Artist Studio
The goal of this demonstration is simple, just make a nice white shape and surround it with nice rich dark colors. See very simple. I have compressed my view down to just the middle portion of the image and left everything at the bottom out. When I started the painting, I wet the paper except
Continue Reading “Watercolor Step by Step: Moving White Shape”
Give Some thought to the Color Palette and the Effect Can be Remarkable Every time you decide to paint, a major decision is going to be how to use color. This is not as simple as use a dark blue for the sky or make a red piece a purple piece; those are selective choices
(15 x 22 watercolor on paper “Plum Island”, I really got involved in the texture of the trees and tried to emphasize the overlapping shapes and textures in the trees. I worked at varying the strokes to create variety and interest.) Although it is sometimes not what we notice first about a great watercolor painting,
Continue Reading “Improve your brushwork, improve your paintings”
Today I want to show you a demonstration about editing and painting from a very complicated and unfocused image. This image of a harbor in Maine has a lot of interesting things to represent, the foggy atmosphere and distant islands, the lobster boats with terrific reflections, and the foreground with the weeds and textures.
I like to plan the painting with the end in mind: what do I want it to look like when it is finished? I never start a painting thinking, “Gee, I wonder if I can paint that tree? Or that surf?” That is too limiting!
This week, I am going to show you one of my favorite lessons for learning about complex and varied shapes. The shapes are made up of many objects but still read as one interesting passage of darks or lights. This will help you in getting past the idea of painting everything that is possible to paint about a subject. Editing and interpretation are essential for making personal and creative works of art.
I have been very busy with my painting and teaching, even though the Covid era, I have been teaching via email lessons. These lessons have been really exciting for those persons trapped inside their houses and without the ability to travel. This has been great for me and from their paintings I say it has been satisfying for them too. Today, I am going to post a few paintings from the last couple months and then next week I will start with posts that focus on the design fundamentals of making better paintings.
This painting is going to be a really wet job, I have painted this theme before but I really like the composition and the figures are larger so I can give them some personality, I am using 140lb rough paper. I will just wet the top of the paper leaving the figures and the foreground
In the following 3 demonstrations you can see how I have left white paper or created white shapes to make the focus in the painting. Although we don’t always see whites in nature it is an important aspect of picture making to think of your lights as white paper and use them. Remember also that you don’t have to leave the white where it is you can move it around to create a better composition. Think related white shapes not isolated white shapes.
The focus of this painting was to capture the lovely greens in the trees and their reflection in the water. I invented most everything to make the painting happen, what a joy to paint when the subject matter evokes a feeling of intimacy.
I painted these 3 watercolors for a scene in Rockland, Maine and I kept changing it to get a better more light filled composition. I will post them first to last and I think you will see that the first image is pretty dark and the movement in the painting is pretty harsh. In the
Continue Reading “In The Studio: Three watercolors same image”
This was a watercolor based on an image of early morning on Penopscot Bay this last September. The goal was to capture the darkness of morning and pull the light out with a crisp simple lift. I also wanted to capture with direct expressive brushwork the feeling, not the details, of the forward trees. 1