FALL 2012 WATERCOLOR CLASS – Scotty’s truck

Torrance class you will need to go to the previous blog entry for your class notes.

PV class we are up to finishing the truck, how you finish it depends on you, I will go over what I did to finish mine.

First, I wanted to make sure that I had enough intensity to my color. The truck should pop off the page if your color is intense enough. Your darks need to be dark – and cool. Many of you had shadows that were too brown making them warm. The rest of the colors need to be rich in color. If your truck looks washed out it is because you need to increase the intensity of your color. You can keep your light areas light and still enrich the colors, always start in the darker parts of the area you are working on, rinse you brush and move the paint towards the lighter area. By comparison you will still have dark and light areas but your colors will intensify.

Watercolor is all about layers and it will take several to get to the point you need. Some may take 2 or 3 other times it may take 5 or more but you do what you need to, to get the intensity of color your painting requires.

For the shadows on the ground I used mostly blue and purple with a touch of sienna in it to gray is slightly. The shadows are important in this painting so don’t overlook them.

When I got to a point where I felt I was done with the painting part of the project, I looked to see where I could start adding – or in some cases – lifting detail. In the shadows in the cab and inside the engine compartment there is “stuff”. It is a bit hard to see but it is there, remember that all that stuff is, is shapes. You don’t have to figure out if it is a carburetor or whatever, just either add some dark shapes or lift out some lighter shapes. Lifting you just use a clean damp brush and go over an area. Rinse and dry your brush often.

You can lift out some detail on the fenders as well. If you want a dent, lift a light area off the fender, then on the left side add a touch of a shadow, look at your reference photo for details. Or where the hood meets the lower part of the engine compartment, you can lift a bit of highlight along the top edge of that lower part. Detail is up to you on just how much you want to put in or leave out.

Lastly, if you want to go over some of the edges and do some of the detail with a fine point Sharpie pen wait until your paper is good and dry before you start then you can go around all the edges or just parts of the edges if you want. Add some detail with the Sharpie if you want. There is a chain hanging out the door on the floor of the truck, make some marks that look like chain or add some wood texture to the wood frame. Add some bolts or some rocks or ??? what you do is up to you at this point, whatever you do have fun with it.

I may have another quick project for class when we meet again but please have something of your own to work on from this point out. I will do mini demos to help with problem areas. See you in class.

Torrance Truck Week 2

PV Truck Week 3 Finished