Winter 2020 Watercolor Class

Finishing Touches and Brush Techniques

Just wanted to post the final image for the Monday class and to show how having some mats cut to different sizes (don't throw away old ones, keep them for this) and when you think you are done or if you are wondering it you painting is even worth saving, throw a mat on it and see how it looks, you will be surprised.

I call them Magic Mats because they can transform your painting into some thing special just by, eliminating "junk" like the tape or messy surroundings, and it lets you focus on your painting. If it still isn't doing it for you, take a smaller mat and see if there are  areas you do like, then mat accordingly. Don't just throw all your hard work away without first trying to find its redeeming qualities.

In our Wednesday class we worked on a couple of techniques that will give you a better sense of how your paint and brushes work. First we practiced using the wet into wet technique.

Wet into wet means that you are adding almost dripping paint onto paper that is also wet.

You need to be sure that your paints are ready to go by first spraying them so they are wet on the palette and you can get pigment when you need it. If they are dry, by the time you get enough paint on your brush, your paper will be dry so spray your paints first before you set up and they should be ready to go when you start.

If you wet the area of the paper you want to add paint, the paint will only go where the paper is wet. This can be done over large areas like skies or in this case, I only wet the area of the vase, then dropped the paint where I wanted it and let the watercolor do its thing. Have your paper slightly elevated so gravity can get in on the fun as well. Watch what the paint does, tilt your paper if you want but let the watercolor do most of the work.

Next we practiced using the angle or flat brush, this will work with either, to make flowers.

This is done on dry paper. 

Loading your brush is important: It should be damp but not real wet like the above. Load the paint by only touching the tip or a corner into the paint, no more that a third of the way across the  bristles, the opposite end should not have any paint at all.

Put the end with the paint where you want to start your color but PUT THE WHOLE EDGE OF THE BRUSH ON THE PAPER and at a slight angle, not straight up. as you pull the brush across the dry paper, you can wiggle it to get a jagged edge. If you have loaded your brush correctly, you should see a graded (dark to light) brush stroke on your paper,if it is too solid or even a color you either have too much water on your brush or you got too much paint on the end of your brush. Rinse and reload to keep the paint from moving across the brush. This takes practice but does some amazing things.

The leaves were started the same way by only loading the tip of the brush with paint but this time you start on the edge of the brush, start to pull then in one motion: twist, press, pull, twist and lift. You twist the brush by turning it with your fingers back and forth, the longer you pull before twisting back and lifting, the longer your leaf will be. Again practice these techniques.

Finally, you can put them all together to create something quick and fun to do. If you have cards you can paint on the cards or divide your paper into sections that you can cut and paste onto a card for a special gift to send to a friend. You get the practice and they get a special card.

Keep painting and I will see you in class. 

Winter 2020 Watercolor class

Project: Desert Refuge Wednesday Final Day

This was my final day working on the project in the beginning Wednesday class, and this is what we will be doing in the Monday class when we meet next week: Adding final touches.

The hardest part of any painting is knowing when to stop. You brain keeps thinking that thee must be something to add or to fix but more often than not, if you are looking for something to do or fix, you are probably done. At least set it aside for a few days (or weeks) then look at it with fresh eyes, if nothing jumps out at you, you are done.

With this painting I knew to finish it the way I like a painting to be done, I needed to add a few "decorations'" like rocks and weeds so the levee bank doesn't look so bare but that was about it.

I did a larger demo to show what I was going to be doing to my painting because it was so small, it would be hard to see.

To suggest rocks, I first lifted out some shapes in the levee bank. Be sure that when you lift out the shapes that you make various sizes and different shapes or you will end up with a herd of turtles.

Next I took some brown color I had on my palette - probably sienna and a little blue - and suggested the sides of the rocks. Don't over think this, the rocks are too small in the painting for much if any detail other than a darker color. In some cases if you already have some lighter spots in your bank color, just used the darker brown to make them into rocks.

Next, I added some weeds that grow along the bank and by the water. Many times weeds will be around the rocks and they will also grow in the direction of the slope of the bank so don't make the bottoms flat all the time. I also went back in with the liner brush to make some individual blades of grass, this is the same process as we did with the taller reeds.

Last thing I did on the bank was to add some shadows from the trees. If you look at the photo, you will see some shadows that cross the path and go down the slope from the trees on the other side of the path. I didn't want the black shadows that the camera makes, I just wanted a suggestion of shadow so I mixed my ultramarine blue and a little crimson to make a lavender color and water to thin it.

When painting shadows remember that they need to follow the contours of what they are falling on, for instance, if they fall on a flat surface you can use flat strokes, but when they change direction like these do going down the side of the levee, they also need to change to the angle of the levee bank. I also added shadows to the rocks and weeds.

The other thing I did was to negative paint behind the reeds under the trees with that same purple color and create some tops to the reeds on the other side of the path. You don't need to do this, I just thought that I needed to define the tops of those reeds a bit more. If you  look at the photo, you will see some darker colors in the area at the bottom of the mountain, that was the look I was going for.

Just those few little things were all I did to finish up my painting, you will need to look at your own painting and decide for yourself if you are done. If you like what you have, leave it alone, this is your painting finish it the way you want. I am just showing you how I finished mine.

Because we did finish early, I did a demo on some of the things we can cover next class, and I will be taking requests if there is something specific that you need help with and that I can demo in class, Monday class, we may have time during the second part of our next class to do this and/or finish after we do our critiques on or last class.

Have plenty of paper or bring some blank watercolor cards, we will need them.

Until next class, keep painting.

Winter 2020 Watercolor Class

Project: Desert Refuge Week 3

This part is for the Wednesday beginner's class because the first thing I did was to make the water a bit more colorful. If you like your water, you do not need to do this, I did this only because I thought that the water was too light and this brings it closer to the water in the Monday class.

The first thing I did was turn my painting upside down so gravity could help me with this and also make it easier for me to paint. Next I wet the water area including where the reflections are but was careful not to keep going over and over that area otherwise I would stir up the colors that were already there and create a mess in the water.

Starting at the top of my paper, I used ultramarine blue and painted across and down about 2 inches, then rinsed my brush and lightly dried it and with the damp brush right along the bottom of the blue I helped the wet paper bring down the blue color into my painting. You should be getting a graded color: Darker at the top and lighter as it goes down the page. If you need to and while the paper is still wet, you can add some more blue by repeating the above. Let the watercolor and gravity do most of the work, you just need to guide it just don't guide it so much that you lose the graded effect. When it is where you want it, you can turn it back around just watch for excess water and drips. The above blooms were caused with the little bit of moisture I had on my paper flowing back into the darker color, just let it do it's thing and you will be happier.

In both classes we needed to add the change of color near the waterline of the  dirt of the levee. I did this with my angle brush but it can be done with a round or a flat brush, the round brush takes a bit more work but results are about the same.

For the angle and flat brushes I first mixed a color of burnt umber and a touch of blue to make a cool brown color. I rinsed my brush and dried it,then loaded the tip of the angle brush (flat brush just load color onto a corner) leaving the rest of the brush without color. Placing the tip with the color at the bottom of the levee next to the water and placing the rest of the brush ON THE PAPER, I made the ins and outs of the edge of the wet dirt of the levee, occasionally pulling up at an angle so I didn't have just a straight line across the bottom of the levee.

This will take practice for both classes and I do recommend you practice BEFORE doing this, it is a fun and very useful technique but like all things does require you understand what you are doing to make it work.

Even though we didn't do this in the Monday class, I do strongly suggest if you do not have a good understanding of how your little liner brush works (it is the round brush with the very long bristles), you need to practice.

You want the trees to look like the trees on the left not the right. Start by getting your paint to be very ink like and roll it around in the paint and spin it in your fingers and you lift from the palette to get a point on the brush, then hold the brush and the very back end and start at the bottom of your tree by pressing the brush, then lift and drag. Try to lift it to the very tip to create a very thin line.

When you want to make a branch, go back into either the trunk or a limb, follow the limb or trunk up then "branch off" with a new branch with dragging and lifting. Look at trees to see how they branch and see how the branches come in and out of the leaves because this is next.

The branches of the trees were done with the liner brush (see above) and a mix of burnt sienna and blue to create a dark brown. If you practiced look at the photo and get close, doesn't have to be perfect, no one will know.

The reeds were also done with the liner but this time you will use a circular motion and will hit the paper on the up take of the stroke. Again, practice. Big circles make taller reeds or grasses, smaller circles make smaller reeds or grasses.

Once you are feeling confident, add some darker green reeds with Hooker's and blue mixed to an ink consistency as well as some of the dead golden colors of sienna and yellow and/or orange. This photo is of the Wednesday class where I added some cattails to the top of the reeds your choice.

Wednesday's class

These two photos show where each class is when we stopped for the day. Try to get yours to whichever class you are in because we will be finishing up the project probably in the next class.

Keep painting and I will see you all in class.

Monday's class

Winter 2020 Watercolor Class

Project: Desert Refuge Week 2

Both the Monday and Wednesday classes are at the same point in this project, if there are any differences I will note them in the post below.


This week we started by adding the trees. You might want to lightly draw in the outline of the rows of trees so you have a basic shape to guide you.

I was using the corner of  my 1/2" angle brush with a dry brush technique called scumbling. It is a great technique to suggest a jumble of things like branches of a tree, the key is to get a lot of movement in all directions of your brush in a scrubbing-type motion. That, along with very little pressure on the brush can be very effective when creating your trees. I do suggest that you practice this first because you need to learn what your brush does with varying pressure: too much pressure and the paint goes on too solid, same if it is too wet.

I started with the lightest color I saw in the trees, the tan color of burnt sienna a touch of yellow and a touch of orange,but notice that it is a couple of values darker than the mountain behind. 

If you didn't get it too wet, it should dry fairly quickly and you can go back over with different values of green the base mix of Hooker's green, some of the previous tan color or a touch of burnt sienna to gray the green slightly and blue to darken. Again, watch the amount of water in your brush and use light pressure. You don't want to close up all the sky holes in your trees and have your photo in front of you and refer to it often.

Also, watch the shape of your trees. I saw a lot of topiary mushroom trees as I walked around the room these trees probably only get trimmed if the wind breaks off branches so they have odd shapes and the tops are uneven. They also overlap each other as most things do in nature and last, they create a wide "V" shape with a break between the side not only on land but also in the water. This will be important when we get to the reflection.

When you are adding the darker colors, use that dark color to shape the lighter bushes in front of the tree, this is called negative painting and it is something that watercolor artist use all the time because we have to leave the light areas. Notice that I am not only creating the bush in front with the negative painting but I am also creating highlight and shadows in the tree I am painting.

The next things we did were adding the reeds under the tree, the start of the foreground reeds and the reflections in the water.

Again, this will be a dry brush technique using  the burnt sienna, a bit more yellow and a touch of orange to create a golden color. The stroke is lifting straight up so the reeds look straight and the top edge is ragged.
 

Remember that we work from light to dark so in the foreground reeds, look for the lightest color which is that golden color and be sure that when you pull them up, you overlap the levee, and parts of the trees.

The reflections can be done either wet into wet by painting the reflection with water first or wet on dry then using a damp brush to after to blur the strokes. You might want to practice first so you will know which works best for you.

With reflections you want to have your strokes straight down and lightly, straight across no matter what you are painting. This is moving moving water so nothing will be sharp and clear. I used the same colors as I used above in the trees on mostly dry paper because I am working vertically in class but at home I would probably wet the area first so it was damp. Once I put the color down with vertical strokes, I would immediately rinse my brush and with the damp brush, lightly drag my brush horizontally across what I just painted. If I wanted a bit more of a ripple, I would use the sharp edge of my brush to pull out a bit of paint. Let this dry, we may have to go over it again.

Wednesday's Class

This is where we left off in both classes. Wednesday on top and Monday below. Yes,there are differences. Do I care? No. Each person paints differently and each person can paint differently even if they are doing the same thing over again. Don't be so overly concerned about if it looks perfect or if it looks the same as mine, it won't even mine don't look the same and I am doing it 4 times and twice in the same medium.

Monday's class

Try to get you painting to the same point I have mine because this is where we will be starting from when next we meet.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Project: Desert Refuge Week 1

Both of my watercolor classes started this project at the same time to both should follow this post. I will note if there are any differences between the two classes.
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The first thing we did was to paint in our sky and water.

If you are in the Wednesday class, this was just like the practice we did the week before.

First I mixed a color for the sky which was ultramarine blue, a tiny touch of burnt sienna and water to thin the color. We want a pale blue gray.

Next we wet the paper all the way across not worrying bout the mountain. Then starting at the top, I added the blue color. You paper should be slightly elevated at the back so gravity can help you. Work the color down the  sky area with just a damp, clean brush. If you need to you can add more sky color but start back up at the top.

You are going to have to work fast because you need the paper to stay wet, so to part of the sky color add a tiny amount of alizarin crimson to turn it lavender. Next, turn your paper 90 degrees and drip this new lavender color along the side and let it run down your paper. You may need to turn it 180 and come in from the other side if the color doesn't get all the way across.

Next, turn the paper upside down, wet the area that will have the water and repeat the above steps, then let it dry when you are done. 

When the paper was dry we added the mountain and the distant desert.

The mountain was burnt sienna and some of the sky color. I was using my 3/4" angle brush to get this done quickly, and I used the edge of the brush to shape the tops of my mountains, it will give them a softer edge. My brushstrokes in the mountain followed the shapes I see in the photo. This is not a wall, it has shapes within its shape your brush strokes need to follow those shapes.

The desert at the bottom was yellow, a tiny touch of burnt sienna with a touch of the sky color to gray the color and I used the sky color to add some color changes to that part of the desert. This time my brush strokes were flatter because the desert is flatter.

Finally, I added the reeds behind the levee. This was yellow, burnt sienna a tiny touch of orange to make a mustard color. To apply it I used a dry brush technique, first loading my brush then drying and spreading the bristles of my brush to make quick up strokes for the reeds.

The last things I did was to use the sky color to add shadows into the mountains. Look at the photo before doing this, keep the shadows pale and usually, less is more.

I also under painted the levee banks with a light mix of burnt umber and the sky color.

Try to have your painting to this point in our next class so we can continue from there.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.