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Here
are some highlights from the current classes being offered so you have
an idea of what we did this week in class. If you missed class, this
may be helpful.
If
you are visiting town and want to take one of the classes, contact the
studio at (802) 457-2020 to join us for the three hour session.
Individual
classes are $45 per class.
Want
to see what the other classes are doing this fall? |
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UNDERSTANDING
VALUE, CREATING MOOD in WATERCOLOR
6 PM to 9 PM starting Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Course objective: To study watercolor techniques to expand your
personal vocabulary of lights and darks. To create the illusion of realism
and to understand how light affects your subjects.
September 23, 2009 WHAT IS VALUE?
How do you discern value in various settings? Considering the source
of the light and the range of grays to determine value we begin to understand
how light affects the three- dimensional quality of our subject.
First, we begin by making a value finder. This is a handy tool to keep
in your bag when you're working on location or in the studio. By creating
a scale of grays balanced between black and white in six steps, you
will acheive a range of lights and darks that can help you model almost
any object under light. Once you paint the six squares, use a hole punch
to put an opening in the middle of each square. This will enable you
to see the relative value of a color easily. You may even see some surprises.
Next, with some music, we explore how to tint with blushes. Through
mixing a variety of pale colors, we used brush work that was influenced
by the sounds and rhythm of the music. When we let it dry, we went back
to our value scales. So much of watercolor technique is about the patient
drying of colors. This is why I often work on two pieces at once.
We also drew out our value scales for homework. A great way to learn
about your palette is to examine every single color for its "Tinting
Strength"—a term which refers to a color's relative
ability to become light or dark with the simple variation of water.
For instance, Alizarin Crimson has a greater tinting strength than Rose
Madder Genuine because of the properties of the pigments. Rose Madder
Genuine is pale, liftable and fragile to light. Its "dark"
is light by comparison to Alizarin. We want to set up a comparison sheet
of your palette so that you become better acquainted with the
colors.
After allowing the first part of our non-objective painting to dry,
we began to add darker values to the painting, attempting to move deeper
into the value scale. To a new piece of music, new values of similar
colors were added. Here are a few samples of the work from this week.
We will begin the next class with a warm-up with the final darks, including
neutrals. This process of building lights to darks is a critical practice
for all successful watercolors. And it is to be noted that every rule
can be broken! I have also seen Don Andrews work very successfully applying
full strength darks right from the beginning. Most importantly, how
successful are you at estimating pigment and water to acheive the desired
strength of color? Practice is the solution and lots of painting.
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Helen
Curtis |
Eileen
Johnston |
Trish
Compton |
Kathy
Kaminski |
HOMEWORK:
Do a value scale, practicing the pigment/water balance of every color
in your palette. Work in a watercolor sketchbook and keep this for reference.
Structure the scale going from lightest to darkest pigments as well.
September 30, 2009 CAST SHADOWS UNDER FIXED
LIGHT
Starting with some basic shapes on a white surface, we’ll look
at how light can create the dramatic shape of a shadow. With that in
mind, we’ll look at granulation as a way to create the atmospheric
quality of shadows.
A set-up of white eggs and mushrooms under a dramatic light with a linen
napkin gives us the perfect opportunity to find out about the progression
of luminous shadows. We started with a drawing. The schematic of the
parts of a shadow helps us understand how to produce realistic depictions
of volume through temperature and color.
You can see the light source is coming from the left in this painting
producing a strong highlight on the eggs. As the light disappears, the
shadow gradates from warm yellows and pinks to blue-grays. Just behind
the shadow, you may see some "underlight" or "backlight"
that actually comes from the white of the napkin and reflects up. The
cast shadow is usually the strongest value in teh composition, but should
not be a solid black when cast on such a light surface.
The granulation occurs when pigment, well-stirred get placed on wet
shapes on the paper. This painting started with the background grays
in a mixture of the liftable colors: aureolin, rose madder genuine and
cobalt blue. As the shadows get darker, more sedimentary colors produce
stronger granulation. Use cadmium yellow, cadmium red and french ultramarine
for a dynamic contrast. This painting is just about half finished at
this point.
HOMEWORK: In a dramatically lit studio, see if you can set up “long
shadows” on a still-life of three vegetables. OR Complet the painting
you started in class using "light logic" that you may have
learned. Practice using the granulation between three primary colors
we explored in class and how to build up color in the shadows.
October 7, 2009 COLORED SHADOWS
Based on the surface on which the object sits, you will find that your
use of color differs. We’ll explore some glazing techniques to
build up the values. This week we had direct light on lemons on various
sheets of colored paper. Working under dim light, it is a challenge
to mix colors in your palette, but through thoughtful glazing techniques,
you will be able to give the illusion of a realistic cast shadow.
Often painters
are looking for a "standard shadow color" for which none exists.
Notice in the exercise we did what happened when we layered glazes of
transparent watercolor, one over the other. The vertical stripes were
layed on first: aureolin, quin gold, rose madder genuine, permanent
alizarin, cobalt blue and Winsor blue. Through a series of horizontal
glazes of sedimentary colors and a variety of staining colors, we found
out what happened when we covered the colors below. Top to bottom for
the first layer are: cad yellow, quin gold, cad red, permanent alizarin,
french ultramarine, Winsor Blue and Winsor Green. On the Quin Gold layer,
we put a third color: sap green. French Ultramarine when over Permanent
Alizarin and Indigo went over Thalo blue. Remember to layer liftables
and staining colors first, saving colors that have a "surface"
for last. Consider sedimentary, opaque and earths to be less than satisfactory
for glazing and save them for the last.
HOMEWORK: Finish your paintings from this evening or do two small watercolors
of the same three objects on two different colored surfaces. See how
the setting or background affects the objects. Choose eggs or potatoes
on a colorful surface and notice what happens to the shadows. If you
want an added challenge, add a cut-glass dish or bowl to your composition.
October 14, 2009 USING WHITE SHAPES TO DEFINE
LIGHT
Looking at landscapes, we’ll explore how leaving the white highlights
can add the strength of contrast necessary to convey strong sunlight.
When is yellow more suitable?.
Working from photographs helps naturally separate high contrast values
in a strongly lit composition as in this photo of a ruin in Scotland.
The sunlit wall we will keep white (from the paper) and add only the
slightest bit of drybrush in yellow to help the glow while building
up the darks. First, a cobalt blue shadow in all areas of the composition
where there is "dark" will help cool down the temperature
of the shadows before we even begin. Mixing glazes of reds and greens
help establish the mid-tones in the foliage, grass and stone walls.
Once those general statements are made, drybrush and fine brush work
can take over the "local color" of an image to build up the
intial contrast in the shadows.
Using white shapes to help define contrast in any watercolor is helpful
to show the drama of strong light. It is often hard to resist the temptation
to put a "wash" of some color over this white before the end
of the painting. I suggest leaving the white shapes alone until the
very end!
HOMEWORK: Find an image of white buildings under a strong, hot light.
Consider images in the desert or at the beach or on an island. Do a
watercolor leaving the white shapes to convey the brightest whites.
October 21, 2009 BACKLIGHTING FOR DRAMA
Sitting on the inside, looking out creates a certain startling drama
and a gentle mood. Tonight, we’ll explore backlighting through
the use of photographs. In this little exercise of indigo paintings,
we looked at the difference between backlighting, chiascuro light and
the way value shifts against a window without a blind. After making
some small watercolor sketches to show the balance of lights and darks
in each of these compositional strategies, we worked from photos to
see if we could create the mood of the place.
Color often
becomes less clearly identifyable in either strong darks or bright lights.
Many times our eyes want to make more of what we see—color is
enticing and its difficult to refrain from clearly stating every color.
If we do, the painting quickly becomes about color and not about light!
See what happens in your own paintings when faced with a strong light
from behind.
Beware
of painting directly into the sun on location, however. Even if you
think you are not "looking into the sun" eventually, the sun
may move. One glance can permanently damage your eyes. Backlighting
provides a positive mood for the most part as long as you protect your
eyes from the strength of the sun!
HOMEWORK: Place honey jars, jam jars or any other translucent container
in front of your window. Make the set-up appealing through the use of
cloth, verticals and horizontals. Make us believe the scene’s
strong light through the use of whites or lights as compared to the
darks in the foreground.
October 28, 2009, 2009 TIME OF DAY TO CREATE
MOOD
Consider the value range of your palette to create different lighting
plans. What would the range of colors be in the early morning or on
a foggy day? How would this contrast with high noon in a dry climate?
What colors would produce the feeling of light at sunset?
In class, we had several photos of fall scenes at different times of
day. In each one, we considered a different palette: use staining colors
for high contrast and strong light. Use earths and sedimentary colors
for low light. Consider how cool the light is of early morning and how
warm the sun becomes in the late afternoon.
In this fall landscape, the mood was set by the grey sky and the brilliant
orange tree. Using neutrals in the wood barn, fence and tree trunk helps
give relief to the brightness of the leaves. Notice that there are no
strong shadows which indicate a moody, gray day. The lightness of the
washes in the background provide distance.
HOMEWORK: Go to the same location at three different times of day this
week and paint the same thing: see how light or lack thereof changes
the mood of the piece. Work small and fast. Do at least one of the three
images at sunset for an added challenge.
November 4, 2009 NOCTURNES
Night scenes of ferris wheels, fireworks, city-scapes produce an almost
abstract quality. Clever placement of lights and the drama of colorful
darks produce moody, interesting paintings. The use of gouache at the
end to produce brilliant whites will be demonstrated.
Nocturnes provide the oppportunity for multiple glazes of staining pigments
to provide a dramatic glow. Here, liftable colors began this dramatic
black and white photo—rose madder and aureolin were washed lightly
over the areas of masking fluid to protect the pure whites of the fireworks.
As the colors dried, a series of glazes from quinacridone gold to Winsor
Blue to Alizarin Crimson to Winsor Green provide the depth of darkness
along with strong edge drama that provides the illusion of light from
the fireworks.
Another rich black to glaze is Permanent Magenta over Winsor Green—try
a variety of complimentary colors as glazes to build up a rich vocabulary
for your colored darks.
HOMEWORK: Using your own photographs or location work, design a watercolor
of a nighttime scene using the staining colors to build up the shadow
areas into a colorful saturation.
November 11, 2009 CHIASCURO
Expanding from our original ideas in the first weeks around the still
life, we’ll explore the challenge of working in a darkened studio
with the drama of a dramatically lit still-life in front of us. How
can we use the drama of the darks to capture the form and sparkle of
an object?
HOMEWORK: Consider your winter schedule for another painting class.
Materials List for Understanding Value, Creating Mood in Watercolor
Brushes
Wash Brush, preferably sable, at least 1” wide
1-2 Round Brushes, sable or a combination acrylic sable in sizes 8,
10, 12 or 14 depending on how large you like to work.
Water containers—I use two; one small inside a larger one. We
have some at the studio, but bringing your own will allow you get comfortable
with your set-up, if you like. I use a larger Tupperware with a smaller
one inside.
Board: You can use Gator Board, 1/4” plywood,
or Plexiglass in a 13” x 17” size or so.
Paper: A range of paper in 140 lb. We will use mostly
Cold Press. Four to Five full sheets of paper should get you through
the whole class.
Bring some drawing paper for value sketches we’ll be doing for
warm-up; old copy paper is fine to recycle for this.
EXTRAS:
Watercolor Sketchbook for notes and/or color studies
Camera for taking reference photos throughout the class (optional)
Artist’s Tape (available at Cheap Joe’s)
1 roll Bounty Paper Towel (yes, it matters what brand it is!)
Masking fluid, Natural Sponges, single edged razor blade (if you can
find one!) or Exacto Knife
Extra palette for your gouache colors, such as a plate or butcher tray.
A Clamp Lamp from your local hardware store to use to set up a structured
light on your work at home.
Watercolors
COLORS:
The objective is to have nine primaries (three of yellow, red and blue
respectively) in the three values: Light/Medium/Dark. We will discuss
the properties of the paints throughout the class so that you can make
more educated decisions about your palette. Use ONLY professional grade
pigments: I prefer Winsor & Newton, Sennelier, Daniel Smith or M.
Graham. Note the word “or” below: you really only need 9
though its always fun to have more!
YELLOWS: Aureolin or Lemon Yellow
New Gamboge
Quinacridrone Gold
REDS: Vermillion or Cadmium Red Light
Rose Madder Genuine or Permanent Rose or Opera
Permanent Alizarin
BLUES: Cinnerous Blue or Cerulean Blue or Peacock Blue
Cobalt Blue or French Ultramarine
Thalo Blue or Prussian Blue or Indanthrone Blue
Additional colors are fun to add but optional. Consider adding:
Burnt Umber Thalo Green
Burnt Sienna Indigo
Yellow Ochre Dioxinine Violet
Naples Yellow Sap Green
Viridian (Daniel Smith only) Chinese White
Cobalt Violet
GOUACHE: White in either Titanium or Zinc White
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