Daily Painting

Typically, watercolor is painted in layers - lightest wash, then darker, then darkest darks. When I started watercolor, I had trouble breaking down the scene in layers and putting the lightest wash over everything (but whites). I couldn't see the scene that way. Now I can. It seems that when I've learned how to do that, something comes along to change it up! I took Tim Saternow's workshop last week. His basic MO is to do a value study ( grisaille ) under the color painting. The color is just tints - sometimes darker, but the value study shines through. And it is the value study, the very bones of the painting, that have to be strong for the painting to be strong, and to be carried. We started with the darkest darks - once those are laid down (as Charles Reid said: you then have your values set - darkest darks and lightest lights - white of paper - down first, everything else comes in between) the painting will never be weak. Tim said that in judging the 1200+ entries o...

For this past Thursday's paintsite, we went to UC Santa Cruz's lovely Arboretum, and I was instantly taken by this structure - this Japanese looking glass cube perched above the Succulent Garden. I found out later when I went up the steps to look inside it that it - was called "Owl Observatory" - contained inside it a cracked concrete slab with two empty chairs facing each other - was a charming wood structure with what looked like a skylight inside, but instead of glass, had a wood panel on which was painted Saturn that (possibly) glows at night - contained an old framed black and white photograph of ITSELF - of the structure from the outside. ... a self-reflective device.  I did a small compositional study, though I had an idea in my mind of what the composition would be - vertical, with stairs leading up to this structure. I followed the whites/light areas as I looked at the scene, and made some things lighter than they were simply to keep my whites conne...

I feel I do my best work en plein air. There is a sense of urgency so I tend to be less fussy. I am more uncomfortable and want to be done with it. I am not using a photo and the light is changing. When I look at photos of the same subject later, they seem more drab. Of course I can use the photo and create my own composition, but I tend to want to do more of that in field, when the spark of inspiration is fresh. Often the photo will lose the sense of depth, and more things will be in a dark value silhouette than they actually are - the error of the camera. With my eye, I can bring that distant flag into focus and MAKE it my focus, which the camera may pick up like a toothpick. When I am wandering around looking for where to set up en plein air, I stop when I am inspired. I can modify the values and create my depth of field, modify the values and blur my edges to create my focus, and manipulate the composition to lead the eye there. In that moment of inspiration, all that theory comes ...