Watercolor Safe Harbor Week 4

 

Finished project

This was the final week for this project what I did was to go through and make sure that everything was the way I wanted it to be, that I had things dark enough or that I had enough detail or that I had finished everything. This is the finishing up stages and how you finish yours is going to be a personal choice for you as an artist, you can make this as detailed as you want or as undetailed as you want this is totally up to you.

One of the things I needed to finish up was the dock in the front which had the crab pots, the ropes and the pilings. On the crab pots, I did not take a ruler or any other straight object to create the sides or the netting, I just took the straight edge of my brush and created a series of little lines with a dark, gray color to form the framework of the pots. The grey I used was a color I got from mixing all the colors on the dark part of my palate together to come up with a palette gray, if it needed to be darker I added more blue and a touch of sienna but if you need to mix the color it was blue, sienna and purple. When I was putting in the railings on the pots I left some of the white that was there after I removed the masking. Very little of the white was left but it was enough to suggest highlights.

For the netting in thepots I just added some more water to lighten the color and then just scribbled diagonal lines across the sections of the pots this cuts down the white that was there to create highlights in the netting. Again I did not get out a straight edge I did not worry about if it was perfect or not I just scribbled lines in. There is netting all the way around these pots so there will be a lot of overlapping lines. If you are trying to make the perfect netting on the pots you will 1, get them too wide and the crabs will escape, and 2, it will look like there's only netting on one side and again your crabs will escape, so just scribble this on and it will look a lot more realistic.

The pier pilings and the rope are pretty simple to do you just have to trust me on this. To create a round, textured piling I took my quarter inch flat angled brush mixed a dark color that will be to the warm side (remember the dark is burnt sienna, blue, touch of purple but this time it will be more to the sienna side) and with just the edge of my brush I made a series of vertical overlapping strokes starting in the shadowed area and working towards the sunny area. About a third of the way from the shadow to the light I rinsed my brush, picked up some sienna then starting just inside the dark area made some more vertical strokes about another third around the piling, I rinsed my brush again, picked up some sienna with orange as well to finished off the piling with the vertical strokes into the sunlit area and there you have your piling. It should look round you might want to practice on another piece of paper but this creates wonderful texture especially for old wood or tree bark, this makes great tree bark, and it is something you need to learn.

 

The rope I took some color from the dark side of my palette and added to the golden color I had already mixed on the lighter side (this was a little burnt sienna, a little orange and a little yellow if you need to mix the color again) you should have a bit of the dark left over from the pots or boat, to create a shadow color for the rope. Remember that the rope is round so your strokes should be curved. Some of you have gone to great lengths to create the spiral texture of the rope when you don't need to do that much detail, you just need to suggest it that's all, the viewer will fill in the rest otherwise it looks too cartoony. When it was dry I came back in with a little bit darker color into the coils of the rope and suggested the coils I did not make a complete spiral I just suggested spiral, I also came back when it was dry with a blue gray color and put a shadow from the pots over parts of the rope.

The boards on the dock can be made with the same brush the same dark color as we've been using and just suggest cracks and crevices in the boards. Remember if you want this to look flat your lines have to be parallel to the top and bottom or mostly parallel and as they go back they become closer together and less intense in color to create the idea that it is going away from you also use this dark color to create shadows under the ropes on the dock and under the pots to settle them down on the dock. On some of the boards you can even put some of that dark color to suggest holes and cracks o into the pilings to suggest bigger holes, have fun with this and see what happens, nothing's going to get hurt, this is where you can learn.

Finish up your painting the way you want to finish it up if you don't want to put in any more detail don't put it in if you want to have more detail get out that reference photo of the boat and go for it, this is your painting so finish it up the way you want to finish it, however, we are done with this project so the next time we meet please have something that you want to work on with you and I will help you get started I will do spot demos as is needed and will help you with anything that you are having trouble with. Keep painting and I will see you in class.