Fall 2017 Watercolor Classes

Watercolor Plus - Leaves and Berries Week 1

This week are are going to put together things we have been practicing to create an actual painting. We started out the same way but this time we are following a photo I took at the nursery and created a drawing from it.

 

You can put the drawing on before or after the first step, the choice is yours.

I started this painting much the same what I started the leaf washes we did a couple of weeks ago but this time before I splattered paint I wet the paper  because I wanted the colors to spread and blend. Then I let it dry completely. 

Remember not to get this step too dark or you won't have any place to go as you put on more layers.

Before I did the first wash of sap green I had to determine which leaves were the lightest and/or brightest. This is not always easy, one way that helps is squinting at the photo, it will help you see light and darker areas better. This isn't a science, just do your best better to error on the side of the light because you can always go back in and darken something up which is easier than trying to make something lighter.

You will want to paint around stems and berries with this wash because we will be doing their their washes separately. Yes, you could use masking on the berries and stems if you want but they are large enough that you can paint around them.

Remember to paint over EVERYTHING ELSE besides the bright leaves, berries and stems that includes all the background leaves because they will be much darker than the foreground leaves.

While the background is still damp - not wet - you can take your brush with some orange and sienna on it and under paint some of the background stems. Because the paper is still wet it will cause the paint you put down to spread a little creating soft edges. It is important that the paper is only damp, if you still see shine it is too wet wait a few seconds until you see the shine go away then add your stems.

Once the back ground is dry you can start with the first wash of color on the berries. Even though the berries are blue in the photo, they do have some red in them in the lighter areas so I am under painting with my alizarin crimson and doing like I did with the pumpkins: I put the color in the darkest area then with just a damp brush going along the inside edge, I tease the color up leaving a lighter area for the highlight. I will go over these berries several time to get the color and the darkness I want, this is just where I start.

I also under painted the stems with a mix of orange and sienna just be sure that areas that you are painting next to are dry or you could get blooms if wet touches drying.

Try to get as much of this done as you can and we will continue on with this probably until the end of the semester. If you don't get it done, no worries, I would rather you take your time and get the techniques down then have you rush through this and not know what you are doing or why, remember you are learning and no one dies if you don't finish or if it isn't perfect, those masterpieces may be a ways down the line, for now concentrate on learning.

Keep painting I will see you in class.

Advanced Watercolor Class Project: A Fall Proposal Week 5

Before I started class, I had to really look at the painting to see where I needed to start because I wasn't happy with how it looked and something just seemed off. I decided that the first thing I needed to so was to get another wash of color and shading into the fabric background and foreground and also get a wash on the paper around the bouquet.

The background wash was mostly the napthol red and alizarin, in the shadow areas I added some blue to create a shadow color and touches of orange around the box and the front of the bouquet. Then I let it dry before I painted the paper and reassessed my painting.

When the background was dry, I did another wash of color on the paper using napthol red (you can use cad red light) with a touch of orange and went over everything that is paper including the part behind the wine bottle.

Once I had done those two things and my painting had dried, I looked at my painting again and those washes made all the difference in the world! The reason for this is now all parts of my painting were at the same point of completion and the bouquet looked like it fit in, this is an important thing to remember because sometimes we are concentrating so much on one thing because it doesn't look right and we end up overworking that area, when all along if didn't look right because it was far more complete than the rest of the painting, so yeah, in comparison it was out of place but it was the rest of the painting that needed work not the thing you thought had the problem. Work in, around and through you painting bring all aspect up at the same time so you finish it all at the same time and you won't get areas that are over or under worked.

I added more shadows around the flower petals and created the tips of leaves sticking out by negative painting the shadow underneath the leaf. 

I also suggested some flower petals in the hydrangea using blue with a touch of alizarin to create a lavender color. If you look closely, there are only a couple of actual flowers in that cluster the rest are just shapes. You don't need to spell out everything for the view, you just need to suggest.

I also went around to deepened shadows around the other flowers and leaves sometimes creating more leaves if I saw the need. Again, if you look closely the shapes only suggest leaves for the most part there really aren't any actual leaves just suggestions.

Next week I will be working on finishing up this painting, I may not get it all done but I will be close. I will take off the masking on the ring and work on that as well.

So keep painting and I will see you in class.