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”
This lesson is based on working from a 3 to 4 value, lights, darks and middle value, value pattern, then sketching it on the paper using lines, not the shaded values. Using a sketch as opposed to a photo offers you the opportunity to design your own composition, pick your own color palette, and to
Continue Reading “Light and Shadow, Watercolor Demonstration”
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.
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
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 using a dark blue for the sky or making a red piece a purple piece; those are selective choices
15 x 22 watercolor on arches Start this painting with a nice loose drawing of the flowers trying to get an interesting movement of the flowers across the paperuse a nice contour line drawing and get some really unique expressive flowers. add some raw sienna, cerulean blue and cobalt violet to the shadow sides of
8 x 10 watercolor on arches I once read a passage from the great painter John Sargent that said something to the effect, “when outdoors give yourself 15 minutes and then paint what you are looking at”. This is good advice for the artist looking to get more creative because we spend so much time
Continue Reading “Creative Jumpstart: Pick a familiar subject”
In this jumpstart, I will use a very simple subject and try to get some good mileage out of it. Now remember our goal here is to get moving, turn a corner or just fire up the creative juices and this exercise should really help. Take the backs of several of those less successful pieces
Continue Reading “Creative Jumpstart: skies, lifts, and scrapes”
Draw a scene from memory I have just returned from a trip to Southern Brazil and along the way I took at least 1 thousand photos of which I will probably never use any of them to paint from. I use photos sparingly and only for specific detail information and color ideas but rarely do
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Pick a Simple and Change Styles Tape a piece of paper into 4 rectangular section either vertical or horizontal pieces. We all have a preference and mine is definitely horizontal for representational paintings and vertical for abstracts. Get out your painting or drawing tools. Have a simple subject in mind, for this jumpstart my theme
Continue Reading “Creative Jump Starts: Simple Theme Four Styles”