For You© the Waterfall Painting from Photographs
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Inspiration * Ideas * Instructions for you© The Waterfall Painting Boats Watercolor “Stamping” Techniques Floral Demo A Loose “Still Life” Painting from Advanced Tip: Photographs “Pictorial Space” Watercolor Tips and Techniques The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission of the copyright holder. Jim Black , creator and owner of Watercolor For Me And Jim’s Watercolor Gallery Copyright 2014 THE WATERFALL Lets take a look at this painting that was painted in classroom demonstration and go step-by-step. Step - 1 Was on rough paper, it was wet with just plain water from top to bottom. Step - 2 Two colors Permanent Rose and Cobalt Blue, were each mixed up (not mixed together). The Permanent Rose was painted with a number 14 Round brush right across the top three inches, then the brush was rinsed out in clear water and quickly brushed down to the base of the waterfall. A graded effect. Step - 3 The painting was turned upside down and the water painted the same way as you just painted the sky. Dry it with a hair dryer. Never hold the dryer in one spot - move it back and forth. Dry one area while the rest is wet and you will get blossoms. Step - 4 Wet both the top corners and drop in the Blue color making sure you only paint 50% of the wet area. It will now blend nicely as the Blue will creep into the Red leaving a nice transition between the colors. What very carefully the unpainted water line (where the Blue did not quite reach). Blot with tissue gently if you see a water tide mark developing. Dry. Step - 5 Now the background trees in the center. Wet area above the waterfall, at the same time saving a dry area for the tops of the trees. Now paint the tops letting the middle part of the trees blend into the wet area (now you have fog or mist). Step - 6 Do the same for the left and right side trees. Do not attempt to put the two very dark trees in yet. Dry. Now the two dark ones, a mixture of Paynes Gray and Sap Green. Again wet the area at their bases and paint into that area. Dry. Step - 7 Turn paper upside down, paint the dark area on the right leaving some white places and dilute the brush with water and paint all the shapes to the waterfall. Same for the area on the left. Dry. Step - 8 Dry brush in the waterfall. Step - 9 The water ------------you do it. Painting Boats Protecting the Artist Child Within Remember, your artist is a child. Find and protect that child. Learning to let yourself create is like learning to walk. The artist child must begin by crawling. Baby steps will follow and there will be falls----yucky first painting. Typically, the recovering artist will use these early efforts to discourage continued exploration. Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse. This happens in any number of ways: beginning work is measured against the masterworks of other artists; beginning work is exposed to premature criticism, shown to overly critical friends. In short, the fledgling artist behaves with well-practiced masochism. Masochism is an art from long ago mastered, perfected during the years of self-reproach; this habit is the self-hating bludgeon with which a shadow artist can beat himself right back into the shadows. In recovering from our creative blocks, it is necessary to go gently and slowly. What we are after here is the healing of old wounds - not the creation of new ones. No high jumping, please! Mistakes are necessary! Stumbles are normal. These are baby steps. Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves. Too far, too fast, and we can undo ourselves. Creative recovery is like marathon training. We want to log ten slow miles for every one fast mile. This can go against the ego's grain. We want to be great - immediately great - but that is now how recovery works. It is an awkward, tentative, even embarrassing process. There will be many times when we won't look good - to ourselves or anyone else. We need to stop demanding that we do. It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time. Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist , you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, overtime, a very good one. When I make this point in teaching, I am met by instant, defensive hostility: "But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really paint well". Yes......the same age you will be if you don't. So let's start with this quick demo on painting boats. STEP #1 STEP #2 Applied Drawing Gum to the areas that needed to be white. Pencil sketch just for the two boats. You Not sure about Drawing Gum - go to "Techniques" (left side may not be able to see the faint lines. home page) - click up will come Masking Fluid. STEP #3 Winsor Green (Thalo Green - P.G.7 on your tube) - mixed with Permanent Alizarin Crimson. Paint in trees and reflections working from right to left. Add Burnt Sienna far left. STEP #4 Foreground using Winsor Yellow, Raw and Burnt Sienna. Washed (large brush) Yellow leaving areas for tide pools, while wet paint both Sienna's into the Yellow. Paint in tide pools, Light Blue. This should be a light gray, but the camera was acting-up a little - SORRY STEP #5 Paint in boats, you can try any colors you like (not happy with my choice). But create form (volume) with varying the values of the colors, do not paint solid colors, it will cause the boats to look flat, pasted on look. STEP #6 When the whole painting was dry. Washed a light Perm. Rose over the whole sheet (maybe I should have not done that). But I wanted to emphasize a point if you lay a wash over existing painted items, nothing bad will happen, using a very light touch, do not go over any spot twice. Get in softly and get out quickly. STEP #7 Added a few details on foreground, wiped out base of distant trees. TIP OF THE DAY DAMAGING PAPER WHEN PEELING OFF MASKING FLUID Use "Pebeo Drawing Gum" instead of that gummy stuff. Drawing Gum is water soluble so you can thin with water. It removes easily with your finger. It's Gray in color so it doesn't distract your eye from the colors you've painted over. Can be dried with a hair dryer, don't overdo the drying. Don't like the hard edges other fluids leave, Drawing Gum can be applied to wet paper, flaring out the edges. Test ideas given on your paper. ENGLISH SENSE OF HUMOR The Nasty Parrot Jim received a parrot for Christmas. The parrot was fully grown, with a very bad attitude and worse vocabulary. Every other word was an expletive; those that weren't expletives were, to say the least, rude. Jim tried to change the bird's attitude by constantly saying polite words, playing soft music... anything he could think of. Nothing worked. He yelled at the bird, and the bird got worse. He shook the bird, and the bird got madder and more rude. Finally, in a moment of desperation, Jim put the parrot in the freezer. For a few moments he heard the bird swearing, squawking, kicking and screaming and then, suddenly, there was absolute quiet. Jim was frightened that he might have actually hurt the bird, and quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto Jim's extended arm and said, "I'm sorry that I offended you with my language and my actions, and I ask your forgiveness. I will endeavor to correct my behavior". Jim was astounded at the changes in the bird's attitude and was about to ask what had changed him, when the parrot continued, "May I ask what the Chicken did?" PICTORIAL SPACE You can probably guess or know what the term means, but here's a full definition to help you. DEEP The term pictorial space describes the illusion of space or depth apparent in a painting. This illusion is achieved by replicating the effects of linear and aerial perspective, by changing the scale of objects from big to small, and by overlapping objects (all the devices Delacroix uses in the painting . Deep pictorial space is being suited to romantic landscape painting. SHALLOW With the exception of the Romantic landscape painters of the 19th century, most artists since the Renaissance have composed their subjects in shallow pictorial space. By closing off the back of the painting with a surface that often runs parallel to the picture plane, they confine and direct the viewer's attention through the design to their intended subject. FLATTENED Inspired by Japanese prints, the Post-Impressionists - Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, began to flatten the pictorial space in their work. By bringing the background area forward, by reducing modeling, and by subtly tipping objects to provide multiple viewpoints, they created paintings in which objects seemed to rise in pictorial space rather than move back. Realistic representation with full modeling of form and the illusion of deep space was replaced by this more decorative, flattened treatment of space.