WoodsWindnWater

Welcome to my Studio!   Studio, schmudio. When my daughter moved out of our house some 10 years ago, I snapped up her room and made it my space for art stuff. It sure beats painting on the dining room table. The focal point is a big old wooden drawing table that accommodates all of my painterly needs. I have shelves to hold my 100's of personal reference slides and 53 art books I looked through but never read and the 3 books I have read. To the right of my drawing table is 1 of 2 file cabinets on top of which sits a small TV for entertainment. The other file cabinet contains the morgue (old photos, etc of birds and mammals), file folders with art show prospectuses, applications, and rejection letters. The ultimate feature in this room, ouch, I mean studio, is the sink. It's a long old fashion farm sink, large enough to wash down a half sheet of watercolor paper. It beats walking down the hall from the bathroom to that dining room table dribbling water as I go.    The point is, watercolor doesn't require barn size space or a menagerie of materials. Kudos, if you have a dedicated room but I have friends who paint in their basement, attic, garage and kitchen tables. Your space is, what it is. The important thing is that you paint!

Painting   Demonstration
    Let me preface by saying, much of the energy I get for painting comes from my students. In my junior year of high school, my guidance counselor did his best to encourage me to pursue a career in art education. My reply to him was I wanted to "do", not teach. It was the only subject I felt I was good at and I wanted to see my endeavors in the public eye. In my later years, to help support my business financially, I chose to give a workshop. The enthusiasm of those students building on something I was able to share with them came back to me tenfold. Thanks Frank.
    That said, I thought I'd try a second lesson at WoodsWindnWater. This will give you an idea of my approach to painting with watercolor and oh yes, here comes the commercial, hopefully entice you into participating in one of my workshops.

    I'll be posting this demonstration over a number of weeks beginning first with the preparation, heretofore referred to as "prep". I live by the adage given to me years ago; "Watercolor painting is 90% thought and 10% execution".
    Those of you who have looked at the first demonstration have read what's here. You may skip to the demonstration if you wish but this is good stuff and worth repeating.
    If drawing is your weakness, practice or enroll in a drawing class near you. Your painting will be only as good as the drawing. Your drawing is the painting's foundation forming the shapes and boundaries of color.  Sketch little things like a coffee cup, a shoe, a piece of fruit, etc. The best thing you can do for yourself when approaching art is to study your subject. Draw it repeatedly, at eye level, bird' eye view, turn it's direction, put it in direct sunlight and then backlight. You want to be aware of the changes in shadows caused by the direction of the light source. Practice, practice, practice!

Week 1

The Value Sketch     If you looked at my first demonstration, Gator, I started with a value sketch. This is always a good idea in order to get a feel of where the darks and lights will be in your painting. We are, however, going to skip the value sketch for reasons that will soon be self evident.     This painting began as a class demonstration about painting a sunset. At 7" x 15", this painting is more of a color rough. I liked it enough to attempt it in a larger scale with a few embellishments and a little more detail.

This was, or is, my photographic reference. I mean that sincerely. Most of us started painting by copying our reference verbatim, myself included. As we progress, we need to reduce the mechanicalization and become more reliant on our artistic interpretation.     Thinking about the reason for the value sketch we didn't do, I'm looking for value changes in the photo. The contrast between the bright sky and the silhouetted barns is what I want to paint. The cloud shapes, number of and size of buildings, location and size of trees in the photo is somewhat immaterial. The size I make these subjects and where I position them along with their values is what's important.     First, the demonstration painting will be larger. Secondly, I don't feel the values are quite right. I need to darken the cool barns and perhaps tone down the strong warm colors in the sky. From a design standpoint, there is conflict in the point of interest. Is it the sunset or the barns? I have decided to take advantage of the large space given to the sky and add a flock of geese. This will not only draw interest but will complete a basic design principle, that of the triangle. The eye should flow from the geese to the sun to the barns or some variation thereof.

Week 2   Week 3   Week 4   Week 5   Week 6   Week 7   
 

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