Watercolor Workshop: The Planning Phase

Switching gears from pastel, my focus this week has been on preparations for the upcoming "Intermediate Watercolor Workshop". Having taught many workshops over the past few years, the topic for this class is design and composition, featuring simple still-life subjects and cast shadows. Though I realize, pigeons represent more of an un-still life subject. However, the principles still apply for the purposes of this class.

The challenge...finding a unique, unusual perspective of the subject, possibly even abstracted, considering composition design structures, interesting value shapes, positive and negative space shapes.

One method I use for doing this is to simplify the reference, focusing on the areas that draw my attention, catch my eye, or trigger an emotion. I will often squint my eyes to minimize the shapes so I can see the simplified values and shapes...walk around the subject, using a viewfinder or camera to crop the image...and the finally, sketch various compositions.

These small sketches will serve as "tests" for the design and composition. Here I am considering how I will you break up the space, what is the most interesting and pleasing arrangement or perspective of the positive and negative shapes, am I going to use a design structure for my composition, how does the light move across the forms, etc.

The "test" is where most of the decision making gets done...if something doesn't work...no worries...I'm not committed or married to the composition...just trying it out.Workshop participants are welcome to work through a few of these sketches prior to class. We will spend a good part of the morning looking at your subjects, finding interesting compositions and considering design elements. Below are a few other examples of subjects that work well for this challenge or follow the link to see some examples from a similar class earlier in the year.

And for those of you in class who just love to paint florals (as I do)...another example.

Happy Planning!

A little planning

I often spend the first day of beginning class (watercolor or pastel), convincing beginning painters the value of a little planning. Most beginning artists want to jump right in, not wasting time looking for a good composition or value sketching. These terms are almost as dreaded as the capital "D"...drawing. However, as I have mentioned in many previous posts, this step is crucial for me and will save me (and beginning painters) much time and frustration...and will most likely produce a better painting. The principle for me... vision in a concept and a little pre-planning in composition, design principles, and value (and yes, a little drawing) are what will make a painting work...technique will come with time and practice but will not make a painting successful (though well crafted). I am sure some will argue this point.

Keep the plan simple, simplify mass value shapes...light, mid-value, dark...doodle, sketch, erase, play with various perspectives, cropping, and value patterns. Value and appreciate this step. There isn't any pressure here, no need for a finished drawing or painting.

Some tips for "testing" your design. Follow your eyes as they move around the sketch.

1. Does our eye travel effortlessly around the painting, through the light and dark shapes?

2. What is the visual movement in the painting? Have I directed it using line, repetition of shapes, overlapping shapes, "linking" values in a painting, via soft and hard edges in a painting?

3. Do I have a pleasing arrangement and variety of shapes, patterns and values? How did I break up the space? Is the space divided in a pleasing way?

4. Is my perspective "readable"? (Even a 3 min value study, simplified to mass values and shapes, is "readable" on paper).

5. Are my eyes led to a focal area?...away from the focal area and back in again? Do I have a secondary area of interest? How does the viewer travel from one to the other?

6. And finally, do I have visual excitement and spatial organization?

No "small" paintings

A few weeks ago I was invited to teach a watercolor workshop at a local high school. The students chose subjects for a painting from their "concentrations", a body of work related to their chosen concepts. The assignment was to find an interesting perspective for subject placement that would feature cast shadow shapes within the composition. Since watercolor by nature is a transparent medium, the paint works well to describe the transparency of shadows. We worked on Ampersand Aquabord, a textured clay surface that has many "forgiving" properties for beginning watercolor painters (most notably, the ability to life out and subtract paint and correct errors).
The class jumped right in without fear, worked hard, and created some amazing work.

Katie's man walking



Kayleigh's cleat

Jaclyn's cups

Victoria's self portrait

Vaisha's easel

Vitor's tire

Thank you all for welcoming me into your class, keeping open minds, and allowing me to share my love for painting and watercolor.

"Creativity Takes Courage" -Henry Matisse

The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to re-examine artistic goals, personal priorities, and renew intentions. These aspirations provide a pathway to guide decision-making and help to clarify the directions we should take on our creative journey [and in life]. One of my most valued [and rewarding] intentions for 2010 is to continue to share the processes I have learned in art through teaching workshops. Over the past few years, I have had the amazing opportunity to teach and encourage the artistic growth of many developing painters of all levels. This month LibertyTown Arts is exhibiting artwork from Liberty Town "students" (aren't we all students of art) created in 2009. The Opening Reception will be Friday, Jan 8th from 5-9PM. Below are 6 of the paintings on exhibit by artists from my workshops this past year. Thank you all for participating in the exhibit and having courage to explore your creative drives. I am renewed by your energy and enthusiasm. For information and to view my 2010 Workshop Schedule.
Melange aux Fleurs by Sandy Staley

Hawk by Shirley Buckler

Tortuga by Sue Henderson

Sun's Flower by MaryBeth Algert

Hydrangea Close-up by MJ Bradley

Canna by Charlotte Plaxico

Visual Summary

As an artist, one of my tasks in creating a painting is to simplify and translate the essence of a subject as I see it in that moment on any given day. During my pastel workshop this week, we had a discussion on "simplifying," and as one of my students aptly stated "creating a visual summary". The concept seems "simple" enough. However, beginning painters often become distracted with and jump right into painting the details, forgetting that value and form are the "batter and cake" in a painting; essential for it's foundation, success, and "readability".

So, a few tools and questions I use to know what "detail" to include in my visual summary: 1. Begin with a thumbnail sketch. Value sketches are useful in helping you simplify your design into only shape, value and form. 2. Squint your eyes and look at your image. The values in shape and form are the "cake", everything else just "frosting". 3. Which details (usually line or texture) are important to enhance the visual flow and underlying compositional structure? 4. Is the detail important to overall "readability" of the painting? If not, I leave it out. 5. Much of painting is illusion and "special effects". I will often hint at the detail (usually with texture, a few gesture lines, or direction of the pastel application) without actually drawing it in; the viewer's eyes will fill in the rest. For example: in my garlic painting, I use the line of shadow shapes to create movement and flow, visually directing the viewer through the painting ("readability"). The trapped areas of detail and texture (which are really, just less blended areas) at the buds of the garlic also direct (and pause) visual movement. My goal... to support the underlying armature (see previous posts).

How to...draw using a grid.

Over the past few years, I have taught many beginning artists in various workshops. I have found that one of the most difficult and frightening aspects of starting a painting is the drawing. For most of us, being confident in the initial drawing is critical to how we will feel about our work at completion. So in teaching a workshop (whether it be watercolor or beginning in pastel), I just can't get around the first class: where to start with a drawing and how to design and craft a painting. Over the next few blog entries, I thought it would be helpful to post a few tips I follow that will help beginning artists be more successful in their paintings.
For students who have never drawn, creating a grid is one useful way to help you determine size, angle, and foreshortened relationships and perspective. If working from a reference, your first step will be to find the right proportion for your enlarged sketch (grid). I do this by laying the reference to the lower left corner of piece of sketch paper (large enough to fit your working surface). Draw a diagonal from the lower left corner to the top right corner. Any place on this diagonal that you draw 2 perpendicular lines, the rectangle will be proportional to your reference. This is the area you will use as your format for the larger painting and the area that will correspond to your grid.

Admittedly, there are many ways to make a grid. I will typically divide the paper and reference in half, 1/4 point and 3/4 point both vertically and horizontally. The one rule... the grid should be the same in both your reference and your enlarged paper. You can further divide you grid as many times as necessary. My goal here is to simply create an accurate line drawing to work from while painting. I will often revise my drawing as I go to fit what works for the painting. Most of the drawing is done with value and form in pastel. However, if my initial proportions are off, then I will never be able to accomplish what I want with value and form. Tip: I will place my reference in a sheet protector and create the grid on the plastic with a sharpie. This way, I can take the photo out later and see it without the distraction from the grid.

Once I have a drawing I am confident in, I will turn the paper over, cover the lines with graphite (for a watercolor) or hard pastel. Then I will lay the sketch paper over my painting surface (pastel side down) and retrace my initial sketch. Only the pastel sketch will be left on the surface and I am ready to start, almost...

Painting on Yupo, Workshop Day 3

Today I finished up my painting for the workshop demonstration. I worked around the flower, painting each pedal with an application of wet-into-wet paint, dropping in color, adding a dark maroon mix where needed and lifting out paint as needed to create form. To enhance the perspective of color, I used more neutral magenta and purples in the pedals behind and more intense magenta and whites for the forward shapes. I may add a few more details or dark shadows within the flower to finish. Once complete, I will use an aerosol varnish to seal the painting and then mat and frame the painting behind glass.

Balloons on Yupo

Today I demonstrated two paintings for a "beginning techniques" exercise in the "Watercolor on Yupo" workshop. Yupo is a manufactured synthetic paper made from recycled plastic. The surface is nonabsorbent and so requires some variation from traditional watercolor methods. Watercolor painted on yupo creates unusual "fluid" effects. For beginning techniques, we practiced various methods for applying the paint on yupo, subtracting paint, and creating cascading variegated and flat washes. To see a few more of my paintings on yupo, visit my website gallery.

Painting "Green" Workshop, Day 2

This is a small painting I am demonstrating for my class this week on "Painting Greens". I am using the "greens" color chart from last week to guide my color choices for particular leaves, considering the "warmness and coolness" of each leaf, intensity, and value in relation to each other. My goal at this step is to begin to develop the perspective with color and paint a variety of warm and cool greens for interest. Next week, I will work to unify the greens, glaze to continue to "push and pull" leaves for overlapping, and strengthen the values.

Painting "Green" Workshop, Day 1

Study of Greens in watercolor
For the first class we began exploring all the beautiful greens we could make mixing different yellows, greens, and blues and accenting or neutralizing the green with Quin Gold or Perm Rose. For the above color reference, we created greens that can be used to make leaves appear to be "forward", "middle", or "background" by varying the pigments used. For example, leaves that appear "forward" were mixed using the most intense yellows (New Gamboge and Hansa Yellow Light) and most intense green, Winsor Green (or Phthalo G). For "middle area" greens, we mixed pigments that are both intense (the yellows) and the less intense glazing pigments or granulating pigments (Viridian and Ultramarine Blue, respectively). The middle ground greens developed with much more texture. "Background" greens were a mix of glazing pigments, Aureolin Yellow, Viridian, and Cobalt Blue. When developing a repertoire of greens, I considered a few principles of color perspective; properties of pigments that will give a painting perspective with color. (i.e. intensity pulls forward, neutrals recede; light values expand, dark values contract; warmness pulls forward, coolness recedes, etc.) We will incorporate these beginning techniques into our leaves painting next week.

Painting "Green" in Watercolor, Upcoming Workshop

Study in Green
3X5
Watercolor
Above is the small study done for my upcoming workshop, Grappling Green: Painting Leaves in Watercolor. Greens can be beautiful; can look natural; and can even be transparent. However, greens are probably the most challenging of all the colors to work with (at least for me anyway). So, I am facing the challenge. Painting "green" will be the subject of my next workshop. In the workshop, we will develop a repertoire of "green" for our painting palette and apply them to a watercolor painting of leaves (or similar subject). We will practice mixing greens, "naturalizing" the color, varying the intensity and "warmness and coolness" of our greens as we apply them to our painting. For more information about the workshop, please visit my website.

Painting Foliage, Demonstration 1

Above are demonstrations from today's workshops, painting foliage. First we began by practicing a few thumbnail value and composition sketches. These will be used later in the session as we work through the paintings. After the images are sketched on watercolor paper we began creating the underpainting. The paper is dampened with a spray bottle. Then using a sea sponge, I applied paint starting with cool yellows, moving to warm yellows, Quin. red, and cobalt blue. I tilted the paper, pushed paint with the pump spray, splattered, and moved paint with a Viva to allow the paint to mix and mingle on paper. Areas that will be "forward" foliage are left lighter with more yellows, "behind" areas with more blues. I began painting in the light yellow to red tones in the tree trunks and glazed in some foreground.

Painting "White" Demonstration 1

Above are the two paintings demonstrated in the current "Painting White" watercolor workshop.I have begun the first layer of lightest tones in the flowers using wet-into-wet application of rose madder genuine + winsor violet + viridian + some yellow mix of Aureolin, New Gamboge, and Quin. Gold. The flower area was dampened randomly with clean water, then RMG and WV brushed in and allowed to diffuse. Some Viridian + yellow mixed to make a warm green and added as the half-tone (next-to-lightest value) to compliment some of the pink "white" areas of the pedals. While still damp, the yellows were painted in the centers leaving small dry spots to create some texture.

The "background" flowers were painted slightly darker and more neutral than the forward flowers. I will complete the flowers throughout the painting repeating this first step and then begin the first step of light values in the background.

For the background, I am choosing to use the same color palette as I used for the flowers. (This may change with later glazes/ layers). I first dampen the area of the background to be painted and then brush in my transparent glazing colors; Aureolin, followed by RMG and Viridian. I rotate the paper and allow the pigment to mingle. When doing the background, I consider my initial value sketch, where the light source is coming from and how the background will unify the shapes.

Painting "White" in Watercolor

In watercolor, we use color to interpret the "white" in a subject. The colors we choose, the temperature of the color, whether we use a compliment, or a "gray" neutral, all affect the mood of the painting and how our eyes see the "white". Below are three watercolor sketches I demonstrated for a beginning techniques workshop.
In this little painting, the "white" is cool pink. I used a warm neutral green to compliment the cool pink.

For this painting, I used a cool green as the half-tone (next to lightest color) to compliment the pink.

Here, the yellowish white and cool violet describe the white form.

All the paintings above were done with the same pigments; Aureolin Yellow, Rose Madder Genuine, New Gamboge/ Quin Gold, Viridian, and Winsor Violet

Student Artwork on Display at LibertyTown

Just a few of the amazing artworks on display in the Liberty Town Student Art Show, exhibiting through Jan 2009. Many of the artists had never painted in watercolor. Thank you to all who participated. Follow the link to see the Complete Class Schedule at Liberty Town Arts Workshop or visit my website http://www.artbyariel.com/ for future workshop schedules.

Creativity Takes Courage.

~Henry Matisse

Painting Daisies Workshop Study

Before many of my larger paintings and before a class, I will do a small painting (a study) to work out the composition, value, and color palette. This is a small 5X7 study in preparation for my February Painting Daisies watercolor workshop. Visit my website for details about the workshop.

The idea for this painting topic came from a lesson taught by Nancy Oleksa in Poway, CA, though adapted for a 4 day workshop using a variation of color. My inspiration; the daisies growing on the lawn outside the Dorothy Hart Community Center in Fredericksburg this fall. I chose a spring palette using my usual pigments of Aureolin Yellow, Quin Gold, and New Gamboge, Permanent Rose, and Rose Madder Genuine. I am facing my aversion to premixed greens and also used Viridian and Winsor Green and added a lovely purple, Winsor Violet (dioxazine violet). If you want to know more about these paints, go to http://www.handprint.com/ and follow the links to guide for watercolor pigment. I use this site whenever I am researching properties of new (and usual) pigments.

Winter Landscape Workshop

This week I had the joy of teaching three winter landscape workshops. In the workshop, I demonstrated how to paint a "mini" frozen lake scene in watercolor in only 2 hours. Above are two of the paintings done in class measuring 4X6. We listened to Christmas music and ate cookies for inspiration. Attendees created some wonderful winter scenes, even a few who had never picked up a paintbrush. One of my favorite things about teaching is seeing how different each student's painting develops; though we may all be painting a similar subject and using the same palette. And often, I will see a new interpretation or method that I have not considered and will try it out for myself. Thank you to all who participated. I learn so much from each of you and greatly enjoy doing the classes. You can find my upcoming class schedule at LibertyTown.

Visiting Artist Workshop at Fredericksburg Academy

On Friday, I taught a watercolor workshop at Fredericksburg Academy for two classes of fabulous Fourth and Fifth graders. I demonstrated the steps for the above two 4X6 paintings in each class. Then the kids followed along with their paintings. We drew our sea animal pictures in pencil and then applied liquid masking fluid over the pencil line. Once the masking fluid was dry, we watercolor painted using wet-on-wet technique to create the ocean background. For some, we added salt for texture. Once the paintings are dry, the masking fluid (and salt) is removed leaving a white outline of the initial drawing.

This workshop is part of the Liberty Town Visiting Artist Program created by Mirinda Reynolds. Mirinda is the lower school art teacher for Fredericksburg Academy (and my wonderful studio-mate at Liberty Town, not to mention a brilliant oil painter). The program hosts a guest artist to lecture and demonstrate the last Friday of each month. The children are able to ask questions and participate in a short project taught by the visiting artist.

I had such a great time sharing this technique with the kids, helping them create their mini-masterpieces, and being a part of their creative energy. Thank you Fredericksburg Academy!

Fall Leaves Workshop Demonstration 3

I have added some key darks to create the illusion of layering. I used a deep maroon dark to unify the painting. I also added a few details by lifting out leaf veins, painting some in, and negative space painting. I love the motion and energy in this painting.