Watercolor Week 1

I need to apologize, apparently Blogger is letting sponsors put their links in my blogs without even bothering to ask! The hyperlinks that appear orange are not my doing ......also Blogger keeps screwing with this program and now it won't let me insert a blank line to separate paragraphs so I will have to separate thoughts with..... Watercolor - Sailboat .... This time Torrance gets the head start on the project so if you are a PV student, you will be using this blog for information from our class project. There isn't a lot to tell at this point because I have to do an orientation on the first day but we did get started so we can jump right in at our next class. Be sure to go to the picture page and download the reference picture and, if you need it, the drawing to have for class when we meet again on Monday..... . I am hoping that most of you will be able to at least get your drawing on your paper and even better if you can get your first round of splattering on. I know that some of my returning students masked out their boat before they started to splatter and that is okay, there is no right or wrong what to do this, I just like to have a bit of the color from the splatters in the things I am painting but I have done it both ways so don't panic, no one dies just because you started by masking the boat out. ...... For my new students, if you can get the drawing on for the next class, I will show you the splattering and also how to apply the masking. If you do the splattering be careful not to go too far with it. It can feel way too good and before you know it, it looks more like mud splatters so stop and let it dry, you will be doing more...... . Generally, when I splattered my paper, I kept the warm colors like the yellow, orange and red up in the sky area and the cool colors like green, blue and purple in the water area though I did put some blue in the sky area and I didn't care if the splatters didn't end up where I hoped they would. This is not rocket science, it is controlled chaos. Just have fun and don't mix mud. Be ready to go on Monday, if you have questions let me know. See you soon.

Spring 2011

Hi Everyone

I posted the photo and drawing for our first project on the picture page. We have done it before I think but this time I think we will do it with a twist to loosen up.

Please feel free to download and print the photo for class and I have a drawing posted if you need help with the drawing.

See you soon. - LP

Winter 2011 Watercolor Classes

WINTER 2011 WATERCOLOR – More Rocks

Torrance class: I didn't do anything different to the rocks in your class than I did at PV so the blog I wrote for them should be just about the same for your rocks. Just be patient and take your time.

Before I start the narration on the rocks, I want to talk a bit about "getting in the mood" to paint. Painting should be almost meditative. If you are in "the zone" when you are painting you should be startled when you look up and see the time and realize an hour or two has passed. As I look around the class most of you look dismayed that only a few minutes have passed since you last looked at the clock. This is not the mind set you should be in when you are trying to create.

I have mentioned before the Betty Edward's book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" it is a wonderful book for many reasons, the best being explaining to you how your mind works. The two side of your brain have different functions. The left side is concerned with Time, logic, math, language to name a few, the things you use in your everyday-get-through-life state of being. The right side of your brain of you brain is more concerned with spatial things, face recognition, esthetics, emotions sort of the background program that lets you walk through a room without watching every step – everything the left side is not. Together, they make up who we are and how we see the world around us.

One of the key things she talks about is how the left brain relates to the world. It has its own short hand for everything so that anything that looks like a chair no matter how ornate, it names it as a chair and moves on to the next thing, it is very impatient, it doesn't care. Your right side is the side that can tell the difference from a garage sale folding chair and a $1000 gilded antique, it does care.

There is another important fact she discovered and that is when ever you stopped learning art such as drawing, whether it was in grade school or college or whenever, that is where you start your journey again. This is a hard concept for adults, I think we assume that because we are adults that we have absorbed this knowledge or have access to it just by living and experiencing art. Well, I've flown on planes and watched countless movies and TV of pilots working all the controls, but I don't think you'd want me flying any plane you were on. You need to have not only the knowledge but also the skill and that comes through practice and patience.

Most of you are coming from this combination of being an adult and assuming you should be able to do this, plus, for a lot of you, you are in your instant gratification, left brain. Not a real good combination for learning. You will find you have trouble getting things to look like the pictures in your mind, they will tend to be more child-like (this would be more your left brain's shorthand version) or you get frustrated and start mixing mud. You need to slow down, picture the subject in your mind, sketch the subject either on your watercolor paper or on sketch pad and concentrate more on the process than the end result. You will hear that little voice in your head saying "Are we done yet?!" Ignore it and see how much detail you can see in your subject. Whether it is clouds, rocks or whatever, look for shapes, colors, lights, darks and patterns. You will start seeing things you never noticed before and the more you practice this, the easier shifting into that state of mind will become, you just need to ignore that voice when it switches to "This is stupid! Let's move on!"

I can't teach you this, I have tried. This is something you will need to find on your own before you will believe me, I know this from personal experience. The ironic thing about the left brain is it is also your own worst critic. It can see the picture you have in your mind and if what is on your canvas or paper doesn't match, it is quick to point out those "faults". Again, don't listen to it because it will drag you down until you finally give up which is what it wanted all along. Find something in your painting or drawing that you like and concentrate on the positive. I have had my "SHUT UP!" moment when I got so tired of the self criticism I about had myself in tears. It felt like I was being attacked by an internal pack of wolves and I didn't deserve it because I was still learning and art was a part of me I wasn't about ready to give up. It was my epiphany. From that point, my art took a dramatic turn and I've never looked back. Cut yourself some slack and enjoy the process, it will come with time, patience and practice.

::::She gets off her soapbox and puts it away::::

Rocks Part 2 – This week we worked on the river rocks, the individual rounded rocks that could easily be part of a cobble stone road or wall or house as laying on the bottom of a decorative pond. It is all the same, rocks are rocks.

You can start out by doing your drawing before you start or you might want to wait until after the first step because the graphite will tend to wash out and you will have to come back over with your pencil to reestablish the lines. It is up to you, I did my drawing first and went back over the lines when the first step was dry.

The first thing I did before I started painting was to totally wet my paper. I want the paper to be wet so the paint will spread and blend and create some really lovely blends and textures. I also had this on about a 4" slant when I was redoing it at home. Very seldom do I ever work totally flat on the table.

To that wet paper, I splattered, touched and dripped different colors of paint. Anything I've got on my palette is fair game the only caution here is to stop before you create mud. Let the colors flow together by tilting your paper other directions or by using water and no paint to splatter. Also, be sure that you use a lot of water in your paint so it isn't too dark when it dries.

When I was satisfied with my splattering I let it dry until the sheen was just off the paper and I added salt to create even more texture then I let the whole thing air dry to give the salt time to work. When it was dry, I went back over the lines of my drawing.

I am always asked about controlling the watercolor, I have to laugh because even if you get out the little brushes there will always be an element of chaos with watercolors. It is like skiing: At first you feel like you are flying out of control as gravity works against you and those trees come up real fast! But the more you ski the more control you have of your body and your equipment until gravity becomes your friend - or partner in crime – then those trees really are coming up a lot faster but you know what to do to avoid disaster. Same with watercolor though the consequences are only mud and not broken bones, the element of chaos is still there, you just have more control over it. Be patient.

The next thing I did when the paper was dry was I mixed a dirt color for between the rocks. This was mostly sienna though I did throw in some blue and/or purple and while I was painting it on, I picked up touches of red, orange and green just to change the flavor of the color. I painted around all the rocks, this is called negative painting because I wasn't painting the rocks, just the dirt around them. This could be mud, or cement or what ever is between them depending on what situation the rocks are in - road, wall, house etc.

Each rock was painted individually. Some I wet the rock before I added color others I did wet on dry paper, it depended on whether I wanted the paint to spread or I needed to control it. With something like this, you can work on another rock while one dries so you can keep painting for a long time, just be careful not to paint next to a wet area or you will get blooms though in this case that might not be a bad thing.

I used my sponge to create some of the speckles on a rock and then went back in with my brush to soften and shape the marks left by the sponge to make them look more natural.

Rocks have dents and chips on them that are subtle and require a gentle hand. For dents I might wet the area first then drop in a bit of darker color making sure that the edges stay soft with just a damp brush. For the chips, I just put paint on the point of my angle brush (this can be done with a flat or round as well), placed the whole edges of the brush on the paper and painted the shadow of the chipped area. I rinsed my brush and softened the color so that it would blend in on the ends. Sometimes just a little bit of paint can make a big difference, these chips and dips don't need to be dark but they do need to be there.

I finished my rocks by getting in the darkest shadows around each rock. I even pulled out smaller rocks in the dirt area just by painting around with a shadow color or lifting color first then adding shadows around it. While your rocks don't have to be exactly like the ones in the photo, follow the photo enough to give you ideas how to finish each rock. Take your time, you can learn a lot about controlling your paint and how your brushes work doing a project like this.

This week will be our last class in both places so please bring in something for critique it doesn't have to be something you have done in class it can be anything you would like help with or a second opinion. Remember that registration is now open if you want to sign up at either Torrance or PVAC.

Winter 2011 - Rocks

Winter 2011 Watercolor – Rock Demo

All classes we only have 2 more weeks of class and classes will start up again at the end of the month. Registration is now open at Torrance and pending at PV if you want to get signed up for any classes it is best to do it ASAP especially at Torrance where they close under enrolled classes the week before classes start.

The thing to keep in mind about most rocks is they are rough plus they have chips, dents, ridges and cracks. They also are not a solid color. While these rocks look gray at first glance if you look closer you will see all kinds of color in them. There are blues and greens, purples and reds, yellow, orange and sienna are also there so get those colors in you under painting.

I sketched in my rock shapes before I started painting so I knew where I needed to paint and I was using the photo of the big rocks, I will finish the small rocks next week.

With the excepting of a few tops of rocks I wanted to leave white, I wet the entire rock area with clear water and went over it a couple times to be sure that my paper was very wet. I painted around the areas I wanted to protect so they were dry. Into that wet I added all different kinds of color but I made sure that they were very watered down, I don't want the colors to be over powering. If they look too vibrant, quickly add more water and lift with your paper towel. These colors should be very pastel, I even splattered some color. Other options are adding salt or using the plastic wrap but it takes too long to dry in class.

These next steps are layers of subtle washes. Watercolor is transparent so each time you add a wash the colors will become deeper in value (light vs dark) and more intense in color (pale vs vibrant) it is a very important thing to remember when you are painting in watercolor because we have to work from light to dark so we need to save our lighter areas as we go. It is better to be too light than too dark because it is easier to add more washes to get the look you want but more difficult to remove unwanted color.

I mixed up a gray this time using yellow, a touch of purple and a touch of blue and lots of water, this should just be a tint but it should look gray, watch the purple because it is a strong color. On my DRY rocks, I added this color to everything EXCEPT to those few areas I left white at the beginning. Those will be the sunlit tops of the rocks so I want to keep them white by painting around them. Also note that I am not painting individual rocks just yet that will come next. If you want, you can splatter or drop more colors into the wet rocks just be sure that they are rather dilute still at this point. Let this step dry completely.

Each of the next steps you are going to need to really look at the reference photo so you can see the different shadows and colors on the rocks. I was still using the same gray color I just made it a bit darker by adding more color than water. I identified the NEXT BRIGHTEST areas and painted this color on everything else avoiding the bright sunlit and the next brightest areas. Just look for the shapes of the shadows and colors in the rocks don't worry about the rocks you should start to see rocks emerge from your paper with each new wash as the layers build and add value and color. When this paint dried I used virtually the same value of color and went over the next darkest areas now avoiding yet other areas. Build up your values and your colors – yes, you can add other colors to your gray mix – gradually to create the shape and texture of the rocks.

In the dark shadows I mixed my standard shadow color of blue, purple and a touch of sienna with only a little water, this should be very dark. This goes where you see cast shadows and the spaces between the rocks and the cracks, I used a liner for the cracks. You can also splatter more color onto the rocks or lift out some shapes in the shadow areas, just have fun finishing up the detail.

If you didn't do the underwater rocks under painting, you might want to have that ready for class on Tuesday. These smaller rounder rocks are a good exercise for not only river rocks but also for cobble stone roads, walls or any other place where people might use rocks as a building material.

Watercolor 2011 Winter Classes

Winter 2011 Watercolor Class – Apple Demo

All classes: I am just going back to putting the link to the picture page by adding hyperlinks throughout the text, it more than doubles the time I spend writing the blog to add the pictures in where they should go. I'll keep looking to see if Google improves how blogs are edited but for now I will go back to the tried and true hyperlink, sorry. Just hit the back arrow in your browser to get back to the blog.

I do want to state again that when you are designing your painting whether it is something alone or a very complicated scene, you must decide what is important in your painting so when you place it, it is not only in a prominent point on your canvas or paper but that it is also large enough to show its importance. This is especially true when you only have one or two objects, make them big enough so they don't get lost in the background. As I walked around the room many of you made the apple very small on your paper so that most of your painting was just the background, if I was enough of a math genius and could figure out how much space my apple takes up on my paper, I would say that it is close to a third of the space, maybe a bit more. The apple is my subject NOT the background.

I did draw my apple in, if you want you can also indicate where shadows and highlights are as well. I could have used masking to protect some of the bright highlight but instead I lifted back to an almost white while I was painting the area and also at the end, it is up to you.

I do want to mention that you might want to paint with the top of your painting raised up a bit. I have to work vertically for class but that doesn't mean that I work flat at home, I usually work from 2 – 4" off the table so that gravity will work for me. Working flat can cause the paint to pool up or just sit there and not do anything. Put a roll of tape or you pencil box under the top of your support to give a bit of angle while you are painting and I think you will find it does help.

To start off, I wet the entire paper with water, almost to the point of soaking it. This will let the paint do a lot of the work and will let it gently blend with other colors so there are no hard lines. Starting inside the apple, I worked out in circles with my colors first with yellow, on the outside of that next with sap green (sgreen) then sgreen and Hooker's green (hgreen), the hgreen and ultramarine blue (blue) getting darker in the corners. While the yellow was still wet, I lifted out some color where I want my highlight to be. The trick here is to start the next color just outside the previous color and let the two mix naturally. This is where the wet paper will come in handy and do most of the work. If the paint isn't moving or you were too far away you can used just water or water and a bit of one of the colors to coax it along. Don't worry if you get blooms here, it adds interest to your background.

Let this dry completely before moving on.

I started painting the shadows on my apple. Because of the yellow I used, I made a gray color with yellow and purple for the shadows. This will be the first wash of color but it is important to start the shaping process of your apple. Look at the real apple when you are trying to decide where these shadows go. There is the obvious one behind the apple but there are also shadows around the stem and along the top. Start out with a dark color then rinse your brush and with a DAMP brush, tease the color out so you have a nice graded value for your shadows.

While the shadow areas are drying, you can intensify the background colors and suggest that the apple is sitting on a table. I started with a light wash of sgreen and a touch of yellow and using "criss cross" strokes I did much the same thing I did with the first rings of wash but this time I want to intensify the colors a bit keeping it light behind the apple (see photo page). As I get into the darker areas there is less water and more paint on my brush, I want it pretty dark in the corners. Let everything dry before proceeding.

This next step might need some practice on your part because most of you are so heavy handed with your brushes and this take subtlety and trusting your paints to do what you need them to do, so consider a few practice runs before trying it out on your paper.

Starting at the back edge of the top of the apple, I wet the area with water avoiding the area where the stem will be. This is very similar to how I started the painting but this time I am localizing the wet paper to just the area I want to paint at the moment which is the back of the apple. Using my angle brush, I pick up Napthol red (nred) with very little water and just LIGHTLY TOUCH along the top edge of the apple occasionally pulling a line down towards the place where the stem connects to the apple. Remember that your brush strokes must follow the curve of the apple and angle down towards the center, these are not straight lines. I also picked up orange and yellow and did a few similar strokes in that same area but closer to the stem and mindful of the curve of the apple.

This next step I would wet parts of the apple and added paint as I went, the reason for this is the paper will dry and you will need to rewet it anyway so I wet about a third of the apple, dropped in color then wet the next third and so on. I started on the lighter side of the apple with cad red and napthol touching in bits of orange and yellow and wiping back the highlight area to keep it lighter. As I moved over to the shadowed side it was napthol and alizarin with touches of sap green. While the shadow area was still wet I dropped a mix or purple and blue into the wet paint for the reflected highlight.

The cast shadow from the apple was made with Hooker's green, blue and alizarin and very little water, it should be very dark. You might want to wait until your apple is dry before adding the shadow so you don't get a bloom into your apple. I started with this very dark color right under the apple where it sits on the towel, it stays very dark around the side, I even painted over the edge of the apple to create a lost and found look in the shadow. As the shadow moves away from the apple it will get a bit lighter but should remain mostly dark. Be sure that you rinse your brush and soften the edges of the shadow.

The stem was sap green and while it was wet I touched in alizarin to the shadowed side and yellow in the sunlit side. Lastly I splattered some red and orange on the apple to give it a few small spots and I took a Q-Tip with water to lift the highlight back starting in the lightest area and with small circles and rinsing the Q-tip lifted out what I wanted.

You may need to adjust the colors and the shadows to finish this the way you want just remember to let an area dry completely before rewetting and adding more color. If you do rewet an area, minimize how many times you go over the area or you will smear what you did before and could cause mud.

PV, we will be doing rocks in the next class so please download and print the rock photos on the picture page. Torrance we will be doing the apple have the reference photo for class. See you all soon.

Winter 2011 - Brushstrokes

Watercolor Class Winter 2011

Torrance class – The instructions for the poppy are the same the only thing I did different was instead of negative painting with random colors, I used colors that would make the flower appear as if against the plant. Color doesn't matter but where you want to go with it does. Have fun.

PV class – I am going to write up the different strokes we covered in class for the blog I am also going to create a page so you don't have to go through all the archives if you need to review (I tried to find the last time I did this demo and couldn't so I know you would have problems). I repainted the strokes so I could photograph them easier but they are still the same. Hope this will come in handy, the link is on the side bar.

Also Note: Blogger does not make it easy for me to insert pictures, this has taken me days and I still didn't have much success with all the images I had to post. If you want to se examples of the strokes just click on the slide show in the side bar and it will take you to the picture page. Sorry this has taken so long but I keep hitting deand ends.

Some basics before we get into techniques: A brush is NOT a pen or a pencil, you hold it in your hand so you can get the job done sometimes that means being able to roll it in your fingers or scrub away. We also use all surfaces of the brush not just the tip or end of the brush, this goes for all brushes whether they are flat or round. It is also good practice to hole the brush back at least mid way and better yet to hold it at the end not up by the metal ferrule, this will give you brush more action and your painting won't look as tight. Save that for the final details.

Also, keep your brush relatively dry. If you rinse it, wipe it out with a paper towel to get rid of any excess water which can flow down off your brush and thin your paint so that it won't cover the way you thought it would.

Brush strokes matter. They can tell your viewer a lot about the texture or the terrain even the direction or the shape of something, think about what you are painting and what you can do to make it look more authentic.

Dry Brush –Key things to remember are: Dry Brush means DRY BRUSH! If you rinse your brush be sure you have dried the brush so there is no water visible when you squeeze the bristles, water will hide up near the metal ferrule so be sure to dry the whole bristle area. It also means that there is little paint on those dry bristles so after you load your brush be sure that there are no globs of paint on the ends or sides, wipe it on a paper towel if you have to, to avoid having too much paint or water.

The other thing to keep in mind is pressure. If you press down hard on your brush, more paint will come off and fill in the area, the lighter you press down, the brush will only hit the high spots on the paper leaving little "holes" so you can see the under painting or the paper showing through.

Depending on what you are painting at the time dry brush can be used to add in some color such as mist or dust or when you are making waterfalls or the glimmer on the ocean or palm fronds.

Stippling – This is a good stroke when you are leafing out trees or creating bushes or distant flowers or even adding some texture, the pressure rule applies here as well but you can have more paint on your brush.

I usually use a flat brush for this technique but a round one will work. When I pick up paint I take my brush, on my palette I tap the end of my brush straight down on the mixing area, not so much to mix the paint if I have more than one color but more to "fuzz up" the end of the brush so it spreads out and looks all twisted, this is great for trees and bushes because it creates a random look to the area. I apply the paint by touching the end of the brush straight on to create the tree or bush or texture I need. Remember that the amount of pressure you use on your brush will determine how much paint comes off your brush. If the area is too congested with paint, you are too heavy handed. I have literally had the brush fall out of my hand because I was holding it so lightly when doing this technique.

The Liner Brush – This little brush makes great trees, branches, weeds, grass, fence wire, boat rigging…Any where you need a nice thin line the liner is the brush to use. It does take practice to master and mixing the right consistency of your paint is half the battle. The paint needs to be very ink-like. If you tip your palette it should run. Next you need to load it fully, really work the paint into your brush and as you lift it off your palette, roll it in your fingers.

Hold this brush as far back on the handle as you can and hold the tip slightly down so the paint will flow. If you are doing trees or branches, the harder you press the thicker the line, lift as you come up to get a thinner line and wiggle your brush a little to give the tree/branch/weed some character.

When doing grass, get your hand and brush moving in a circular motion before you get to the canvas, when you get the rhythm, touch the canvas on the upstroke. Big circles = tall grass, little circles – short grass.

Flat or Round Sable brush - You can create leaf shapes by loading your brush with a good amount of paint but it should be worked into the bristles then start by touching the edge (flat brush) or the end (round brush) then as you move the brush press and twist then twist and lift to finish. You can create all shapes of leaves and grasses using this stroke but it does take some practice.

Wet into Wet – The area to be painted is first painted with water to make the paper wet, when you add paint to this area the paint will spread on its own and will create soft edges and blends with other colors.

Wet on Dry – the paper is dry so when you apply the paint you will get hard edges.

Using a flat or an angle brush if you load the paint on the tip or a corner and work it into the brush you can get a nice graded stroke.

With a round brush to get a graded color working wet on dry, apply the color, rinse your brush and dry it and with a damp brush run it along the edge you want to soften.

These are just a few of the ways you can use your brushes and the watercolor but it isn't by any stretch of the imagination the complete list. Watercolor is a very versatile medium it is up to you as the artist to find the ways it works best for you.

PV class, We will be working on the apple please download and print so you have it in class.

Watercolor Class Winter 2011

WATERCOLOR CLASS – Week 5

Torrance class, we finished up the snow picture so please be ready to do the poppy on Monday. Download and print the reference picture NOT my painting of it, for reference.

PVAC class – We started a water picture using a photo I took along the PV cliffs near Lanada Bay. The water was clear and calm so you could see to the bottom close to shore. Each situation – calm or choppy, few waves or big crashers – poses it's own set of problems but the first one may seem like a no-brainer but you would be surprised at how easy it is to do (I saw it in class even after I explained it) and that is to have a horizontal horizon line. That means that it needs to be parallel to the top and the bottom of the paper. Use a ruler if you have to but please, make the horizon line straight when there is water involved. This holds true for oceans, lakes, ponds, fish tanks or glasses of wine, anytime you have a liquid involved it is going to be level otherwise it will look like it is spilling and we don't want that especially when large bodies of water are concerned.

Since this was a demo on water, I will focus on the water aspect more so than the rest of the painting but will do some brief descriptions of what I did in those areas.

The first thing I did was to mask out any areas that I need to be white at the end, it has to dry completely before you can put wet next to it but you can do the sky. The sky area was first painted in just clear water, this will help the paint to move on its own. Next I picked up a little blue and a touch of sienna (if you have cerulean blue that is a good sky color on its own) and water to make a light gray/blue on my palette then I just touched this color along the top part of the sky and a few places lower and let the wet paper and paint work their magic. This will work better if you work at a slight angle so gravity can help out, if you are working flat, you may have to coax the paint along thru this whole process. The water will be painted exactly like this – wet into wet – so the elevation of your paper will only help you.

You might want to let the sky dry before you start on the water so you don't get any "blooms" into your sky though they could look like clouds later on.

Starting at the horizon, I wet the water area with clean water, again to help the paint move on my paper. With that same gray/blue color I just used in the sky, I touched my brush along the horizon. I want to keep my strokes horizontal just touching the paper as I go back and forth. As I come forward, I pick up more blue but I need to keep it light so add water if you need to. Just past the point of the bluff I finished wetting the paper then started adding touches of Hooker's green into my blue mix, touching this color along the base of the bluffs and along the sides of the paper leaving that sandy area getting greener as I came closer to shore. In the sandy area I picked up sienna and water and added it into a corner of the green color on my palette, just enough of the green to slightly gray the color. I touched this warm color to the wet paper and let the tow colors blend together on the paper by themselves. If your paper has dried, you may need to re-wet before you do this, or use some water on your brush and touch the areas between the green water and the sand. Do not worry about the blooms if they happen, they add texture to the under painting.

Please keep this step very light. These are just tints, if you get too dark too soon it could be hard to get the highlights you will need later.

While the water is drying, if you want to paint the cliffs and the shore sand, now is a good time. On the cliffs I used sienna with touches of orange for the dirt areas, please note that the dirt is sliding down at different angles so make your strokes follow the angles. Leave spaces for the trees and bushes which I painted in first with a mix of sap green and yellow very lightly and detailed them darker later.

The sand on the shore is a mix of yellow, a tiny touch of purple to gray the color (purple is the compliment to yellow) and a lot of water, this too is just a tint.

When the water is dry, again starting at the horizon with the flat edge of my angle brush (a flat brush or round will work, practice with it first) and using a slightly darker version of the gray/blue (blue with a touch sienna and water), I touch the end of my brush to the dry paper keeping my brush parallel to the top and bottom of the paper, this will keep my strokes horizontal. As I touch the paper, I will leave some areas the show the under painting, this is good, it acts like sparkles on the water.

Just like I did in the first step, I add blue as I come forward, still using the same technique of touching though I was tilting it a bit so I could use more of the side of the brush switching to the Hooker's green in the foreground. Also, my strokes got further apart as I came forward as well as longer – think wave swells.

Rule of thumb for distance: Things that are closer to you are larger, further apart, more detailed and more intense in color, as things go off into the distance they become smaller, closer together, less detailed and softer and grayer in color. This works for everything.

There is some reflection and shadows in the water, I do want you to notice that the reflection has a broken edge caused by the action of the waves so when you paint these colors onto your paper, paint them just the same way as you have been painting the swells with the blues and greens just use a darker green/blue and sienna with a touch of blue where the dirt reflects.

I should state at this point that if you want more intense colors and darker values, you will need to repeat this step several times. I only did this once through so you can get an idea of how to paint water because of time constraints. If I was to do this for myself – and I might finish this at home – I would definitely intensify the values and the colors. That doesn't mean that I would cover up everything I did, it would mean that I would add more color and more detail especially to the foreground, leaving some of the existing color to indicate waves of different sizes and shapes, it could take a couple more hours to finish this the way I feel it should be finished.

Along the shore where I have my masking fluid saving the foam, I want to be sure that I get some darker color around the masked off areas whether you are using the blue or the green, be sure that you get that color in so your waves will show up when we take the mask off. There are also some rocks along the shore that will help define the foam along the shore, the rocks are a mix of sienna and blue to make a dark color and when you add the rocks to the point of the bluff they should be lighter (see Rule of Thumb above), smaller less detailed than the ones near the foreground. This same color with a bit more blue and water can be used for the dark shapes in the water just remember to rinse your brush and use the damp brush to soften the edges of these shapes. When the paper is totally dry you can remove the masking.

The cliffs and trees can be finished by adding more washes of color, remember that the light colors are your highlights so don't paint them all out. You can add shadows, intensify the color, how ever you want to finish it. Enjoy the process, don't be in such a hurry to get a painting done as you gain experience you will also gain speed but really it is the journey you take when painting that should be the most enjoyable aspect, the rest is frosting.

The next class I will be going over brush strokes so there is no photo to down load just have some paper to work on.