Winter 2012 Watercolor Classes

Watercolor Week 2 – Foggy Point Vencente

We are now up to the fog and this step was a combination of adding color and lifting color depending on the area and the need. Take your time and keep a paper towel handy as you work.

I wanted a line of fog behind the point of land with the lighthouse that went along the horizon and continued past the lighthouse almost to the edge of the paper. However, when it got into a darker sky area near the edge it went from adding color to lifting color so keep that in mind as you paint.

I mixed a gray color with my blue, a touch or purple and orange. Usually I use burnt sienna but the orange seemed to work better for me this time, a word of warning a little orange goes a long way so if it gets too orange, add more blue, you want a nice cool gray.

I applied this at the horizon area and just a bit lower using quick circular strokes, these are basically clouds I'm painting so I want my strokes to mimic the bubbling and boiling of the clouds. I was also rinsing my brush and with just water, softening some of the areas at the top of the fog and also all along the bottom of the bank of fog so I didn't have any hard lines. I also occasionally dabbed with my paper towel to lift a bit of color. I repeated this process behind the cliffs until I got into some darker sky, then I switched to just water on my brush, using the same stroke to lift some of the existing paint, then pressing my towel to the paper to lift the rest of the color.

I also lifted color along the bottom of the distant cliff, the rock in the water and the area between the closer cliff and foreground, sometimes I added color to a lifted area while it was still wet, other times I just left the faint hint of what was behind there so it looked like thin areas of the fog. Another word of caution as you try to lift the color off, don't work in one area too long because if you keep trying to lift color the paper gets too wet and you run the risk of damaging your paper, it is best to work around you paper when lifting letting the paper dry a bit before going back into to lift more.

The weeds in the foreground are just there, I didn't want them to draw attention away from the lighthouse so I kept them in muted grays so they looked like the fog had come up over the cliff making them almost like ghost shapes. I did lift out a rock in the corner but that was just to show how, it isn't necessary.

Using my small angle brush I lifted out the shape of the lighthouse before putting in the trees. Don't make it too big because it is far away and don't do too much detail on it for the same reason. There are some other buildings that you can just lift out some shapes to suggest they are there, the viewer can fill in the rest.

One thing you want to make sure that you have before lifting the lighthouse, is that the area behind it is dark enough because you need the contrast so the lighthouse will show up against the darker fog bank. I didn't get my quite dark enough on the one I did at PV so I need to remember that when I'm working at Torrance, my fog could have been a shade or two darker and it may have been but just went down the page because I have to work upright.

With your liner brush you can add in the palm trees and some of the bushes around the lighthouse if the area behind it is dry. This is a gray/green color so you can add a touch of Hooker's green into any of the gray you have on your palette to get the color. These are just shapes, these trees are too far away to see any detail and they are planted so close together their parts run into each other, so just make a series of marks to indicate "palm trees" and don't over think it.

I am going to be doing some studies on various things like rocks and waves maybe some bark, if you have watercolor cards, this is a good way to practice, if not, have paper with you so you can do several, I will look for reference photos but you can also find reference photos to work from. See you in class. end#

WINTER 2012 WATERCOLOR CLASSES

Watercolor Class Winter 2012 Week 1 – Foggy Coast

Torrance students you will be a couple of weeks behind PV so use the older blogs to see what we did in class. It will be very similar.

PV class, I started by getting my drawing on my paper first. Because there is water in this painting be sure that you get the horizon straight or your ocean will look tilted. You don't need to do all the detail on the top of Pt Vencente for now, just indicate where the two bluffs are and the little pile of rocks, that is really all you need.

Once your drawing is on wet the entire paper. You can use your sprayer or a big wash or haki brush or both you want to get the paper wet so it stays wet for this process. Keep the top of you paper elevated an inch or two so the paint doesn't pool up, you want it to move a bit.

Starting at the horizon with cad yellow and a lot of water, paint all the way across the paper at the horizon line. Don't worry about the drawing at this point, it really doesn't matter. Do be sure to dilute the color down and get this color in both the sky and water areas.

Next, use your cad orange on either side of the yellow while you paper is still wet. Start just above or below the yellow depending on if you are in the sky or water and let the color find its way to the yellow. You may need to encourage it a little but this is why the paper should be wet so the paint can do its own thing.

You need to work quickly so don't fuss with this step, just put the paint down and move on to the next color which is your napthol red or alizarin crimson. Again this color goes into the sky and the water but it shouldn't be to intense so add water before going to your paper.

The next color is a mix of ultra marine blue and a TOUCH of purple. I saw a lot of students with purple skies while it isn't life or death the problem with the purple is it is hard to lift when it dries and we will be doing some lifting throughout this painting so just a touch of purple and again, keep the color pale and this goes in the water and sky but this time, in the sky, start at the top of the paper and let the paint flow down into the other colors, it will give you a natural gradient to the color. Now, let it dry completely.

This kind of painting works better if you let it dry naturally rather than taking a blow dryer to it so resist the urge to hasten the process. If your paper was wet enough, these colors with continue to move and blend for several minutes giving you smooth blends and interesting colors, if you try to force the blends and then drying it you can end up with mud and hard lines, just let the watercolor do its thing for a few minutes before halting the process with a dryer.

This is your under painting and it should cover your entire paper, the water should be a reflection of the sky colors. I did not paint around anything so I will have no pure white on my paper, things will look white by comparison so I'm not worried. Watercolor dries lighter so if you kept your colors pale, this step should have pale colors as well.

When it is completely dry, I want to start back up in the sky with an intense blue color. This time I used the same ultra marine blue and purple but I didn't use as much water. If you want to make your watercolors more intense (darker, more colorful) use less water, if you want to make them light and less intense, use more water. I know it sounds simple and logical but many of my students struggle with this, amounts of how much water to use can be mystifying, just remember if it dries too light you can always add more washes. It is better to have to add color rather that try to lighten a color so error on the side of too light. In this case, you can be pretty dark so add enough water so the color will flow off your brush.

I hope that you are all able to down load and print out a copy of the reference photo, my printer was out of ink last week so I wasn't able to print off copies for class, I was using the photo for reference for the upper part of the sky, I liked the way the clouds were breaking up and it is something you will see when fog rolls in and out.

I do want to point out that your brush is a tool to create many different kinds of looks and textures. Many of you just use it one way in long sweeping strokes, which is fine for some things but not all. When I was making these clouds I wasn't just applying color, I was trying to create a texture around my clouds so I was mostly dabbing around the edges alternating between adding color and water to move it around. The clouds were done using a negative painting technique, I was painting around the clouds with the dark sky color that is behind them. I just laid down a small area of the color, then I rinsed my brush and with a damp brush with just water. I went back into the edges of the clouds, dabbing and moving the color, even lifting (removing) color in some places, then painted another dark area around the clouds to repeat the process until I had my clouds the way I wanted them.

Basically, I was working wet into wet because I could get the desired look that I wanted, this can cause blooms as wet paint or water moves into a drying area, but this really works when you are doing clouds, learn to use these tendencies of watercolor to your advantage because it is one of the beauties of the medium.

Once I had my upper sky the way I wanted it I added color to the cliffs starting with the furthest with the lighthouse. Again, I was dabbing but I was angling my brush diagonally so that the brush marks were going in the direction of the erosion of the cliffs. I used several colors including burnt sienna, orange, grayed greens (hookers with a touch of purple) and touches of some of that sky mix to suggest shadows. I was working wet on dry but as I painted, it became more wet into wet, this creates texture.

In the water I used a dilute mix or UM blue and water, then with the flat edge of my brush I created a series of horizontal lines some closer together as they got closer to the shore but I did want to leave some of the under painting for the highlights (see photo page).

This is where we stopped, I will probably finish this up in the next class putting in the fog and finishing the cliffs and foreground. Think about something you would like me to demonstrate, I am open to suggestions. See you in class.

Winter Watercolor Class 2012

Hi Everyone

I hope that you all had a great holiday vacation, it is now time to get back to work.

I am going to show you how to create different moods using a reference photo. All the fog we had lately got me to thinking about how interesting fog can make a painting but it is kinda hard to photograph because everything has to come together at the right time and place and I just don't have that kind of time. However, I am an artist and I should be able to use what I know and apply it to the scene I want.

I am using a photo I took of the light house at Pt. Vencente looking north and I've made a simple drawing both on the picture page but if you would like to do something of your own feel free to do so.

I'm getting antsy for class to start, I like my time off but I love my classes. See you all soon.

WATERCOLOR FALL 2011

Watercolor Demo - Backgrounds

There are many ways to start a painting and one of my favorite ways to start a painting is to do an under painting that establishes my light source, this sets the mood for the painting from the start. It can seem scary at first but once you get past the fear and try it a time or two you will see what a dramatic difference it makes in your paintings.

While I can visualize how a photo may look using this technique you may what to look for photos that have a strong source of light and deep shadows until you feel comfortable enough to "ad lib" on your own.

Once you know where your light is coming from and were it is going to be on your paper choose a color for your lightest area. It can be any where from paper white to a warm color like yellow or orange or pink to a cool color in blues or violets or greens, this is totally up to you and the mood you are trying to set.

In both demos I did I wanted to establish a sunny warm feel so my lightest area was a cad yellow. After I thoroughly wet the entire paper – I wanted it very wet so it wouldn't dry out while I was painting my background - I started with the cad yellow in the sunniest area painting a rough circle slightly bigger then the area I want this color. Keep your colors light, use lots of water when mixing.

Mixing in the same area of my palette I added a slightly darker color for the bamboo background, it was orange, the other a light green, and water and painted this new color overlapping the outside of the yellow and into an unpainted area in a rough circle around the yellow. I continued this process each time mixing in the same area of my palette, just adding a darker cooler color such as to the orange I added a touch of red and to that red a touch or sienna and to the sienna a touch of purple until I was using the purple mix in the corners and the areas that would be my darkest, coolest areas. The key is to go from your lightest warmest area where your subject will be to your coolest areas when your painting is done it will give a very strong sense of light to your painting almost like a spotlight, it can be very dramatic.

My goal as a teacher is to expose you to different ways of using your watercolors because no two people are exactly alike and what may be fun for one person is tedious for another so I try to give you enough information and some different ways of doing things that you will try something new and different even something you have seen in a magazine or at a gallery, what you as a student need to keep in mind is you are learning. The things you see me paint or the things you see in magazines or galleries are from artists who have been painting for years. Let me repeat that: ….Artists who have been painting for years! Every artist has to start someplace and they all have a learning curve. They weren't perfect their first time out or even their second, they had to experiment and find teachers who could guide them, a process that can take years or even a lifetime to perfect as they develop their style.

I took classes for over ten years just like you are doing now until one of my class mates decided I needed to be in front of the class, not in it. I would have never thought to do it myself but I am so thankful that she pushed me past my reluctance because I truly love teaching each and every one of you and I marvel at the improvements I see in my students. You may not see it but I do and your classmates do, so please remember that you are learning at this point and while what you are doing may not be perfect, with each painting you are getting more skill and knowledge with each brush stroke. When you don't have to think about which brush or what color and just paint it is like learning a musical instrument when you start playing the music not worrying about which fingers go where.

When I can find them on TV, I watch other artist paint regardless of what medium they are using because I can always learn something and I think it was the late Bob Ross who said don't focus on the things that you don't like about your painting, focus on the things that you do. Pat your self on the back and blow your own horn because if you don't know one else will. He called his show "The Joy of Painting" because that is what it should be. If it isn't you may need to rethink why you are painting in the first place, art should be an expression of who you are not some other artist. Learn what you can but make it your own and celebrate the difference.

See you in class.

FALL 2011 Watercolor Class

Watercolor Demo – Sketching with Pencil and the Brush

Most of you who have been in my classes for a while know that I encourage all of you to draw as well as paint. While drawing is an art to its self, it can also be a tool to use to make a better painting. You can work out problems or designs on sketch paper long before you ever get to your watercolor paper.

Whether you are doing a full blown drawing or just a few sketchy "thumb nails" drawing will help you in your painting. You can use it when you are on location or doing "plein aire" painting or you can use it when you are going thru your photos and you find an image you like but maybe the composition needs work. Or you may want to combine images from one photo into another this is called a composite painting because you are using elements from different sources to make one painting. I do this a lot and more often than not I just do a few thumb nails to work out my composition and many times I look at these sketches and wonder what someone else who didn't know what I was trying to do would think because it often resembles a bunch of chicken scratches on the paper but I know what I mean. It's like shorthand for painting and we all can develop our own "shorthand" it just takes practice.

Always keep a sketch book or a sketch pad with your art stuff. If you are using a large pad you can divide the page into several smaller squares and try different designs in each square. If you are working from a photo, try to imagine the scene in both vertical and horizontal formats, if it is a landscape try different times of the year. A good "rule of thumb" is if the subject is vertical, it works best in a vertical format. Be sure to use all of the space and move things around so you know where the best place is for all the elements you plan to put in your final painting.

I started out with 2 photos I took on a trip a few years ago. I really liked the house but the surroundings were real special except the tree. Same with the hand pump. I liked the pump itself but I just couldn't get the right angle for the pump and get a decent background so I took the picture of the pump for reference. When I was looking for images for this class I went thru my photos saw the house and thought I could use that then came on the pump and presto! I had my demo for the class.

In class I showed how to do a few thumb nails placing the house and the pump in different places and settled on the one that places the house in the background and the pump in the lower right foreground.

Now one of the "tricks" to sketching is not to hold the pencil like you are writing braced between the index and middle fingers with the thumb on the back and the pencil resting on the space between the thumb and index finger, instead hold the pencil between the thumb and index finger so that the back end of it is in your hand. This will let you have freer movement when you are sketching so you can twist it into a position to get the stroke or shape you need.

Once I decided on the design now it is time to paint but I'm not going to draw the design on my paper first, I am going to use my brush to do the sketching. This is a technique that can work very well when you are out on location and it is another way to sketch plus you get the benefit of using color, just not as easy to erase as pencil.

For most of the painting I was using my ¾" angled brush because it gave me a lot of flexibility from big broad strokes to finer detail on the tip but you can use a round brush or a flat brush and remember to use a large brush to start out with, keeps you loose.

I mixed a gray color with my cerulean blue and a touch of orange and fairly light, I just want to use this color to sketch in my elements so I want something that is fairly neutral in color. If I don't get it right I can just put come clear water on it and lift it off but do not worry if you can still see the lines, they will disappear as you paint.

I started to add color by adding the lightest version of the colors I saw such as for the house I used a watered down cobalt and painted all the walls. The trees behind the house were the gray I was using with a touch of burnt sienna in it. The path was a touch of burnt sienna and yellow. All of these colors were their palest color. Things like the trees and grasses were done very loosely but my brush strokes followed how they grow: Grasses were shaggy and sort of vertical though not straight up and down they had curves and angles to them. The trees grew in clumps so my brush strokes reflected that but all these strokes were not little, dainty, precise strokes, they were very wild and free. I also didn't worry about covering every square inch with color, if I left white spots of paper that is a good thing. This type of painting you will see a lot of that because the artist wants to continue painting so will leave little slivers of dry paper so they can paint another color next to a wet area and the two won't bleed into each other.

Once I got my under painting done I started to deepen the colors where I needed to like adding shadows into the building or into the trees. I detailed out some of the areas like the pump and the path. I added the red trim to the house as well as windows and I repeated that red on the house in the flowers in the foreground. You can do as much detail or not once your under painting is established. If you want you can do a bit of pen and ink work on it, I use a Sharpie for this if I do it, it is less messy.

Painting like this really demands that you concentrate on shapes and the shape of the colors. This is a more suggestive way to paint, it is looser and freer than what we have done in the past and can be a bit scary at first but some of you might embrace this technique or try it when you take a vacation or when you are working from a photo you want to give your own personality. I do hope that you try it and maybe paint out in your yard to try and capture the essence of what is there rather than the detailed thing. It is good experience.

Please be sure you have something to work on in class, this goes for both PV and Torrance. Not sure what I will demo yet, still thinking about that so it may be a surprise to all of us. See you soon.

WATERCOLOR CLASS FALL 2011

Watercolor Demo – Using Watercolor for Value Under Painting.

I continued working on the painting of the Colorado lake and fall colors to show how the value under painting using shades of gray made by using various blues and oranges and be a great way to start a painting. It doesn't mean that once you have your values established you can't go back in and tweak them as you apply color, it just gets you headed in the right direction. As you add the color you can fine tune the values where you need to or change something if you need to, we are working on paper not stone so make adjustments, they are part of the process.

Never be afraid to try something new or different or even take classes from other teachers, you can always learn what not to do but more often than not you may learn a new technique that you really enjoy. I should have had all my classes at the TAG meeting last week because we had a watercolor painter who works very differently than I do but I really enjoyed his process. While it may not be for me in a total change of the way I do things, it did give me ideas on how to do sketching with my brush and how to use one photo several different ways. If you want to do plein aire or if you like to take your sketch pad with you when you travel, you might enjoy this. This is new to me so I will be learning along with you but it should be fun.

See you all in class.

Fall 2011 Watercolor Class

WATERCOLOR DEMO – Values using Watercolor.

A few years ago I went on a week long watercolor seminar up in the Big Bear area, it was a fabulous learning experience and I often start my own painting the way the artist – Don Andrews – showed up how he painted. I like it because it establishes the values of the painting early and it sets the mood for the entire painting, besides, it is a good way to work.

Just like we used the ink washes to create the different values in our last project, we learned how to use our watercolor to do virtually the same thing starting with light grays and creating darker and darker mixes to get our values, then finally adding color. The results were quite satisfying.

A former student sent me the lovely fall photo that is on the picture page, it shows the fall color and is quite peaceful as well as being simple enough that I could do most of it in a class or two. I did adjust the composition a bit by moving the foreground tree closer to the right side, as an artist, I am the ultimate in Photo Shop so I can move trees if I want, whereas when you are the photographer you may not have the option to move something to get the photo you want, so you take the picture, you will be using it for reference only. Never look at a photo as the goal of your painting, you already have the photo if that is what you want, as a painter you need to add your feelings and interpretations to your paintings.

The biggest reason I moved the tree is it created 2 pictures. There was the main picture of the lake and hillsides on the left side of the tree but there was also a picture that demanded almost as much attention on the right side of the tree with the bright reflections surrounded by the dark tree and shadows. By moving the tree more into the shadowed area, those areas that were asking for attention become part of the larger image and therefore less distracting to the eye. Be aware of this when you are taking your own photos, bright things will attract attention and hard lines like the trunk of that tree can divide your image.

As I do with all things I am painting, I first look at the reference to see where my brightest highlights are and my darkest shadows. One thing I noticed about this image was there were no white whites. If you don't believe me, take out your value scale and place it on those white clouds. They are not white. The brightest thing I see is the tree trunks on the left and it is on the tan side but I did want to protect that brightness so I masked out the two trunks. EVERYTHING ELSE was given a wash of gray.

To mix my gray I started with my lightest blue on my palette, for me that is my cerulean blue and a touch of orange. The orange is a powerful color so a little goes a long way but it makes a very nice gray and I used a lot of water. I just wanted a tint of color this is where some of you get a bit heavy handed and you start out way too dark with your colors then have no way to get back to the value you want. It is better to have to put 2 or 3 washes of color on then to try and take it off if it is too dark.

I used this mix of cerulean and orange, mixing a bit stronger each time for the first 3 or 4 washes, then I switched to a darker blue – I have cobalt on my palette – and orange for another 3 or 4 washes. When I want my darkest darks I use my ultra marine and burnt sienna. Each time I paint a layer of value I am doing exactly what I did with the ink, I am leaving the next lightest areas unpainted until I have my full range of values.

In the sky, I lifted out clouds with a paper towel at the second and third washes of grey and because the sky is a fairly light in value, after about the third wash of gray, the next wash was cerulean blue and cobalt I made sure to lift out my clouds. The water is darker in value (use the value scale) but I did the same thing as I did in the sky only I waited to the third and forth wash to pull out the clouds and the 5^th wash was color (cobalt, ultra marine and a touch of my Andrew's Turquoise). I waited to add color to the trees and hills until I was closer to being done with the washes.

One thing to remember when you are painting the water is to keep you brush strokes parallel to the top and bottom of your paper. This will make your water lay flat if you happen to leave streaks with your brush.

I will finish up the painting in class so you can see what I am doing, if you have any special requests let me know and I can do a demo for the class because chances are if you have a question someone else will also have a question.

See you all in class.