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.

Landscapes: Skies/Clouds/Sunsets

Most landscapes have four or five elements: sky (clouds, etc.), foliage and trees, water, and rocks or earth. Today we worked on some ways to create interesting skies,

  Clouds: Even Sterling Edwards admits to needing PRACTICE when painting clouds. Here is a 15-minute youtube describing his method of painting large cumulus clouds. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T9tjIZPsEQ

Here are some pictures of clouds to practice with - I took them on my way home Thursday. These have some backlit edges that are not as soft edged as many clouds are.

Five things to remember when painting clouds: 

 1. Even though some may appear at diagonals, those that are farther away and closer to the horizon, usually appear to be more horizontal. 

2. Wetting the paper first will give you time to create the soft edges and shadows; so if you do wet on wet, give the water time to sink into the paper before you paint.

 3. If you include some blue sky, you can paint that first around the clouds. Remember that skies are darker at the top, paler as they reach the horizon. 

4. You can use a "thirsty" brush (one that has been wet but wiped off to remove moisture) to manipulate the paint while it is wet. 

5. USe grays that you make from the sky color and burnt sienna or another opposite. 

6. You can lift with a tissue or thirsty brush to create rays of sun coming through the clouds. You can also lift out areas that you will later paint in and you don't want to fight a darker color. (see the picture below)

Below is a 12 minute cloud study using 6 different methods. At the end of the video, she suggests a book which I have and will try to bring to class. It is The Complete Watercolorists Essential Notebook by Gordon MacKenzie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSKg_ysMy0U

 Sunrise/Sunsets 

 Also a subject I generally treat wet into wet. I usually wet the paper completely, letting the water sink in a bit so that I have enough time to play with the paint before it dries too much. One problem that is easily avoided is trying to blend colors from yellow (of the sun) to the blue of the sky without making a green. (The previous video mentions this when talking about the background for clouds). 

The easiest, most sure-fire way to do this is to create a "buffer" color, usually red or pink. That way, you blend from yellow to orange to red to violet to blue. No green. In this one, I wet the paper and began with yellow. I was using a fairly big brush because my paper was 11 x 14. Yellow is easily dominated, so I like to get that in first. Then I added a bit of magenta (it makes nicer violets than a warmer red) and the blue after the magenta. Because the paper is wet, I can tip it back and forth or diagonally to get the colors to blend. You can also use a tissue or thirsty brush to lift out a place for the sun, if you like.

I wanted my picture to be a little more colorful. I WAITED FOR IT TO DRY. Then I wet it all again and added more color.

Of course, if you don't want blues, it is much simpler. See the 19 min video below from LIesl Studio 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv9fjcX5mg

I've been talking about using a sheet of plexiglas to put wet paper on, instead of taping it down to a board. I've done this for along time at home, but today I found a youtube that talks about it 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y82c-TU7iF0

HAVING FUN WITH COLOR SCHEMES

With a little tape and a well chosen color scheme, you can have a lot of fun and make an abstract.

On the picture below, I began with the steps below and had an abstract. In November, I had just a few days to come up with a painting of a river boat to put in our local art show. I picked up this abstract, added a riverboat into the background, and changed my abstract to this.

In one of these, I created an abstract of some cats. I had this page of yellow, and I put some vertical strips of masking tape. You place them at odd intervals and make the tape different widths. You can use different widths of tape or make it smaller by cutting it with a craft knife.

(IN class everyone started with white paper)

I used a craft knife to cut cat ears in the tape.

I painted the background in blue bc I decided to have a complementary color scheme of orange and blue.

When it dried, I removed all the tape. and to my dismay, some of the washi tape bled through. Lesson learned: just use regular masking tape on the cold press paper.

I started painting in some more cats. I changed my original idea of complementary to a tetrad that included green and magenta. I added some black. Blacks and browns don't change your overall color scheme, since they are neutrals.

Then I used Posca Pens to add details to my cats.

For one like the trees, just place tape from top to bottom, not evenly spaced, different widths . I chose an analogous color scheme with magenta, blue, and violet. I used salt and spattered water to create some textures, plus a bit of bubble wrap. 

I removed the tape.

I could have done a lot of things, such as paint in silhouette, draw in a scene, etc. My daughter thought it looked like an undersea scene, and wanted me to put in some jelly fish. I decided to keep it simple, and painted the taped areas as trees. Then painted with black some thin branches in the background. Here is how I started it. I used a cut credit card point to scratch bark not the trees.

 

This student work is in different stages of completion, but shows the versatility of the project. Each person tried hard to utilize the color wheel to choose a color scheme.

Here is Angie's pour. 

Finishing Touches

 Finishing touches to the pour

Here is what the painting looked like after I removed all the masking fluid and the contact paper.

I was really pleased with the way the contact paper responded on this hot press paper. Very little of the color was accidentally lifted, as it often is with masking fluid, and the paint bled just a little under the edges to give it a realistic, not too hard edged, feel.

So here are some things you can do to improve your pour. (Sometimes you don't need to do a thing)

#1: For edges that seem too light or hard, you can just brush lightly over the area with water, and let the loosened paint flow over those edges. (Like in some of the hexagons in the background.)

#2: Soften edges with a lifting brush to push them more in the background. Or use the lifting brush to lighten an area, such as the leaf below. When that was dry, I also darkened the area behind the leaf to make it stand out better.

#3: Paint over an area to make the paint brighter, suh as the yellow and pink added to this leaf.

#4: Paint some shadows into the veins of the leaves to make it more realistic. Also in the picture above.

#5: Paint some small soft edges into glaring whites, so they don't look so flat. (see the white flowers)

Before and after:

Hot Press Paper

Below is a description of hot press paper. I wanted to use it on this project because the colors will stain the paper a bit more, and there is less paint seaping through tape and contact paper. The edges are very crisp., and the colors a bit more vibrant. Floral painters often use it, and it's amazing for pen and wash...the surface is much easier on pens.

I usually use cold press for every day because it is such a workhorse, and it takes any kind of technique I want to try. 

Hot press watercolor paper is a smooth, hot-rolled surface with no tooth, allowing for precise, detailed work, vibrant colors, and easy lifting. Ideal for illustration, calligraphy, and mixed media (ink/pencil), it dries slower and keeps pigments on the surface, requiring careful blending. It is best used for high-detail, graphic, or scanned, digital-ready artwork. 

Key Characteristics & Best Uses:

• Surface: Extremely smooth (similar to Bristol paper or hot-pressed cotton).
• Painting Behavior: Water and pigments sit on top, resulting in brighter, more intense colors.
• Best For: Detailed illustrations, pen and ink, technical, and high-detail botanical art.
• Techniques: Excellent for lifting color, creating hard edges, and dry brush techniques.
• Considerations: Difficult for beginners to achieve smooth, large washes without streaks. 

Using a color wheel

Here is a video on using a color wheel that is really helpful. It outlines what it is, how to use it to find a color scheme, how to use it to mix color.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfKx7MjSEK0