Intermediate Watercolor homework 2/10/11

I can see the benefits of thinking in layers showing in your work. Let's go a step further, and try using this awareness to simplify the image. In the following paintings, the artists have seen a way to refine a complex subject down to a few steps. Choose one of these, or another painting you find that you admire, and copy a section that presents itself to you as a series of layers - the street shadows in Alvaro Castagnet's bridge scene, for example, or the floor in John Yardley's interior.

Then, look for a photo that includes a similar subject, and see if you can apply the same kind of thinking to translate it into paint.

Have fun

Tom

Leslie Frontz       Brown-Eyed Beauties

John Yardley

Harbour Bridge, Sydney                   Alvaro Castagnet

Torgeir Schjolberg

Beginning Watercolor homework 2/10/11

Make paintings while the sun shines


Right now, and perhaps tomorrow there are bold shadows everywhere. It seems wise to put the layer project on hold and practice shadows for a while.
I can see shadows inside the house, and a great many from the windows. Try setting up with a minimal kit and doing numerous quick studies, focusing on a single effect, such as where a shadow passes from one surface to another, changing color. Don't concern yourself with painting a whole scene. This is meant to build seeing skills and technique, and to practice getting the essential info down and moving on.
Here are a few photos I took this morning, with notes about the watercolor variables that come into play for each:

Color: changes as shadow passes from one surface to another.
Value: darker nearer to shadow source.
Wetness: edges soften farther from source.

Color: Shadow color changes with orientation of plane and with proximity to reflected light.

Drawing: To make sense of the shadow pattern, follow one part at a time: The shadow of the newell post, for example, cuts to the right every time it reaches a new riser. Notice how the the shadow of the rail does not zig-zag when it crosses from one step to the next, but everything else does. Hmmm...can you imagine standing in a different spot, where the rail shadow would zig-zag, and everything else would be straight?

If you want to carry on with the layer project, take a look at last week's intermediate homework.
Have fun

Beginning watercolor homework 2/4/11

It was a treat to see the whole class working so hard on those onions on Wednesday. Bold color, strong darks, bright highlights, believable shadows. And maybe a few of those longitude lines. Do you think you could make a decent onion now, without actually looking at a real one?
This is a good time to practice the skills involved in discovering what needs to be correct in a subject, and what can be carefree.

Find a simple still life object - preferably one with dark darks and light lights. Make a 3-value, monochrome version, rounding up or down so that everything is either white, middle grey, or black.

Assess your study by asking "where do I want more subtlety?"

Write your conclusions directly on the study.

Make another monochrome study, this time using as many values as you feel the subject needs.

Move into color, limiting your palette to no more than 3 colors.



Here are some still life watercolors from various website; all kinds of approaches.

Have fun,
Tom

Intermediate Watercolor homework 2/4/11

Wednesday, in class, we spoke about the need to see beyond the darks and middle values to recognize what the first layer will look like. Here is a progression of images that illustrates this practice:

Deliberately ignoring the layers that come later is easier if you have a good sense of what they look like on their own. To see right through the darks, for example, it helps to be able to recognize them as a pattern apart from the lighter forms. Try picturing the darkest darks from this photo as a separate image. It helps to squint:

                                           Callejon, Oaxaca

Staring at the top, the wires would all be part of the darkest layer, along with the vertical poles, the eave and windows of the buildings on the left, the cast shadows of those buildings, the underside of the purple bougainvillea…what else?

Without the lights and middle value forms, the darkest layer would look like this:

 

                                           Callejon, Oaxaca                  Darkest darks

If the layers were printed on transparencies, this could literally be peeled back to reveal the middle values and lights beneath. Instead, when we look at the photo or the actual scene, we do the ”peeling” mentally.

How much care does each layer require?

With a high-contrast image like Callejon, Oaxaca, when we see the darks separated from the other values, it is clear that they do most of the work of establishing the illusion of reality. The cast shadows reveal the strong light, while the obvious perspective of the buildings defines a clear feeling of space. Recognizing this early on can be truly liberating. If we can depend on the darks to pull the whole picture together, the lights and mid-values can be applied very casually.

Callejon, layer #1

I have deliberately painted “outside the lines” to see if it’s true that the darks have enough narrative clarity to make sense of this mess. If it works, it means that when I’m laying down the first two layers, I need not be distracted by detail, and all of my attention can be devoted to simply making gorgeous, juicy paint.

Callejon    11 x 12

This is a good example of the benefit of asking “What Needs to be True in the Finished Painting?” Being a little careful with the darks allowed me to be carefree with everything else.

Look for a high-contrast image where the darks appear to do most of the narrative work. Try making a study of just the darks, in monochrome. How much does this inform the care you need to take with the first layers? If you are encouraged to relax with the lights and middle values, try really letting go. This is your chance to be as loose as you want. Go for it!

Have fun

Tom

Beginning watercolor homework 1/27

  Unchained

     See all those cans and bottles and car repair stuff on the shelves? Actually, there's nothing on the shelves but a few soft-edged strokes. In fact, there aren't really any shelves. Take a closer look:

                                                                Unchained, detail


The context tells you what you might expect to see, and you do at least half the work of putting it there. Keeping the edges soft actually makes it easier for the viewers to meet me halfway, since there is nothing very specific to conflict with their vision of what would be stacked up on that wall. The fact that it's dark in there makes the vagueness appropriate, as does the overall casual approach to describing the scene (e.g. those wobbly window mullions).

Using one of the photos from class,  or an image of your own that includes a passage or two of layered soft-edged forms, practice the wet-on-wet part till you feel confident, and then make a version of the whole image.
When you're done, begin a written list of some good questions to keep in mind when you need to control the spread of the paint. Bring everything, including practice sheets, to class.
Have fun
Tom

  

Beginning Watercolor, winter 2011 Homework 1/20/11

Greetings painters

Here are a couple of exercises that will, hopefully, shed some light on the variables at work when we put wet paint onto wet paper.

To practice, try this exercise, in which the wash on the paper is constant, but the wetness of the brush varies:

§  Make a large, shiny wash (not dripping wet) of a pale color.

§  Now load a brush with a contrasting color, using lots of paint and very little water, and make a stroke into the initial wash.

§  Next, add a little more water and make another stroke.

§  Keep adding water and making test strokes until you lose control of the edge altogether. When the brush becomes wetter than the paper you will see the second color displacing the first, resulting in a bloom.

A variation on this exercise keeps the wetness of the brush constant and varies the wetness of the paper:

§  Make three 6x6” washes, one just damp, one quite shiny, and one dripping wet.

§  Now load the brush with plenty of pigment and very little water.  Work quickly, so your washes don’t dry. Observe how the brush strokes look on the palette. (you should briefly be able to see the tracks of individual bristles before the stroke flows back together).

§  Make a short stroke in the center of each of your washes. Were the results what you expected?

Intermediate homework 1/20/11

The work you did with darks on wednesday involved more than value, and more than technique. Focusing on a challenging aspect of painting, even for half an hour, brings all the elements together. Making a smooth wash of a strong dark required being thoughtful about, and balancing, color choices, wetness control, and brush handling, as well as sensitivity to value. 

If you already keep a notebook or a watercolor journal, great. if not, here's a good place to start. Articulating what you discover helps make it a permanent part of your repertoire.

Write down what you did to get your wash dark enough and reasonably even. Consider illustrating your notes, if you think it will help you imprint any new information. Where do you still need practice?

Do you think the same kinds of skills would apply to any saturated color, or are the issues peculiar to strong darks?

Make an abstract page of shapes, some of which are rich, deep washes of lighter colors, like cerulean blue, or new gamboge. Try a transparent color, like a quinacridone. And make some of the shapes velvety darks. We will discuss the differences and similarities.