Fall 2018 Watercolor Class

Watercolor Project: Dancing Boots Week 3
This is the final week of the Monday Watercolor project.

Watercolor Plus, your blog will follow, scroll down.

This week was all about finishing the project, I started with the background.

I was using all different colors in medium washes. They weren't real light (thin) but they were still transparent with applied though they were more colorful than I normally work.

I also didn't finish painting to all the edges, this was my preference, you may do what you wish with yours.

I waited for the dirt to dry before adding the shadows for the boots and cactus. The dark color in the background is ultramarine blue, sienna and a little purple (very little purple). It is also the color I used for the shadows for the boots and cactus.

I used my liner brush to make the thorns on my cactus after the back ground was dry. They are a mix of orange and a little red and they come out of the tops of the bumps of the cactus ribs.

I also took my knife and scraped out some brighter highlights, just know what you want to do because there is no going back once you damage your paper.

I didn't put in all of the dead flowers but I did put some in to get some darker colors around the flowers and used that darker color to negative paint the petals of the flowers (painting the spaces between the petals to the will show up better).

If you are going to add detail to the boots like the stitching, LOOK AT THE REFERENCE PHOTO FIRST. The stitching must follow the ins and outs of the boots same as the cast shadow. The sides of the boots  are wavy so your stitching must also follow the waves of the leather. In the shadow of the back boot, I lifted out the seam edge.


Notice the shadows of the boots, they also need to follow the dirt they sit on as well as follow the shape from the boot casting the shadow.  REALLY LOOK at the shadow and see how it get smaller and closer to the boot back by the heal and has a gap up by the toes where the toes curve up. the back boot is leaning slightly so it has more of a shadow as the front part of the boot is off the ground.

You will also see that I did some splattering with my toothbrush to create the idea of little stones and gravel.

Do as much or as little as you want to finish up your project. There is always something more to do, you need to figure out what your needs are.

Just keep painting and I will see you in class.









Watercolor Plus Project: Missing Her Partner

With this project we are going to be putting everything we have been learning together to create an actual painting. It is not to say that you have learned everything, no, that journey has just begun, this is to show you that you can paint in watercolor and it isn't that scary.

The first thing we did after we got our drawing on the paper was to under paint the cactus. When you start your watercolor you need to look for the lightest color of the thing you are painting and that is where you start. The lightest part of the cactus was the top of the ribs so we used sap green and a little yellow with lots of water to create a very thin wash for the whole cactus.

Because it is the lightest color and all the rest of the colors will be darker it is just easier to paint the whole thing with the lightest color because it doesn't hurt anything and it needs to be there.

When that color was dry, we started on the shadows between the ribs. You should have your reference photo out so you can look at the cactus and study what you will be doing and see the shapes within the cactus such as the scalloped tops of the ribs.

The shadow color is Hooker's green and ultramarine blue and less water than the first time but enough so the color is transparent. Yes,we will have to do at least one more wash after this one to build up the dark value of the shadows, this will keep the watercolor transparent. If you only have sap green add more blue.

You may want to work a little at a time so your paint will stay wet and as you get more confident you can work longer sections.

Starting in what would be the bottom of the space between the ribs, paint a line following the curve of the cactus. RINSE YOUR BRUSH. With a damp brush while the paint is still wet pull some of that paint up the side of the rib of the cactus.The ribs that you are seeing straight on you will need to do this to both sides of the line you painted, as the ribs go away, use the dark paint to create the scalloped edges to the rib in front, this is negative painting because you are creating one thing by painting something else (yeah I know it is confusing but that is how watercolor works). RINSE YOUR BRUSH OFTEN as you move the paint up the side of the rib and be sure to leave the light color at the top. Check your reference photo often.

Here is another example of where you will need to do negative painting on the cactus. You need to leave the space for the light flowers unpainted so you will need to paint in between the petals of the flowers.

We also under painted the boot. I used thalo blue and a LOT  of water to get a very thin wash of color. This will end up being your brightest highlight when you are done so you just want to tint the boot with color.

The inside of the boot and the under painting for the soles are the same color one just has more water in it.

The color I used was burnt sienna with a little touch of blue to make a warm gray color. Again, this is not dark, there is a lot of water in it to thin down, it will get darker as we work on this but this is where it starts.

The interior of the boot, add the color you have for the sole towards the bottom of the opening rinse you brush and dry bush the color up the side just like you did with the cactus.

This is what we got done on the first day. I suggest that if you are unsure as to what to do next that you don't paint ahead of me, we will get there. It is more of a problem to fix a watercolor than other mediums so be patient and I will see you in class.