Water-color-y weekend (Sunday)
July 29, Sunday. 10-4pm over at the well-landscaped Macalester College campus. Today's class was not a continuation of the class yesterday but a hands-on get painting class where we had assignments, demonstration, and then do it time.
We started with a demo and by doing case study drawings at any scale we were comfortable with and either repeated or different subjects. Then we had another demo of 10 paint strokes per painting and do 3. My first one was okay and then my second one was meh and third I liked. I stopped at 6 strokes and then was able to add a tiny bit of detail. In real life the paper is white all the way across, not grey and then white. Not sure how to fix. Some photo program?
I had a strong urge to do a different color for each stroke but realized I was mixing up my class assignments! I also thought I should be timed for 10 min per painting. Again mixing up classes!
We then discussed our paintings. There were a couple of very talented people in the class and it was fun to watch them work, look at their tools, and talk about what they did. Everyone got to talk about their process. Monica said she was impressed on how I just jumped in and took chances (as you will see later).
Our next assignment was to take one of our paintings and "give it up to the gods." In 5 minutes we were to do anything to the painting and maybe make it better and maybe ruin it. I took my redbud painting and Monica offered her water soluble graphite crayon to me. This is the result. And then we turned them upside down and maybe I like that version better (upside down version shown here).
Originally I had 10 paint strokes to make this and when I added the graphite that was the shading and stronger black colors. The water color "black" that I mixed wasn't very strong or intense. Lacked drama.
Throughout this I was also using the 1" brush that I bought for the water soluble graphite class. It's a fun brush. Like in Kat's class keeps me from getting too fussy.
After lunch we had another demo of how the same subject and be painted differently accidentally or on purpose. Discussion of realism and not-realism and does it matter etc etc. Talked about brushes, types of animal hairs and their qualities, etc etc. And our assignment was then to paint. I wanted a challenge and Monica said I had to over paint. She wanted me to go beyond my comfort zone of quitting a painting too early. Quitting when I was thinking I was done and not wanting to go into the ruin zone. She said I needed to go there.
First I painted the echinacea and didn't like it poured water all over it and threw it in the flower bed to dry. I went over to paint a clump of rosebud trunks and tried to overpaint and didn't like that either. Monica said to go away, take a walk, come back and paint 3 strokes and be done. But to think about those 3 paint strokes.
Went back to the echinacea, added some more bits and bobs and still didn't like it and will probably take out the soft pastels and water-soluble pencils and ruin it some more.
So that's it. That's my weekend. What did I learn from this?
1. Work on color mixing, chroma ladders, and chroma cords.
2. Go beyond my comfort zone of when I'm done or not.
3. Use a big snappy squirrel brush with watercolors.
4. Experiment with 10 paint stroke paintings to get ideas on the paper.
I had a strong urge to do a different color for each stroke but realized I was mixing up my class assignments! I also thought I should be timed for 10 min per painting. Again mixing up classes!
We then discussed our paintings. There were a couple of very talented people in the class and it was fun to watch them work, look at their tools, and talk about what they did. Everyone got to talk about their process. Monica said she was impressed on how I just jumped in and took chances (as you will see later).
Originally I had 10 paint strokes to make this and when I added the graphite that was the shading and stronger black colors. The water color "black" that I mixed wasn't very strong or intense. Lacked drama.
Throughout this I was also using the 1" brush that I bought for the water soluble graphite class. It's a fun brush. Like in Kat's class keeps me from getting too fussy.
After lunch we had another demo of how the same subject and be painted differently accidentally or on purpose. Discussion of realism and not-realism and does it matter etc etc. Talked about brushes, types of animal hairs and their qualities, etc etc. And our assignment was then to paint. I wanted a challenge and Monica said I had to over paint. She wanted me to go beyond my comfort zone of quitting a painting too early. Quitting when I was thinking I was done and not wanting to go into the ruin zone. She said I needed to go there.
So that's it. That's my weekend. What did I learn from this?
1. Work on color mixing, chroma ladders, and chroma cords.
2. Go beyond my comfort zone of when I'm done or not.
3. Use a big snappy squirrel brush with watercolors.
4. Experiment with 10 paint stroke paintings to get ideas on the paper.
Sounds like it was a really, really good class! As usual, I like your work, enjoy seeing it and hearing about your processes! I like your fearlessness.
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