Practicing with Glazing

 

For class I created a handout.

It included the 4 Golden Rules of Glazing:

1. Bone Dry Base Layer.

       The underlying layer must be 100% dry. If it is warm or damp to the touch, any new paint will activate and bleed into the bottom layer, creating unwanted mud. Use a hair dryer if needed.

2. One Pass & a Light Touch

     Apply the glaze with a single, gentle stroke. Avoid scrubbing or going back over a wet area. Water and friction lift dried paint underneath, disrupting the smooth layer.

3. Use soft, high-capacity brushes

     Hard bristles scratch into the dry first glaze

4. Transparent pigments only. Glazing relies on transparency. Opaque or semi-opaque can leave a chalky film that hides underlying layers.

Short list of transparent colors:

Blues: Pthalo blue, Indanthrone, cobalt, Prussian

Yellows: Hansaw light, aureolin, Azo

Reds: quin rose, permanent rose, alizarin crimson

Greens/purples: pthalo green, swap, dioxazine violet

earth: quin gold, burnt sienna

Glazing Practice

The first practice was with a flat brush. Choose a warm and cool of each primary. (I used Hansa yellow and new gamboge, permanent rose and coral, cobalt and cerulean.) You can choose other colors in addition.

Make a watery mix of each color on your palette.

Use the flat brush to make a stripe of each color going vertically. (in first glazes, the paint is thin.) I try to label my colors.

Dry completely. This is very important. Not drying your layers will cause muddy colors and fuzzy edges.

Use the same colors in the same order for horizontal stripes. Voila! An instant visual color mixing chart.

You will notice a few things. 1. Glazing over the same colors increases its value. 2. Whether you glaze blue over red or red over blue makes a difference. In this chart I've circled the blue over yellow on the bottom and the yellow over the blue on the top. 3. The colors often look more vibrant and interesting than if you had just mixed it on your palette.

Here is a small glazing chart with secondary colors. I used transparent pyrrol orange, lime green, sap green, violet and yellow.

SECOND PRACTICE

Draw three 3-dimensional objects on a piece of watercolor paper. I chose apples because at the time I felt pretty unimaginative, and apples sounded about right.

Paint the far left object with an underpainting of yellow, leaving a white highlight where the light might hit. For the second one, paint only the shaded part of the object WITH THE COMPLEMENT OF THE FINISHED COLOR. In other words, if I want a green apple, paint the shadows red. If I want a blue apple, paint the shadows orange. If I want a yellow apple, paint the shadows purple.

*At this point, I need to point out that you don't want a hard edge on these shadows. The easiest way to have a soft edge is to wet the area first. Apply the paint where the shadow will be darkest, and then encourage the paint toward the lighter part of the shadow. You should end up with a soft edge on the light part of the shadow.

For the right apple, paint it with a light value of whatever you want it to end up. I want a red apple (see, not too imaginative), so my first layer will be very light red.

So here is my evil plan.

I want you to see the glow you can get from underpainting with the yellow.

I want you (On shape 2) to see that using an opposite creates great shading.

On shape 3, I want you to notice that some colors by themselves can't create enough value change to make an object appear 3D.

I want you to notice that without at least 3 value changes, object appear to be flat.

On shape 1, begin applying another color over the yellow. Each time, leave a little of the previous value showing, drying between each value change.

One shape 2, begin applying the main color. I used a red shadow, so I'm going to start applying green. My first layer will be light. I'll leave some of the light green, then use a slightly darker green. Finally, I will leave some of the green, and make a dark green. Each time paint over the shadow.

On shape 3, I will keep adding the same color, making the layers darker each time. It is important that you LEAVE the lighter values each time.

Here is a second layer. I increased the yellow with quin gold, leaving the lighter side of the apple with the original yellow showing. For the green apple, I put a light green over everything, leaving a lightlight. For the third apple, I left a section of the first layer of light red showing where it is lightest, making it slightly darker on the shadow side. BUT NOT VERY DARK YET> They are starting to show some volume, but need at least one more value.

NOTICE: My edges are SOFT and gradual.

A third layer. The one with the yellow undertone is looking pretty sunlit and vibrant.

the middle one has a darker layer of green and notice how the red shadow is looking more like a shadow. The one on the right is having its value increased, leaving some of the previous values, keeping the edges soft. Needs another value, I think. 

Here's where I can't get much darker with the red so I have to add blue or purple to increase the value on the third apple.

And a little on the bottom of the first apple....

And now for my magic transparent pyrrol orange trick:

I was OK with the dark purplish red, but wanted to show

what an overglaze can do.

Trouble shooting:

*Problem: The bottom layer melted or bled. Bottom layer was still damp, or brush stroke was too heavy.

*Problem: The color looks dull and chalky. An opaque or semi-opaque pitment was used for the overglaze.

*Problem: Hard edges formed around the glaze. Paint was applied too thick or dried unevenly. Soften edges quicky with damp, clean brush before the edge sets.

Waxing off Batik & Making Corrections

 REMOVING WAX FROM BATIK

You need to look at the blog from Nov. 21, 2024 to see instructions for removing the wax from your batik.

https://dearingcampbell.blogspot.com/2024/11/   

If the link doesn't work, just go to the blog sidebar, find November, 2024, and it should come up for you. In this blog, it recommends FREEZING after your final wax. We did not do that in class this time because the paper was a bit brittle, and I didn't want it to completely fall apart. But normally, I freeze it for 5 minutes to get some good crevices. 

After you get all the wax off, you can glue the picture to a piece of watercolor paper (don't need an expensive brand). You can use just Elmer's if you don't care if your piece is archival. I usually will use YES paste, matte medium gel, or something more permanent, since I either show or sell mine.

When it is completely dry, you can use other mediums to "fix" problems in the painting.

USING THE RICE PAPER

If there is a place that is too dark, you can tear pieces of the rice paper to patch it using some matte medium to glue it over the piece. I save scraps from the edges where I cut it down, and use them for patches. You can cut or tear out pieces of the white rice paper to form clouds or other shapes.

If your paper has torn, you can repair it by gluing similarly colored rice paper right over the hole.

On this picture of the light house, I tore out some white paper for clouds. Also, I tore a small piece of blue to lighten one of the edges at the top of the lighthouse, which had gotten darker than I wanted. 

On the picture of the koi, I cut out white fish shapes and added to the painting. 

WATERCOLORS

Once your painting is adhered to paper, it should take watercolor, and you should have some more control over the edges. Before trying adjustments with other media, try the watercolor first, especially if painting over a light area.

INKTENSE STICKS AND PENCILS

Inktense pencils (made by Derwent) are like watercolor pencils, but more intense. You can sometimes cover a dark area with them, even adding some white. The sticks allow you to cover a larger space quickly, while the pencils can be used on smaller spaces.

PASTELS

Since the paper has so much texture, you can often rub the side of pastel sticks over it to create texture, or to break up a dull area.  You can also try oil pastel sticks. I've never used them, but that doesn't mean you can't.

PEN & INK

For adding very dark fine lines, you can use brown or black ink using a dip pen, or the glass dip pens. You can also use fine permanent pens. 

POSCA PENS

I like to use these acrylic pens for trouble spots, especially if small, like putting in a mouth, or adding a white highlight to the eyes. Posca pens can be used light over a dark area. The drawback to these is that they have a very opaque look, and might alter the transparent look of the watercolor, so use sparinghly.

In this picture of the turtle, you can see I used acrylic pens around the eyes and mouth and cheeks. They are noticably more opaque. 

GOUACHE

I have also used gouache to add some needed color or white. Again, these are more opaque, so I used sparingly.

WHITE GEL PEN

These are for very fine white markings.

METALLIC PAINTS

These are fun for giving areas an extra pop. 

Watercolor Wax Batik-Beginning turtle

 Watercolor Wax Batik

Before starting any picture, make a "map" of when you will put wax on what space.

Just make a small copy of your drawing.  (about 5 inches) Use colored pencils or markers. I use white to indicate my first wax, which will end up as white. Yellow indicates what I will mask second, and will be my lightest value after white. Green might be my 3rd wax, and red a 4th wax, and so on. With this simple picture there are only 4.

Trace your full size picture with pencil onto the rice paper. No light box needed: the rice paper is pretty transparent. Make sure you can see your pencil marks. As you go along, you might need to redraw your pencil marks, as the water and paint disintegrate the pencil.

Prepare your wax. Melt it at about 140 degrees....you do not want a high temp.

Lay your rice paper drawing over the WAXY side of BUTCHER PAPER. This keeps the wax from sticking to your paper and protects your surface.

Wax off the parts you want WHITE.

Turn your wax paper to the PAPERY side. That is to absorb the paint. Now paint everything a light value. If you want a certain area a certain color, you can paint it that, but what matters is that any and all colors you paint are a very light value. (or up to the lightest value that you want to keep)

Dry. (I use a box fan) Don't lift the wet rice paper off the butcher paper until it is dry. I use the under paper to carry it to the box fan or place to dry. It is very fragile when wet. 

Turn your butcher paper to the waxy side. Next wax off everything you want to keep the lightest value. Here I waxed off the head, flippers, and part of the shell, leaving the eyes unwaxed and anything that will be darker. Flip to your paper side. Then I painted up to the second value. You can put in the colors you want but it's more fun to just paint values.

Now that the flippers are the value I want, I wax those and part of the that I want to stay that value. I also SPATTER some more) Then I paint everything the next values.

I wax off everything that I want to keep--the sections on the shell, and paint again, the next values up.

Now I have all my value. I wax over everything.

When the wax cools, I crackle it. Brush the excess crumbs away. Then with black paint (Or other dark color) I brush with a stiff brush into the cracks. You can pick and choose to cover a lot, a little or not at all.

I glued a white sheet of paper and carefully glued the picture to the white paper. Any rips in the rice paper can easily be covered over with scraps or can just become part of the picture.

(If I'm doing a picture for framing or selling, I use YES GLUE or mat gel. But just for fun, you can use Elmers. It's just not archival.)

Once the paper is dry, you can make repairs, corrections and changes because it is no longer so fragile. I try to use watercolor first to not alter the look. But you can use white gel pen, posca pen, inktense, watercolor pencils, etc.

See other blogs: 

May 27 & June 3 of 2021July 1, 2022

Nov 14& 21 of 2024

Finding a "path" with values

 Finding a dark "path" through your painting

One of the ideas I took away from Dan Wiemer's workshop was finding a path of values. In class today we had everyone take their reference photo and overlay it with transparent tracing paper.  Here is my process start to finish:

I began with this reference photo I took while on a walk in Lesko Park, Aurora.

I placed a piece of tracing paper over it, and with a black marker, I filled in everything that looked dark. I also moved the large tree to the left and placed the eagle closer to a center of interest. I tried to connect the darks to create a pathway for the eyes to move through.

I added some darks across the bottom  to make more connections. 

I drew my new pattern onto cold press paper.

I did this using Dan Wiemer's method, but you can also work light to dark, like normal watercolor, as long as you always work toward getting that pathway in your painting.

So here I masked out everything that was not going to be darkest dark.

I mixed a dark water color with some matte medium and painted over the painting, mostly trees.

When dry I removed the mask. Boy, do I HATE that step.

Then I proceeded to paint sky, water, and foreground.

With watercolor. 

I

The main thing I wanted to stress in class was not the procedure, but the 5 minute exercise of finding your darkest shapes to see if they create an interesting path. You can have a so-so reference, but if you adjust darks, add shadows, create movement, the picture will be much more interesting and cohesive.

Another artist, John Salminon, creates a "path of white" before painting his subjects. It is the same idea of creating interest and cohesiveness in your painting before you even add a drop of paint. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94vJwgFvYCc

 

DAN WIEMER WORKSHOP: WATERCOLOR AND HEAVY ACRYLICS

 DAN WIEMER

 "Yellow on Blue" by Dan Wiemer

I fell in love with Dan's style after seeing some of his work from friends who had taken a workshop from him in 2024. I was so excited when a friend gave me the opportunity to take a 4-day workshop with him.

I wanted to blog some of the things I learned, mostly so I would remember the major points that meant something to me.

To see some of his work, please go here to his website:

https://danwiemer.com/

1. Using acrylic with matte medium for darks.

Dan mixes heavy acrylic with matte medium for darks. It not only thins the acrylic, but also makes color more matte, blending more seamlessly with watercolor look.

2. Considering paths of dark value or white value first.

And using masking fluid to mask off all areas that are not the darkest values. In the process, he leaves little spaces of paper to help create a wood cut effect.

Even though I "preach" value a lot, doing it this way (masking off all values that are not the darks) makes your "path" more clear. Because it is unmovable acrylic, you can freely paint over it. It made the painting of these trees much more alive than trying to positive paint them.

After removing masking around the trees, it was easier to paint in the background and foreground with watercolor. One of Dan Wiemer's signature bits is to leave these "wood cut" marks from spaces left in the masking process. Notice the scratchy, dark marks around the branches.

(Using Dan Wiemer's reference)

3. If you want colorful areas to show up, consider painting around them with their neutralized opposite. For example, If you want a gorgeous orange to be emphasized, surround it NOT WITH PURE BLUE, but a neutralized blue. 

Let me show you how I FAILED at this.

In the picture below, somehow everything is bright and pure color. (This is all acrylic on a canvas, and I am obviously not an acrylic specialist). If I had neutralized some of the background area, or some of the water, the pure color areas that I want to be noticed would show up better.

(Using Dan's reference: Sedona)

Below is a color chart made by Dan that really emphasized the pure color vs. neutralized colors. A true complement is a PURE color against its NEUTRALIZED opposite.

The outer circles are pure colors in the color wheel. The triangle beneath each color represents that pure color with 10% of its opposite to create a neutral. 

4. Painting in "jelly beans."

 "Winds of Change" by Dan Wiemer

This is very distinctive in some of Dan Wiemer's work. He emulates some Canadian painters, especially the Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. He enjoys making it have a woodcut look to it. This is achieved by 2 things: masking in "jelly beans" or painting in "jelly beans." 

That is using a large round brush (about size 12), and applying either paint for mask in a long hot dog or jelly bean shape. The paint looks scooped out. You can notice this in many of his paintings if you look at his web site. Personally I never caught on to this, but I will continue to try. My best success was in the dark wall on the left of this picture and the whites in the water.

Tennessee Falls - my own photo reference

 

5. Keeping the colors clean and pure. Even though he uses neutralized colors and pure colors, Dan's work is always very fresh and clean looking.

6. Another distinctive style embraced by Dan is a very abstract background such as in his duck, koi fish, and yellow boat. You will notice shapes that look like scribbles, but the background is more muted tones and the foreground will have the brighter tones.

7. Your reference is not a dictator. You can move things, change colors and value, eliminate detail, and stylize however you want.

One last thing that we did in class was this Aurora Borealis (northern lights). We made the rock area first, masking around cracks in rocks and trees. Painted the rock cracks and trees. Removed mask and painted loosely for rocks. 

For the lights in the sky, we wet the entire sky, then applied pure color--bright yellow green and some quin rose for me -- tipping the paper in the direction we wanted the lights to go. While very wet, we painted in a dark--for me it was indigo and Pthalo blue--around those bright colors. Used a misting spray to encourage the flow. When you get the effect you want, you let it dry flat.

The only thing left is to paint the water in the foreground.

Here is a painting that I did for our landscape class, using some of the things I learned.

I'd already begun the background and one of the trees, so I couldn't switch styles too much. Only the tree trunks and shadows are acrylic. 

Park Reservoir in the Big Horn Mountains

My own photo reference from 2022

Dan's tips on masking fluid.

He used Winsor Newton white masking fluid, and is not stingy with it. He used a large round brush, one exclusively set aside for masking. He thoroughly wets the bristles. He soaps the brush, not just the outer bristles, but pushing the soap through all the bristles. He also uses a blow dryer on it! I've always been told that's a big no-no, but it works for him.

One thing I tried doing differently: I loved the idea of doing the darks first, but I wanted to do it all with watercolor. I experimented and found that I could mix a dark watercolor, add a little matte medium, and it would stay put when it was dry. 

Excellent workshop, Dan's a great teacher! 

 Rocks and Rivers

Here is the post I did on rocks previously:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/684856811482463856

A stream added to rocks

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/1229907080213600384

Several methods for painting rocks and texture

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/4492119298978827931

At Dan Wiemer's workshop, I discovered a different method for painting rocks. You can use acrylic for part of it, and it calls for a lot of masking fluid, so we'll begin with that so it can dry while we learn other methods.

Sketch your rocks roughly, and draw in the cracks.

Generously mask out the rocks, both light and medium values. Leave open all the darkest cracks. Simplify the rocks wherever you can. You can invent a few more cracks if needed. Let this dry completely.

A Dan Wiemer tip on masking: Wet a masking brush completely, then add soap to the brush. Rub the soap into the bristles to coat them. Blot out extra water. You should be good to go for about 10 minutes before needing to wash the brush out. Dan even blows the masking dry, which I've always been told is a no-no.

A hint: If you have a light board, you can just lay your sketch underneath the paper, and use the light board to easily see where all the whites and medium tones are. It saves a lot of guessing and drawing. 

Here is something I learned from Dan Wiemer, but modified to suit my style.

Mix some dark paints, then add a little--like a dime size-- MATTE MEDIUM to the mix. Dan Wiemer uses acrylic mixed with matte medium to thin it. I used watercolor instead of acrylic, either mixed with matte medium or matte medium OVER the darks. When I go over the rocks in a later step, I don't want my darks bleeding into the fresh colors. Matte medium will "set" the dark paint so I can freely paint over the darks.

Also, be sure to mix matte medium in a separate container, not in your WC palette. And either wash the brush out immediately to remove medium, or just use a brush you use for acrylics, so you don't destroy the bristles on a good brush. 

When the mask is dry, use a mixture of dark paints (mixed with a drop of matte medium) over the entire rock area. Let it dry again. 

While waiting for the paint to dry, I did some water. I wet the lower part of the rocks and extended it to the right side of the paper. I stroked in some cobalt blue, a bit of magenta, and some pthalo blue. While shiny, I STRETCHED some plastic wrap over the water area to create a rippled effect.

Remove the masking when completely dry. Make sure you like the pattern it created.

Then paint the medium value shadows and texture on the rocks.  Use some of the texture methods from the 3rd blog. On this one, I dropped in colors wet into wet (using burnt sienna, Pthalo, lunar black for texture). While still shiny, I covered the rocks with tightly wrinkled plastic wrap.

Saran wrap held down with weight until dry

Saran wrap removed with some bits of masking for texture. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't leave the plastic wrap on long enough to get the effects I wanted. Win some, lose some.

All masking removed. Notice the subtle changes in rock color 

WATER

For calm water with reflections:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw8t72gWmwo

For choppier water: and waves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trGEEteR-Gc&t=544s

Landscapes: Trees and other green things

 Trees in landscapes

Two years ago I did a blog on making trees. Here is the blog:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8812132386157895665/1185336914084288288

It includes several tutorials from Paul Clark, one from Karen Rice, and one from Eric Yi Lin.

Rather than repeat myself, I am only going to add the methods I have tried since then.

This first one is described by Paul Clark. It is dry brushed. 

To dry brush, you saturate the brush in paint, tap off some of the moisture, and holding the brush with the belly on its side, brush lightly across the cold press or texture of the paper. It doesn't work well on hot press. Lay in yellows (or lights) first, leaving open spaces of white. Then do the same for greens and again for darks, shadows. When it is dry you can paint the trunk and branches. Paul often uses the sharpened end of a wood paint brush to drag in small branches, but this takes practice. Karen Rice does the same thing with sharpened sticks.. Altho I love the look, I still have not mastered it myself. 

Sometimes artists use hogs hair brushes, like those used by oil painters, to make leafy effects.

Below you can see the clouds and background painted in first. I painted the trunk with dark brown, then lifted some lights while it was still damp. I used pen and ink for the textures.

Below is a waterfall with distant trees. These distant trees are done by wetting the entire sky area first. I waited until the paper had barely lost its shine and began dropping in golds and greens and blues to make these fuzzy looking distant fir trees. 

I'd never attempted to paint a willow tree, so here is my version. I learned how to do this from a video from Sarah Cray:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aYlvYm0_Cw

There are other videos but this one was only 9 minutes. This technique uses a soft, dry mop brush, but you can use a dry 1" flat, a makeup brush, or haki brush, anything with soft bristles.

You can also use a fan brush for some of the final touches.

Left to right, here are some methods:

Top row: Dry paper, wet brush, and salt; middle is sponge technique; right is droplets.

Bottom row: palm tree; pink blossoms done with droplets and dry spatter; and for tree done wet in wet.

Notice all of the foliage is done first and branches added afterward.

For the top left, I rolled the belly of the brush in the shape of the leaf clumps. I start with yellow, then light green, then darks. While wet I used table salt to create some tiny spaces.

The middle one is done with sponging. The video describes this. You can use celulose or natural sponge. Be careful to move the sponge around so you don't get too predictable a pattern. I start with yellow first, then do other colors.

The third one on the right and the pink tree are done similarly. This is the water drop method, and I really like it especially for keeping lots of spaces between branches and leaves, such as we see now in the springtime. Use a spritzing bottle to sprinkle drops of water on the paper (or you can spatter water drops).

Using a small brush, drop paint into each drop--try to add another color before the drop dries. In the pink one, I used quin rose and alizarin. For the green tree I used quin gold, cerulean, and French ultramarine.

When the leaves are dry, cover the surrounding area with paper towels and dry spatter over the leaves.