Lerri's Watercolor Classes

WATERCOLOR FALL 2015 PROJECT: Cool Refuge Week 3

This is for the Torrance class: I am using the PV class project to write this blog. Do not panic if you see things that we did not cover in class, we will work on it next week and we will cover everything you see in the PV version. They are a bit ahead of you, so don't panic.

This week we started working on finishing up our chair and getting into some of the detail of it there's still a bit to do but we should probably finish it up at our next meeting.

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First off be sure that you have your reference photo where you can see it, not hiding in your stuff or sitting on a desk some place at home, it should be right in front of you so that you can see what we are going to be painting. When you are doing details this is a critical thing to have.

When I looked at this at home, one of the things I saw was the wall that supposed to be sunny and warm was a bit on the pale side so the first thing I did before I started on the chair was that I washed over everything with a bit of yellow and a touch of orange. I made it very washy and just painted over the wall, the window, the pot – everything. I did came back later and touched up anything I felt needed it, but this added a little bit of warmth to that wall.

I did dry brush work on my chair creating more value as well as texture. Where it needed more value I used darker colors and to create more texture I also was using a other colors as well as the dark color. I mixed a shadow color (blue, touch of purple and touch of sienna) to start indicating where my shadows were and some of the details. Look at your photo, there are some dark shadows in places use this blue/purple and create the darker shadows or add a little water to that color and you'll get the lighter shadows.

I also used this dark blue/purple under the chair to create the deep shadow made by the chair. For the plants underneath the chair you can use this dark color to shape the tops of your plants so don't be afraid of using the color to cut into the plant color that is already there, you're trying to create something that looks natural and using a dark color to create those shapes is a good thing to know.

I will go into a more detailed demo on how to do cracks and detail in the old wood in our next meeting so don't panic or worry if you can't get it to look just right I will cover that in our next class for now just get values in your chair so that you can see the front is separate from the back. If you squint your eyes and it all blends together you need to get some more dark values, probably in that back part of the chair.

I also added some more layers to the plants underneath the chair using my sap green with a little touch of orange in it but not as much water. Using my half inch angled shader’s tip, I did a lot of dots into the base green color that I had there. You want to overlap these dots but you also want to leave some of that lighter color because that becomes highlights on your plant. I also went over it again after it dried with even a little bit darker version of green. The leaves have touches of blue in them, I added blue to my green and did the same technique leaving some of the first light color and the second darker color. When that was dry I picked up colors like orange and burnt sienna with water - I don't want them to dark - and I tap those colors in as well here and there. Just because something looks like it's one color, if you look closer you always see other colors. If you have a nice green lawn or when you get a nice green lawn again, look at it and you will see that there are yellows and oranges and browns and blues… there are all colors in that perfect green lawn, so don't be afraid put in other colors when you are painting what appears to be a singular color.

I also took the green and orange mix and tapped in the vines across the top of the wall and across the opening of the walkway. As that layer dried, I added another layer of a darker value of green with blue on top of the lighter color. I tried to leave some spaces where I can add some flowers later on. You want this green to look very cool so add your blue to your green to cool it down.

I also put in some of the missing chunks in the walls. The wall that is on the sunny side is warmer so I used burnt sienna with a touch of orange and water to create a light, warm brick color, then for the shadows I added purple to create a cooler brick color. You can add these bricks in the wall wherever you want but don't get too carried away with them. Most of the time you're going to see this happen at the bottoms of walls where water may have soaked in and done damage to the wall or where maybe it was at a height where something bashed into it you don't want to make it look like Swiss cheese, just normal wear and tear. We will do more of the detail on this later.

Try to get your painting as close to this point as you can (PV Class), you don't have to put in the vines, you don't have to put in the chunks out of the wall, that's your decision but try to get your painting as far along as you