Winter 2019 Watercolor Class

Creating a Composite Painting - Week 1
(I have edited this post to include the sketch I worked from and this weeks stage of the painting. - LP

As I have said before, there are times when you have a great photo of something but it is in a terrible setting, this is when you need to get out our artistic license and create a fitting background for your subject. This starts with having good reference photos to look through to give you ideas.

When I am out taking photos, I purposely look for things that I might need someday for something I am painting whether it is clouds or rocks or trees or water or fill in the blank, I take photos just to have for reference when ever the need arises and it does quite often.


For this demo, I looked through images I have taken over the years to find a subject and came across these 3 woven grass baskets. As you can see I took the photo on my counter in front of some appliance probably because I had good lighting coming in from a window. I knew that the background was irrelevant because I could put in anything I wanted. Next I needed to find a background so I went back into my computer files.

 I found some interesting rocks that I had taken photos of when I was in Arizona, this was all I needed to create a sketch and then a drawing that merges the baskets and the rocks into my soon to be composite painting.

The first thing I did was to make some small sketches to decide how I wanted my painting to look. Did I want it vertical or horizontal? Close up or at a distance? Doing sketches lets you compose your painting to see how the different elements work together, what composition works best and where your light source is coming from. In this instance, I lucked out and the light was coming from the same direction in both photos.

Once I had my idea down I sketched it directly onto my paper. Usually, I will do a more exact drawing on good drawing paper or tracing paper, this way, if I want a larger final image I will scan it into my computer and print out a pattern the size I want using the Poster 8 software (the link is in the sidebar under Lerri's Links). The reason I usually go this route is because I want to make all my corrections on paper that is better suited for being erased so I don't damage my watercolor paper which usually has a softer surface and doesn't take erasing very well. It also allows me to save the pattern for future use if I want to paint it again.

Once I had my drawing on my paper I started doing washes of color over my paper. This is about 3 layers of wash on the background rocks and I am starting to sort out the different rocks and cracks. I have a long way to go.

Here you can see my drawing a bit better but I could have used this closer composition as well, I will save that for next time.

Don't be afraid to merge 2 or more photos together to get the painting you see in your head, that is the beauty of at and as I have said, artists are the original photo shop, we are only limited by our imagination. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

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This last week I added more layers to build up the values (darkness) and the intensity of the color as well as drop come color into the rocks. I added a bit of detail into the rocks I think one more session and I will call it done.

Winter 2019 Watercolor Class

Using the Backgrounds

(There is no update for the Watercolor Plus class because everyone is working on their own projects.)

In our last class we took the background studies we did in previous weeks and added a foreground. It was supposed to be an exercise in using your imagination to look at the background and see what you could come up with but apparently it was just too easy for most to do what I did, don't worry, I won't make that mistake twice 😀

Below are my "before and afters":

 

You can practice these backgrounds on watercolor cards then add something to it like practicing trees or waves or mountains or fruit or.... Then send them off to your friends who will love them. the more you practice the easier watercolor will become. So keep painting and I will see you in class.