Fall 2017 Watercolor Class

Watercolor Plus - Leaves and Berries Week 2

This week's class was more of the same for the most part and also starting to flesh out the details of the leaves.

I added yet another wash of color to the background with just my ultramarine blue to deepen the color and make it look like more shadows, but each time I do one of these layers I leave more areas unpainted to create more leaves deep in the bush. I can also leave what looks like stems or twigs just by leaving them unpainted.

If I have time in our next class I will do more washes to get very dark shadows in certain places especially around the subject.

Here you can see how each wash I put down I left leaf shapes by painting around the shape. Sometimes if you look at your brush strokes, you will see that there may already be the suggestion of a leaf, just paint around it.

This week I also started working on detailing leaves and putting a second coat of color on the berries.

The leaves are now being positive painted as opposed to the negative painting we have been doing. Look at the photograph to see where the leaves have highlights and shadows, for instance the leaf in the lower front center of this example is coming towards you to the back part is coming from a darker place into a lighter place as it comes towards the viewer, Start at the base of the leaf with your blue wash where it will be the darkest, come up about a third with that color, rinse your brush and pull some of that color about to the half way point the use a wash of yellow or sap green and yellow to create the brighter tip of the leaf. You will do similar things on each leaf but you will have to look to see where the shadows are, just look at the photo first before you start painting.

The berries are something you will need to decided yourself as to the color. The actual plant had reddish to purplish berries but you can make them all red if you want, it is up to you. Just look at the photo for the highlights and shadows and paint accordingly.

We have one last class and I do hope to get this a bit more finished before we end our class for the year. At least I hope to give you enough information so if you want to finish up at home over the break you can. This was just an exercise on layering and negative painting, I do hope that you have learned a bit about how important this is to the watercolor painter, if you can, please try to get down to the National Watercolor Society's International Exhibit before Dec. 17th, and look at how watercolor is used, see if you can see where these techniques have been used to get a better understanding of where you can go with watercolor. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Watercolor Project: Fall Proposal Week 7

I still have a few things that need to be done but essentially, I could call it finished at this point in time.

My goal in the last class we to get the "mood" of the painting the way I wanted and to get the richness of color I wanted.

The shadows got another wash of blue and the bright area around the ring box got another wash of napthol red and orange.

I also brightened some of the ends of leaves with color.

These are the things you need to do on your paintings. Look for those things that need more color or more shadow or places that need to be toned down, all the little things that YOU want to do to finish your own paintings.

I put in the ring using a very light gray which is my standard mix of ultramarine blue and a tiny bit of sienna, should be on the blue side, them make sure you add plenty of water so it looks more like silver of white gold than a dark gray. leave the top of where the diamond is paper white as well at the highlight on the top of the ring itself. there needs to be more of a shadow on the box which I will try to get to in our last class.

I need to put in some curly sticks in the back part of the bouquet and I will show you how you can use opaque watercolor, something I don't usually use, but it will work for this. I am also going to do something else to my painting to make the ring stand out a bit more, so I hope you can come and stay for the whole class.

This coming class will be the last class for the semester and the year I hope that you have learned something about how to handle similar colors and how to create leaves out of nothing. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Fall 2017 Watercolor Classes

Watercolor Plus - Leaves and Berries Week 2

Week 2 of our Leaves and Berries project is basically more of the same: Adding more layers to deepen the shadows and intensify the colors and creating more leaves in the shadows through the use of negative painting.

In this photo I have at least 4 layers of the green as I created the leaves in the shadows. Each layer of wash I put down makes those first leaves I left unpainted look brighter and brighter because of contrast, I may do at least one or two more washes of green with blue to deepen the shadowed areas of my painting.

All of these leaves are in shadow. The leaf in front has had 2 layers of wash before I left it out, the ones behind it had 3 layers of wash. The twigs were painted with sienna and a bit of orange and painted while the background was still damp so the edges would get fuzzy.

I finished the first layer of wash on the berries making sure that I started on the shadowed side of each berry with the darkest color and with a damp brush spreading a little bit of that color up into the lighter areas. Remember the pumpkin: you start where the shadows are and tease the color with a damp brush.

Close-up of some of the berries. BTW, the blue spot on that one berry was a happy accident from the splattering I did when I started the painting, if your's doesn't have it that is fine, there is a little place where the flower was connected that I will need to put in on some of the berries I will do when I get to the detail.

We will work on this until our last day and I hope that we will get enough along that you will see how to finish your's up at home when classes are over.

So keep painting and I will see you in class.







Watercolor Project: A Fall Proposal Week 6

We are coming down the home stretch with this painting now so most of what I did was fine tuning what I had and putting in some detail.

I put on yet another wash of red over all of the background and foreground fabric adding touches of orange to the napthol red in and round the subject and alizarin to the napthol in the shadowed areas and corners. I will probably do at least one more wash of color to deepen the color some more as well as deepen the shadows.

I did remove the masking from the ring but I have not done anything with the ring yet, probably the next class. I did go in and deepen shadows or added color to leaves.

In the red flower I took my ultramarine blue with a touch of sienna (burnt umber will also work) to create a dark color to add a bit of the detail between the petals. Watch the direction and shape of these lines because they are not straight or one width. Look at the photo to see how they differ.

I deepened the shadows of the paper around the bottle so that the one edge of the bottle next to the paper almost disappears, this is called "lost and found lines" and it helps add a bit of visual mystery to the painting.

On the label I added some shadow also to the seal around the neck. I did this with my blue and a touch of alizarin to make a purple color, starting in the darkest part of the shadow I put down the color, rinsed my brush and with a damp brush while the color is still wet, I teased some of the color out into the lighted part of the label to create a sense of roundness to the label and bottle. I did a similar thing on the seal always starting in the darkest area and teasing the color across with a damp brush with just water. I may need to do this again to get the dark I want. Watercolor dries lighter so it may take more than one wash to get the look you want.


I should finish this up in the coming class. We have 2 more weeks and if you need that time to finish, please take it, there is no rush. I will be doing the finishing touches in our next class so keep painting and I will see you in class.