Winter 2016 Watercolor Class: Cozy Cottage Week 2

Torrance class remember that the PV class is a week ahead of you so you will be using these notes as your review after our next class you do not need to have your painting to this level when you come to class on Monday because we have not gotten this far yet so do not panic.

This week we moved forward by getting the trees behind the cottage painted in and we based in the under painting for the house and some of the shadows in our snow along with starting the reflection in the pond.

The trees behind the cottage were painted with a dark, greyed green using my hooker’s green with a bit of ultramarine blue and a little touch of burnt sienna to gray the color you want it to be a medium dark color not a bright green but not a color that looks so dark it could be black. Remember that these trees are in the middle ground so they do not have a lot of brilliant color to them.

I always use one of my angled brushes, they're like a flat brush with a diagonal cut in the bristles to give them an angled shape, but this will work with a flat brush as well as a round brush the technique is just a little bit different so do not panic if you don't have an angle brush use the brush that you are most comfortable with but practice it first before you get to your painting.

To create a pine tree you first draw the top tip with the point of your brush if you are using a flat brush or an angle brush you can use the sharp chiseled edge to create this top of the tree then coming down a little ways from the top you press the tip onto this line and flick your brush out quickly. The longer you have your brush to the paper the longer your mark will be so if you want short branches at the top of your tree it’s going to be a very quick press and flick and when you flick your pulling it up off the paper quickly. This is going to take practice which I encourage you to do before you get to your painting I will keep saying that when we hit something that is different and new because you can't expect yourself to do this perfectly the first time especially if you are working on your masterpiece.

As you come down the tree give it an irregular, outside shape. Pine trees get wider at the bottom of the tree so branches get longer but there are also branches in front of the tree so you want to fill in all parts of your tree and not just have branches coming off the side of a trunk or your tree will look like a comb instead of round like a tree. Using that same quick touch and flip stroke I can make these trees as tall and as wide and as full as I need them to be with overlapping strokes but remember: These are not the first pine trees I have ever painted I have had years of practice which is what you need to do before you paint them.

Last week, we put down masking fluid where we wanted the snow to be on our pine trees using this as a guide and using the dark green color, I painted my trees as if that masking fluid was not there I painted outside the masking fluid I painted in between the masking fluid as far as I was concerned I was more interested in creating an interesting shaped tree then to worry about that masking fluid that is just there to protect the snow parts of the trees.

If you do not have masking fluid on the roof of your house you will have to be a little bit careful when you are painting your trees most of you should have protected the snow on the roof with masking fluid so that you could paint your trees and not worry about ruining the snow on the roof of your little house so before you do your trees if you have not covered your roof be sure that you do and let the masking fluid dry before you start working on your trees.

Once I have the trees in, I then went to put the base colors on my house. This house is made of fieldstone which basically means whatever they found in the field when they were preparing this land for farming they stack stones up and use them to build their houses so they are irregular shapes and sizes and colors. For our purposes I want this little cottage to have a warm and inviting look so I under painted the house with a very light yellow this will become the highlights for my house it is not the finished color just one of many you can also put this color into the thatching areas of the roof, thatch is basically grasses that they use to make the roof so it's going to have a lot of warm colors in it.

The shadow area of this house is a very light purple color I took that same light yellow which was cadmium yellow with a lot of water and to that I added just a little touch of purple to create a cool shadow color for the house again you do not want this to be a dark color this will end up being the cool highlights in the shadows so you don't want to get too dark too fast remember this is watercolor and we work from light to dark so at this stage in our painting everything needs to be very light we will get darker later.

When you are painting the roof you need to remember that it is grasses and they have a texture this will be done with a dry brush. What that means is that there will be very little water and paint in your brush when you were painting so that you have streaks. Again if you have not done this and you don't understand dry brush, you need to practice. So take an old painting or a piece of scratch paper, load your brush with any color to practice, dry out the bristles by squeezing at the base of the bristles near the metal ferrule and then lightly dragging your brush across the paper it should look like scratches or hair or wood grain, if it is filled in so that you don't see any lines whatsoever, you can have two problems: You either have too much water on your brush and/or you're pressing too hard or both it's a very light touch and little water.

Once you feel you understand dry brush, when you get to your roof you will be using orange with a little bit of burnt sienna in it in a little bit of water on a dry brush and then you want to be sure that when you pull your strokes on your paper that you are following the angle of the roof line. You don't want to pull straight down or straight across because it won't look like a thatched roof, you need to follow the roof’s angle that you are trying to create. When you are in shadow areas add just tiny touch of blue into that color and do the same thing but follow the roof line some of the grass hangs over the edge of the roof and so it will change direction and come straight down so be aware what your painting and the angle of what you are painting.

We need to start working on the reflection in the water reflections can be a bit tricky because they are not necessarily a mirror of what you see when you are looking at this scene a reflection from water is reflecting what is directly above it so some things like the pine trees are too far in the background to reflect into the water only parts of the house will reflect in the water. To find out what will reflect in the water, either using your fingers or the end of a brush, put the end of your brush on the top of the chimney and then mark with your fingers the bottom of the house,  then move the top of your brush to the bottom of the house and see how far into the water your fingers touch that is the top edge of what you are going to see in the reflection so, in essence,  you are not going to be painting the entire house it's mostly just the roof and the chimney.

The first thing we do with the reflection is we want to wet the whole area so with just water area with plain water, look at your reference photo and look at your drawing, we're only going to wet the water area not everything, just the water area. This means when you get to the fence in the front you're going to have to skip the part that is the fence and wet those little squares or shapes that you see between the fence parts. Into these wet areas you will add some crimson like you had in the sky just not too bright what will be above the roof of the reflected house (see the reference photo) and even some grey if you still have it. Pull these colors down so if any strokes show it will look like a reflection. Leave the house area for now, that will come next week.

Next we are going to start with our next layer of shadows. We already have covered the entire paper with a very light blue except those areas that we've protected with masking fluid we're going to add a little bit stronger version of that color but again we're not going for the darkest darks we are just going in for some of them middle shadow colors so it isn't a dark color you'll be using a lot of water. On your palate you will mix you're ultramarine blue with a little touch of purple and water you want a plum color then add enough water to lighten it to a soft lavender color, now you're going to start looking at your reference photo to see where the shadows are and that is what you're going to be painting. There are shadows around the house, there are shadows in the road, there are shadows around the little pond… but look at these before you start to paint and it doesn't mean you paint everything, just painting shadow areas. Leave some of what is there, that becomes the next lightest color and you need you need both lights and darks to create the sense of depth and texture in your painting.

When you are applying the paint start where it is the darkest color, like around the house, where there is a pile of snow next to the house, etc, start at the bottom where the shadows are going to be deepest apply some paint then rinse your brush and with just water along the edge of that color you just put down take your brush and blend out so there is a soft gentle transition from the light area to the darker area.

Use this technique when you do the shadows in the road. Come in with your color - and I kind of took my brush with a seesaw motion so that I have an irregular bumpy shape - rinsed my brush and then softened the edges of the section I just put down. Work in short sections so your paint is still wet and will blend.

When you are doing something like a road you have to remember that it is an indentation in the snow so it is going to have a u-shape, then as it comes up where it is meeting the top of the snow it is going to have the reverse shape so it ends up being like an S on its side again shape is very critical when you are painting to give your viewer enough information so that they can fill in details.

When the area around the house and trees is completely dry you can remove the masking from the house and trees ONLY, leave it on the rest of the covered areas.

PV class try to get as much of this done as possible by looking photographs of where I finished my work for this week and do the best you can so that we can move forward when we meet again. Do the best you can keep painting and I will see you in class.

Winter 2016 Watercolor Class

WATERCOLOR: Cozy Cottage Week 1

The first thing a good watercolorist needs to have on their paper is a good drawing. We went over in class several ways to get a drawing on your paper, it is best not to try and do an original drawing directly on the paper because you can damage the surface of the watercolor paper and it will cause you problems when you begin to paint, just be sure to have your drawing on your paper before you start.

Once you have your drawing on your paper you then need to determine where your whitest whites will be in your picture will be then you want to protect them with masking fluid. When I look at the reference photo, I see the whitest whites on the top of the roof and in the foreground on the top of the post in front and some of the bushes along the side of the road but just mostly dibs and dabs of masking so that we have texture in the snow.

Once you have these areas masked and they are dry- the masking will feel tacky to the touch - you will want to wet your entire paper, however, it is important to have the top of your paper at a slight incline this allows gravity to help your paints move and blend, you don't want your colors just sitting in little puddles all over your paper you want it to move so it will blend.

I wet my entire sheet of paper, I have protected what I need to have protected by using that masking fluid so I'm not worried about anything else right now, I'm going to start inthe sky with a light gray that is ultramarine blue, tiny touch of burnt sienna and even a little touch of purple and a lot of water you just want it to be more of a tint then a strong color so add lots of water, you can add more color later if you need to.

Going across the top of the paper I took this light blue grey color and I did kind of diagonal stroke with my angle brush to create the impressions of windblown clouds. I didn't take them all the way down to the horizon, which is about the top quarter of the paper so I did about half of that area, then, while the paper was still wet, I rinse my brush picked up a little bit of alizarin crimson and lots of water, again this is just a tent and right along the horizon up to the clouds and brushed in the alizarin crimson to create a pink sky. The reason I'm using the crimson is because it is a bit on the cooler side and I want this to look like an early morning or late afternoon winter sky. I also added some of these colors into the water area in the pond. We will work with the reflections later but just put some of this color into the pond for now.

While the paper is still damp, I went back into my palette where I had made the gray color added just a touch more blue, a lot more water and tinted the rest of the paper. Be sure that your color is not too strong, we are basically just killing the white of the paper, color comes later. I went over everything do not avoid things you think are supposed to be white, we have protected those areas with the masking fluid you need to have this color on your paper as it becomes shadows and texture in your snow.

Right along the horizon line at the very bottom behind the house, there is the suggestion of distant trees or hills. These trees are in the far distance so you do not see any details or branches so it could be a distant hillside it's too far away and we don't see any detail to know exactly what it is but it is important to put it in because it shows depth in your painting. To get the color for this area, I went back into that same blue grey color on my palette I was using and I added a bit more purple and blue. I don't want it very dark so there is still a lot of water in it but it should be just slightly darker than your sky. I went across that area making an irregular shape and if your paper is still wet like it should be it will diffuse a little as you paint, your paper should be damp to the touch not dripping wet otherwise it will diffuse too much.

Learning how much water to use whether it is on your paper or in your brush is probably the biggest problem for most beginning watercolorists. With few exceptions you never want either your paper or your brush to be dripping with wet paint or water. Usually, having either your paper or your brush damped is a good way to work, there are always exceptions where you will need either dry paper or wet paper or a dry brush or very wet brush but in general having a damp surface to work on will help your colors blend and your paint to flow and having a damp brush will let you have a smoother application of color.

Once your paper is just slightly damp particularly in the sky area you will want to paint in the closer trees in the background. These are trees that you won't see much detail but they suggest that this little cabin is just on the edge of a forest so they are important. These trees are not dark they are just slightly darker than the way distant trees we just put in so again in the color that you have for those distant trees in your palette add just a little more blue and purple and make it just about one value darker then what is already there, just be sure that your paper is not real wet it should be cool to the touch which means it is still drying but that it is not completely dry, you want the trees you will put in to slightly blur. I used my liner brush to put these in but if you notice they are not real specific or detailed they're just a bunch of crocked lines to suggest a lot of trees in the background they are too far away to see detail. Now let your paper dry completely before we go on to the next step.

Again I was using my liner brush to make the trees in the background and near the cottage, if you don’t have a liner but do have a small round brush like number 4 or number 6 that has a good point on it that will work or you can use the point of an angle brush as well, you will just have to play around with it before you go to your painting so you know what you need to do. With the liner brush you want to roll the brush in the paint to fill it up good and as you take it off your palette you roll it between your fingers as you pull up to create a point, then holding it at the end of the brush in a downward angle, starting base of a tree you push down to create a fatter section and then as you pull up into the branches you lift the brush off the paper until you are on the very tip to create very fine lines. To start another branch, put your brush into the trunk or branch then start to pull and branch off, it will give you a better, cleaner look to your tree. Practice this before you get on your painting and also observe trees particularly at this time of year because there are no leaves on them and you can see how the branches come off the trunk how they are not straight or how they have bumps and twists in them and this will give you more confidence when you are painting your trees.

There are three closer deciduous trees near the house one of those trees on the left hand side of the painting is behind the holly tree that takes up the left side, so as you paint it watch at your drawing and skip areas where the holly tree will be in front of the tree. This is so you don't have to worry about lines in your snow on the holly bush that may not lift off but don't worry if you forget or can’t figure out how to do it, while the paint is still wet, you can lift them off with a damp brush or paper towel, just don't rub too hard on your paper because you don't want to damage it, again we will let this dry.

The last thing we did was to mask out some more parts of our painting I'm masked out where I wanted the snow on the pine trees behind cabin and also in the crooks of some of the branches of the closer trees, this is where we stopped for the day because the masking fluid would have to dry before we could continue.

Please try to have your painting to this point if you can, if you are still having problems or questions and do not wish to proceed until class that's fine I will help you to get caught up so keep painting and I will see you in class.

Watercolor Fall 2015 Class Project: Cool Refuge Week 5

Torrance Class we finished our version of the chair the information is in the previous blog. Next time if you have finished your chair have something you want to paint or just do some studies on various things to get to know your subject, it is something I do encourage.

Taking the time to do small studies of individual elements helps you understand your subject. Some artists take months of research for a future painting by gathering photos and doing sketches and thumbnails long before they ever start on their masterpiece. With all that preparation it usually does turn out to be a masterpiece. Try this for a few months – yes months, it doesn’t happen overnight – and you might see great improvement in your paintings. Even taking time to do a pencil sketch like this chunk of wood, gives you so much more information about the wood that when you get to your own painting, it won’t be a mystery. This drawing only took about 10 minutes but its value goes beyond the time spent. Try it, you might like it and it won’t hurt.

I may bring in a surprise next class for those who are up to a challenge, until then, keep painting and I will see you in class.

WATERCOLOR FALL 2015 Project: Cool Refuge Week 4

Torrance class I want to remind you that I am using the PV class project to write the blog do not worry we will cover everything that you see in the photographs from their class you're just about a week behind them so be prepared to finish up your project this week.

This week was all about finishing the project so I wanted to concentrate on the areas I thought needed some work so that when I started doing detail I didn't have to stop and fix something else.

First thing I did is I wanted to darken the moss that's on the wall behind the chair if you look at the reference photo you will see that the moss is quite dark in between the slats of the chair and I like that look if you don't like it don't put it in but I do so I did. The color is a mix of Hooker’s green, blue and burnt sienna to make a ugly dark green color, there wasn't much water mixed into the paint that will keep it dark.

 

While that was drying I started working on the chunks that are out of the wall we had under painted them in last week now I'm going to detail them. There are several ways you can add bricks into the wall the first is the obvious way - you can paint them in. The second way is to lift them out and the third way is to paint the mortar that is between them or lift out the mortar that is between them or a combination of several techniques. You might want to experiment on a separate sheet of paper and see which method will work best for you, for me in the closer wall I lifted out the mortar between the bricks leaving the original color as my bricks. Remember that bricks are offset over each other for strength so they are about halfway across the brick below them. For the few bricks that show on the sunny wall I lifted the bricks this time and left the original color as the mortar between the bricks you are not limited to one way or the other you just need to figure out what technique will work best in the area you are in.

 

Next I wanted to add some detail to make the cracks in the chunks so they look three dimensional. Where you have plaster lifting up off the bricks there will be a shadow underneath stucco so using my shadow color which is my blue, purple with a little touch of sienna to make a very dark purple/blue color and my liner brush, I painted right up next to the edge of what should be the wall. If you make the mark thick it will look like the stucco is further away from the wall; if it is thin it will look like it is right on the wall, this is how you create three dimensions on a two dimensional surface. Using the same color I also created cracks in the wall I did a similar thing on the sunny side but just added a little bit more water because it is in the sun and it is further away. I also used this color to create a little bit of texture in the bricks. The bricks will also have little shadows around some of the edges and they will have cracks in between them, you are only limited by your imagination, this is why I suggest you look at things so that you have a lot of information stored in your head when you get into situations like this, it makes your painting a lot more fun and interesting.

I also lifted out some areas in the vines above to put in some flowers I realized that white flowers were not going to happen so I just made them a red flower using my alizarin crimson and a touch of blue to create a cool red color. This will also work with your napthal red as well, try not to line them up, give them different shapes, different directions and different sizes so that it looks like there are flowers in all stages of development.

I added cracks and detail to my chair I did a demo on how to create the texture in old wood and I suggested that you look at old wood but knowing that you probably would not go out and look, I took some photographs of an old picnic bench I have in my yard so that you can see how the grain and the cracks change direction when they reach the end of a board this is important because it helps to create the effect of a third dimension on a flat surface. If you can't see in your mind what I'm talking about when I'm doing my demo it won't do you any good, this is why you need to create your own reference file whether it is cutting pictures out of magazines and newspapers, taking your own photographs, searching the internet, doing sketches and creating a file on your computer - all of these things will help you as an artist and the more you understand what you are looking at the easier it will be to paint them.

The rusted nails we're pretty simple you just take and put a little bit of burnt sienna and then

a little bit of orange where you want the rust to be, then take your finger or a damp brush and smudge downwards it should look like rust dripping from the nail and the nail is just a very dark color, whatever is on your palette that is very dark.

Finally we get to flagstones or cobblestones in our painting. I wish I had an actual photograph of what I'm trying to get across to you, when you are looking at something that is flat and it looks roundish when you are looking down on it, it is going to be longer across than it is wide when you look it is from and angle so it looks flat, this is called foreshortening. When you are painting in the separations between the flagstones, no matter what size your flagstone is, it will be longer across than it is wide and you will mostly only see the front part of the flagstone and only on those that are close to you, the ones in the background you may only see parts of  because you don't want to draw attention to the background with too much detail, keep the detail around your subject.

Using that same dark mixture I used for the cracks, the shadows on the chair and wall, I used to create the edges of the flagstones. It is mostly the front of the flagstone that you see and that is what I painted. I didn't paint them all, I just painted some and left a suggestion for the others. Look at the detail work that I did to see how much and also how little I put in, you don't need to spell out everything for your viewer let them do some of the work.

 

Finally I did use a lighter version of my shadow color by adding some water to create a shadow for the vines on the wall. Look around your painting see where you need to make adjustments, where you can add detail and where you can leave detail out, this will finish out your painting. Please have something ready for next week that you want to paint and I will help you get started. Torrance class we will be finishing up this project at our next meeting so you might also want to start look in for your next project. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

WATERCOLOR FALL 2015 PROJECT: Cool Refuge Week 3

This is for the Torrance class: I am using the PV class project to write this blog. Do not panic if you see things that we did not cover in class, we will work on it next week and we will cover everything you see in the PV version. They are a bit ahead of you, so don't panic.

This week we started working on finishing up our chair and getting into some of the detail of it there's still a bit to do but we should probably finish it up at our next meeting.

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First off be sure that you have your reference photo where you can see it, not hiding in your stuff or sitting on a desk some place at home, it should be right in front of you so that you can see what we are going to be painting. When you are doing details this is a critical thing to have.

When I looked at this at home, one of the things I saw was the wall that supposed to be sunny and warm was a bit on the pale side so the first thing I did before I started on the chair was that I washed over everything with a bit of yellow and a touch of orange. I made it very washy and just painted over the wall, the window, the pot – everything. I did came back later and touched up anything I felt needed it, but this added a little bit of warmth to that wall.

I did dry brush work on my chair creating more value as well as texture. Where it needed more value I used darker colors and to create more texture I also was using a other colors as well as the dark color. I mixed a shadow color (blue, touch of purple and touch of sienna) to start indicating where my shadows were and some of the details. Look at your photo, there are some dark shadows in places use this blue/purple and create the darker shadows or add a little water to that color and you'll get the lighter shadows.

I also used this dark blue/purple under the chair to create the deep shadow made by the chair. For the plants underneath the chair you can use this dark color to shape the tops of your plants so don't be afraid of using the color to cut into the plant color that is already there, you're trying to create something that looks natural and using a dark color to create those shapes is a good thing to know.

I will go into a more detailed demo on how to do cracks and detail in the old wood in our next meeting so don't panic or worry if you can't get it to look just right I will cover that in our next class for now just get values in your chair so that you can see the front is separate from the back. If you squint your eyes and it all blends together you need to get some more dark values, probably in that back part of the chair.

I also added some more layers to the plants underneath the chair using my sap green with a little touch of orange in it but not as much water. Using my half inch angled shader’s tip, I did a lot of dots into the base green color that I had there. You want to overlap these dots but you also want to leave some of that lighter color because that becomes highlights on your plant. I also went over it again after it dried with even a little bit darker version of green. The leaves have touches of blue in them, I added blue to my green and did the same technique leaving some of the first light color and the second darker color. When that was dry I picked up colors like orange and burnt sienna with water - I don't want them to dark - and I tap those colors in as well here and there. Just because something looks like it's one color, if you look closer you always see other colors. If you have a nice green lawn or when you get a nice green lawn again, look at it and you will see that there are yellows and oranges and browns and blues… there are all colors in that perfect green lawn, so don't be afraid put in other colors when you are painting what appears to be a singular color.

I also took the green and orange mix and tapped in the vines across the top of the wall and across the opening of the walkway. As that layer dried, I added another layer of a darker value of green with blue on top of the lighter color. I tried to leave some spaces where I can add some flowers later on. You want this green to look very cool so add your blue to your green to cool it down.

I also put in some of the missing chunks in the walls. The wall that is on the sunny side is warmer so I used burnt sienna with a touch of orange and water to create a light, warm brick color, then for the shadows I added purple to create a cooler brick color. You can add these bricks in the wall wherever you want but don't get too carried away with them. Most of the time you're going to see this happen at the bottoms of walls where water may have soaked in and done damage to the wall or where maybe it was at a height where something bashed into it you don't want to make it look like Swiss cheese, just normal wear and tear. We will do more of the detail on this later.

Try to get your painting as close to this point as you can (PV Class),  you don't have to put in the vines, you don't have to put in the chunks out of the wall, that's your decision but try to get your painting as far along as you

Torrance Version

can so that it is close to where I am in class. We should finish this up next time we meet so keep painting and I will see you in class.

WATERCOLOR FALL CLASS 2015 Project: Cool Refuge

I'm writing the blog using the Palos Verdes project as reference because they are a little bit ahead so the Torrance class will get a preview of what to expect in our next class we will go over everything so don’t panic it’s just the PV class is a bit longer and I can cover more ground.

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PV Version

I started out mostly by working in the background finishing up the window and the window box and a little pot by the door, I also put the vine around the window and that was just using a bright light green and tapping in to create the effect of vines crawling up the window I also did the same thing over the door so it looks like vines are falling over the top of the door.

I worked a bit on the windows using a darker blue and negative painting the curtains in the window. What that means is I created the opening of the curtains to suggest the curtains in the color that was already there.

Most of the work done on project today was using dry brush so be prepared to do dry brush. What dry brush means is that you have very little paint and practically no water on your brush so as you are painting you want to leave streaks, this will give you the wood-like texture not only on the chair but also to the windows and the flower box under the window in the background.

In the background on the windows I mixed burnt sienna with a little orange to create a warmer slightly darker color then I already had on my windows making sure that I had very little water in my brush I dry brushed the frame of the windows and the flowerbox. I may go over it again later but will leave it for now, remember you want some of that lighter color that you put on earlier to show through this creates texture and grain in the wood so don't try to cover it all up.

Next I started working on the chair itself before I started to work on the chair I looked at the actual reference photo not something that we've done in class but the actual photo I need to see value as well as color changes in the wood before I ever start working on the chair so you should also have your reference photo in front of you where you can see it.

If you look at the reference photo you will see that the back of the chair is much darker then the seat in front of the chair also the front of the chair and the legs that are holding it up are much warmer color, so noting these differences the first color I mixed was a dark gray color using my ultramarine blue the dioxazine purple and a touch of burnt sienna.

Using my quarter inch angled brush I made sure that I didn't have too much water on my brush and I streak this color onto the back of the chair. You want to make sure that you paint around the lighter areas of the front of the chair and you also want to make sure that you don't cover everything from your original light wash that becomes the leftover paint and worn spots on the back of the chair.

The front parts of the chair I added some more burnt sienna and a little touch of orange into the same mix I used for the back of the chair with more water to make it just a little lighter and a little warmer, this I streaked onto the front of the chair making sure that I was following the grain of the wood. Please note that the legs that come down from the arms are vertical so your brush strokes will be vertical, the front of the chair is mostly horizontal so that is the way you need to apply the dry brush so that it follows the grain of the wood. Following that grain is also important when you are doing the armrest because they also go at a slightly diagonal direction, you don't want your brush strokes to be any other direction then the actual direction they go.

Torrance version

I have managed to do a couple of layers of dry brush on my chair do the best you can and try to get your chair to this point if you are in the PV class if you are in the Torrance class we will go over this part of the painting in our next session so keep painting and I will see you in class.

WATERCOLOR FALL CLASS 2015 Project: Cool Refuge

Hopefully everyone was able to get the drawing onto their paper. One of the things I did forget to do is to add in the plants in the planters in the background and the plants underneath the chair so you may want to draw both in before you get started. It no big deal you can adlib as you go, just be aware that you will need to leave some space for them before you do the darker colors.

The first thing I did was to paint the entirepaper with a mix of my Cad yellow light with a little touch of orange and a lot of water. I want this to be a very pale color so you need to add enough water to really dilute the color and then I painted it onto the entire surface of my paper everything else in the picture is darker then that one light wall so painting everything with this color is not going to bother or hurt the things that go on top of it.

This next part you do not have to do but I like to do it, so while my paper was wet, I mixed up a ugly grey which, in my case, I just took water and mix it into the dirty part of my palate and got a soft  dirty grey but if you don't have a dirty palette, mix blue, purple, burnt sienna and any other color you want plus a lot of water, you just want a soft blue/purple/gray. Then splattered or throw this color on your paper with a big brush you want big splatters, overall your paper. I didn't do a lot of splatters I did some splatters, I want the finished painting to look like an old photograph like you found it someplace and it's got mold and dirt on it but it has a lot of memories as well. Then I let it dry completely.

 

PV version

When my paper was dry I wanted to know where the chair was so I painted the chair with a touch of orange and burnt sienna and water you don't want to get too dark color, so use lots of water and I painted in the entire outline of the chair with this color we will be going over it with darker colors this color ends up being the light paint is still hanging on to this poor beat up old chair. I also used this color to under paint the planter box and the window divisions on the sunny wall. Again, I let this dry completely.

When my paper was dry I needed to mix color for the wall behind the chair. This is just a wash. Again this has a lot of water in it and just a little bit of color the color, more of a tint. What I used was a mix purple with a little touch of blue in it and lots of water and I painted the wall behind the chair with this wash of color, painting around a chair and between the slats.

I love to paint old dirty broken nasty things and one of the things I like about the photograph was the mold that was growing on the wall behind the chair it gives the chair a sense of having been there for a long time and maybe neglectful but I like that mold so while paper is wet, right behind the chair, make up the dirtiest ugliest color you can using green, purple, blue, brown… just mix it up ugly and then tap it into the wet don't paint it in. Tap it in and let the paint just spread on its own the way it wants to, that's the way mold grows, you can even drop some water back into that wet ugly color area and that too will help it look just like mold growing then you let it dry again. Salt would also work.

While the wall is drying you can under paint for the plants that are in the planter box the planter by the door and the plant under the chair. Again we are dealing with a wash which is a very thin application of color. Using either of your greens - either sap green or Hooker's green - with a touch of yellow and a little touch of orange and a lot of water, under paint your plants, this becomes the highlights for your plants. Also, remember that what you are painting is a wild, living, growing thing it doesn't grow in nice symmetrical clumps it branches out, it is irregular shape so when you are painting your plants, be sure that the edges of the plants you are painting our irregular as well: up down sideways lot of movement in your brush.

When your wall is dry you're going to start on the walkway that is next to the sunny wall.  Using orange with a little touch of burnt sienna and water, maybe not quite as thin as we've been making it but still it is a wash, and with flat strokes, this is going to be more like calligraphy then painting, you're going to make a series of little shapes that will represent the flagstones or cobblestones of the walkway. When things are further away they are the smaller and closer together as they come towards you they get further apart and larger, this is part of perspective. The light yellow that we put on there at the beginning becomes the highlights on the top of the flagstones or cobblestones so don't paint over all of it you must learn to save your lights for the highlights.

Look at the reference photo and you will see that there is a shadow being cast by the wall into that walkway but you will also see that there is a transition area where it's not light and it's not and shadow yet it still has a warmth but has a richer color about it, because of the reflected light. Look at that area before you start painting the next part which is the shadows the shadows go in and over some of that light area because of the rough texture of the flagstones so there isn't a hard shadow line on the ground it is a soft line and very irregular.

 

Note how the shadows follow the shape of the bricks

To mix the first of the shadow colors for the walk around the chair, you are going to mix a cool grey color which, again, will be your blue, purple, and burnt sienna. It can be a little more to the blue side but be sure that you use enough water we aren't going for the deepest darkest parts of the shadows just yet we are only going for what will be the light parts of the flagstones or cobblestones around the chair so please don't make it too dark. When you're in that transition area you can take some of that shadow color and into parts of the sunny your area just and leave some sunny spots in that margin area between your sunny area and the shadow area. You can also use this color for the shadow in the doorway around the outside of the window because these are both recessed into the wall, then you can add a little touch more blue and use that start the window panes.

The red door can be any of your reds and a touch of blue, you want it to still look red but the blue makes it look as if it's in shadow. That should get you caught up to where we ended in class this week. Remember with watercolor it is better to sneak up on the finished look of your painting then to try to go straight to the finished color or value. Learn to use thin washes and glazes rather than mixing up dark paint and then having to try and lift it off. This knowledge and skill comes with practice so in time, as you become more familiar with your paints and how they work it will become second nature, however, as a beginner you need to remember work in thin washes and glazes.  Keep painting and I will see you in class.

 

Torrance Version