Winter 2012 Week 5

Watercolor – Waterfalls and Still Water Studies.

Torrance class: You will need to look at the blog from a couple weeks ago to get the recap of the lighthouse. We will be moving on to studies at our next classes and I would like you to find images of rocks to bring to class to have as reference and start looking for water because that will be next.

PV Class - Waterfalls: Waterfalls require you to practice up on your dry brush technique. Before you touch brush to paper it is important to make sure that you lightly squeeze the bristles near the metal ferrule to get out any excess water in your brush otherwise, your paint will come off too solid and not leave the white of the paper you need to get the look of falling water.

Practice this stroke by first dragging your brush across the paper horizontally then, without lifting your brush, go vertically. This simulates the water flowing along then finding a drop. The harder you press your brush to the paper, the more paint you will put down so keep your touch light for the full effect. This takes practice but you will need it when we get into wood grain.

Still Water – This is any water that is in a lake or ocean or pool that doesn't have a lot of movement, but even still water has slight ripples from breezes or drips or something making the water move, it also makes your water more natural looking if it has some variation in lights and shadows.

I use long "u" or "bow" shaped strokes to create still water. The longer and flatter the stroke is the calmer the water looks. I leave areas unpainted so the white of the paper becomes the highlights and I overlap and congest my strokes while trying to keep them mostly horizontal. I change color to make darker strokes but each time I am leaving some of the previous color to be highlights and various degrees of shadow. Again, this takes practice and most of you seem reluctant to overlap your strokes or congest them up but this is important to the look of your water. You should not have a series of dots and slashes you should have some solid areas of variegated color.

I would like to work on reflections in water and maybe start on some wood grain so I would like you to bring you own photos to work from. If you need to you can Google "water reflections" in the images tab and you will find more than you need. See you in class.