In The Studio: Three Demonstrations from Thursday

Here are my recent 3 demonstrations from last Thursday, and I hope you enjoy them I will try to give you a description of what the goals of the lesson were.  I want to say that if you are new to my blog these paintings were finished with a lesson in about 45 minutes in front of my class at the Art League.  Most of the time I don’t finish them because the students have to have time to paint and the class last only 3 hours.
The first demonstration is about preserving the white paper and really using one brush to get as much variety as possible in each major shape.  I was also trying to get the students to think in terms of taking the subject matter and simplifying it down to just 4 to 5 major shapes.  During the demonstration I worked really hard to explain the relationship between the amount of pigment and water in the brush and the wetness of the paper, and how this affects the quality of the colors and transparencies of color.The second demonstration of the day was quite similar to the first class although I was working on a slightly more complicated organization of shapes.  I was trying to not only create movement in the composition through the use of white paper but was also creating depth by overlapping the trees and the buildings.  Really working on the brushwork will give all of your passages of color more vibrancy and interest, remember watercolor is not a medium of built up pigment like oils, and acrylics so the marks you put down will be visible in the painting at the finish so make them good and creative.In this last demonstration I was explaining using cows as a grouping of shapes defined by not just a color contrast but also by the play of light on the top of their shapes.  I have simplified the entire composition down to 3 major shapes and kept  the colors in each shape controlled by a common value.  Although there are nice color changes in each shape the value of the color masses are very close together.