Fall 2019 Watercolor Classes

Projects: Alaskan Fishing Village

Wednesday Class: Week 2
(Monday's post will follow, scroll down)

In our last class we started adding shadows into our trees and texture into our building. Both of these take a little planning and a lot of studying BEFORE you put brush to paper. The trees seemed to give everyone the most problems because the technique is a combination of negative painting and positive painting, however, this is usually how it goes when you are painting. 

The most important thing to study is the shapes of the shadows in the trees. They follow the direction of the way the branches grow, so much the same way you painted the trees (scroll up a couple weeks or go to the picture page and look at the example of painting trees) except you will be leaving some of the lighter, first color for the highlights. 

I wanted it darker around the roof of the house and around the walkway in the back so I did paint around the roof but quickly switched the stroke one it was away from the roof to suggest a tree branch. That breaks up a solid dark outline around the roof but still gets the dark where I need it. I will probably go over this again next week because I do need it to be darker but I will be leaving some of this new color as well.

I was using my 1/2" angle brush and the color was either sap or Hooker's green with blue and a tiny amount of sienna so it isn't so bright a green.

The roof of the house was painted with the same brush using the dry brush technique so keep a paper towel handy.

Over all the roof I used the following mic of colors: burnt sienna with a touch of yellow and water to lighten. After you load your brush use the towel to squeeze the base of the bristles to wick out some of the water and also to spread the bristles, remember this is dry brush. When you apply the color follow the angle of the roof. You can use this color also on the hanging door on the front of the building.

The sides of the  building are shades of gray. Make a bit more color than you would for one side then you can mix other colors into this color to get darker colors and different shades of gray. My standard gray is blue and burnt sienna, to make it darker use more paint less water (still needs to be transparent), lighter more water; blue makes it a cooler color, sienna makes it a warmer color. You can go over the area a couple times before you need to let it dry, if the paper gets too wet all your colors will blend together.

Again, watch the water in your brush, use the towel to take out the excess then look at the photo to see how the boards of the building are going. The side under the eves is horizontal, the front is a mix of horizontal on top and vertical on the bottom. Dry Brush.

Once the roof has dried, you can add these colors - grays and sienna - onto the roof again, dry brush following the angle of the roof.

You will be using those same colors in the reflection but this time you only need to worry and adding them either straight down or straight across and you can wiggle your brush as you go.

Another thing we did was to darken the reflection of the trees behind the house. Do it the same as last time by wetting the paper where the reflection is first then dropping the dark blue/green and yellow into the wet area and let gravity do most of the work.

We will pick up where we left off when we meet again in class. My homework for you is to practice your negative painting and the dry brush BEFORE you go to your painting and really start looking at the world around you. Try to figure out how you would paint it. What colors would you use? What would you have to mix to get a color? How would you get that color? What is different between the things that are close to me and those similar things in the distance? The more you can see these things and more, the better artist you will become. Don't get discouraged, there is a lot to learn and you are just starting your journey.

See you in class.

Monday Project Week 4

Much of what I just wrote for the beginning class applies here as well. I was adding more dark to the trees,more color to the roofs and more texture/color to the buildings.

This was the third time I went over the trees to create darker shadows. I didn't paint over everything I needed to leave some of the previous colors but I did want it darker around the buildings using Hooker's and blue with a touch of sienna to create a deep forest green adding it with little marks to suggest branches of the trees. Look at the actual photo before adding in the colors.

I also made the reflection darker. Watercolor dries lighter so sometimes you need to go over something again to get it dark enough. Just repeat what we did before: wetting the paper first then dropping or touching color into the wet area and let gravity do its thing. Same colors as before.


The reflections of the buildings can be strengthened as well, just wait for the water area to dry first then you can wet the building area a little, not as much as the water area, it should only be damp then add the colors either as vertical strokes of horizontal strokes, you can wiggle the brush as you go but again let gravity help.

I wanted to strengthen the colors on the buildings so I just went over the areas with the same colors as last time (scroll back to the previous lesson if you need the colors), just adding another layer of dry brush. The great ting about old wood the more layers of dry brush the older it looks.

The roof I added gray (blue and burnt sienna) and burnt sienna alone again with dry brush and following the angle of the roof, this is important. 

I also used that gray in a stronger mix (less water and a bit more blue) to make a dark color to add the shadows under the building using negative painting to make the pilings stand out and I used that same color for shadows in the shed on the side, under the eves, around the door, on the stove pipe and a liter version to make the windows.

We are getting down to the final day on this project - one maybe two more lessons - we have the area in front of the building that include the boats and the pilings then we should have this thing wrapped up.

Try to have your painting to this point by the next class so you don't get too far behind.

keep painting and I will see you in class.