty. Proportions can be corrected, overpainted sections can be refined, chances can be taken based on what worked and what didn't. You can add line work wherever necessary, and decide where you can afford to lose edges. Try out some backgrounds.
Here are some approaches that may inspire you:

Nora MacPhail

Aaron Coberly

Monday Night and Wednesday Morning Homework: One thing at a time

Assess the work you did in class this week.

Having made an exploratory study of one or the other of these images, there are at least a couple of things you'd like to do more effectively. Probably more like several things. Before you launch into another try at your image, I recommend identifying specifically what needs refinement. It may be that your questions can be answered by working out each issue on a piece of practice paper, one at a time.

Let's say, for example, that you painted the landscape (from Joshua Tree National Park), and the foreground pinnacles didn't separate enough from the background. Now is the time to ask which variable(s) could be working harder to pull the rocks forward and push the ridge back in the illusory space. Go down the list:

Color: Is there sufficient color difference between the shapes? The warm/cool dynamic is pronounced in the photo, but it could still be exaggerated, if that would help.

Value: Maybe you swallowed up too much of that important light on the left-facing sides of the rock, or  could you afford to darken the ridge a bit? Both?

Ask about wetness and composition in a similar way, one variable at a time. Try out your potential solutions as isolated passages on scrap paper, one at a time, until you are quite sure you're ready to make another version of the painting.

The reason for limiting how much you're trying to improve at any given time is to avoid confusion.If you take on everything in general, odds are you won't be able to keep them all in mind at once. If you focus on one at a time, however, you will see definitely see some improvement. Guaranteed.

Intermediate Watercolor Homework: The role of drawing in figurative watercolor

Most of the time, when we work from a model, I play down the importance of drawing. If any other Gage teachers read that sentence I'm sure they would be scandalized. It's like an elementary school teacher saying , " I want to de-emphasize the role of reading in our classroom". But I'm interested in promoting thinking in shapes first, rather than outlines, and I'm concerned that an overly careful drawing would lead to "coloring in" with the paint, so I usually encourage starting out with a brush rather than a pencil.
BUT, the fact is that my own figurative work has always suffered from awkward proportion, as well as an unresolved relationship between figure and ground. Both of these would benefit from more, or just better drawing.
Recently it occurred to me that most of the drawing could come after the paint had been applied. Then the line work could serve to place emphasis, and to adjust proportion and refine the pose. One could choose exactly how much drawing was appropriate based on the brushwork that would already be there. A minimal amount of drawing, just enough to locate the components of the pose, could precede the painting

Try to picture this ink and charcoal figure by Richard Diebenkorn without the lines. Squinting helps. In many places,  the brushwork would be sufficient to separate the figure from the background. Where the washes are darker than the figure, an edge exists that clearly delineates the shape. The window nook behind the sofa is a good example of how just a few lines are enough to "find" the shapes in space.

You can practice this approach, if you're interested, by working from photos, paintings, or live models. I suggest working in monochrome, at least at first, to keep color from distracting your attention from the line/shape dynamic. Please bring your studies to class.

I'd move the skeleton

Mark Tenant

Notice how the artist allow some edges, like the model's right arm, to be lost against a similar background. Not every transition requires an outline.

Simplify the background a bit?

I lifted these images from a lovely blog called Museworthy

http://artmodel.wordpress.com/category/art-modeling/page/2/