FINISHING THE ZEBRA

I am posting student work from this project because it shows how different we all paint but it still looks great.


THE EYE:

Miskit off a small hilight in the eye. When it is dry, paint the eye a dark blue, lifting a little paint from
the center to make it slightly lighter in the center. Add some purple in the outer edges of the eye to make it a little darker. This should have the effect of making the eye appear rounded. Dry it. If you need to darken it a little, do it after it is dry. Then remove the hilight.

THE MUZZLE:

Wet the muzzle, and apply blue paint, then drop in reds and then yellows where you want it a little lighter. While the paint is wet, use a thirsty brush to lift out the half-circle around the nostril where it should be lighter. Also, while wet, lift a bit from the upper lip. When it dries, darken the upper inside of the nostril. Then darken the line of the mouth between the lips, softening the bottom edge.

THE MANE:

1. Paint in the thin stripes of the main, using two colors in the stripes. They should be darker at the edge of the neck where the mane changes direction.
2. WET the tip of the mane from the front down the neck. Drop in wet blues and reds to create the dark fringe at the top of the mane.
3. After that is dry, use a stiff brush to lift and soften the stripes, working from the base of the neck to the brush on the mane.
4. You can use a fan brush to paint in thin lines to indicate more mane.

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF WATER COLOR

I've been asked to post these in my blog.  here they are, the ten commandments of watercolor:

THOU SHALT….

1.              Leave white

This is the sparkle in your painting!

2.            Paint only on shiny wet or dry paper

Avoids muddy, dull color; avoids blossoms; avoids bleeding

3.            Plan and mix up enough color before you paint

So your paint will not dry before you can add more

4.            Use good quality supplies

5.            Use the right brush for the job

Too small leaves streaking; too large loses control

THOU SHALT NOT….

6.            Use too MUCH or TOO LITTLE water for the job

7.            Outline objects or make long lines of same color (you need to break up color-3 inch rule; outlining dries before you can blend)

8.            Focus on details first

It makes it hard to incorporate background into the painting. Work around entire painting

9.            Depend only on color to produce a good painting Remember to use the elements and principles of design, especially value

10.        Compare yourself to others.

(“Do not let a comparing spirit rob you of your creative spirit.

COLORFUL ZEBRA

There are a few things in this exercise that will help you to paint like a water colorist.
It emphasises the following:
1. Laying in a 3-color graded wash.
2. blending color wet into wet, and watching the new colors created
3. Leaving white without masking it out
4. Not worrying about "local" color in order to create a fun painting
5. Creating beautiful darks and light with just three colors
6. Lifting paint (at the end) to create soft, brushy mane

Draw your favorite picture of a zebra, or other animal with interesting patterns. 

For the background, choose three primary colors. I chose quin magenta, hansa yellow,

and pthalo blue. I wet the paper with a large brush, and applied a graded wash, left to

right, with magenta, yellow, and blue. I left some white patches, especially near the eye,

by painting the wash close to, but not in those areas. That created a soft, disappearing

edge in those areas. I spattered clear water onto some of the drying areas for blossoms.

After the initial wash was dry, I began the stripes. Using the same three colors that I used in the background, I wet a stripe, then applied color, letting them blend into each other. The trick is to never let all three colors blend together at once, trying to keep the colors pure. For example, I might start with magenta, change to yellow about an inch later, then change to blue, then back to yellow, alternating colors. You can see that better in the close-up below. Try not to make your intervals too even or predictable.

You can make stripes with just two colors if you want to.

One trick is to put down one color, then, starting away from the first color, put down the second color and let it run back into the first. That way you have a tip of pure color to add to the next one.

FINISHING THE MANE, EYES, MUZZLE, AND DETAILS NEXT WEEK.

Three color painting

This post will look weird bc it is from my phone.

The first photo of the fruit is done in 3colors, working left to right or top to bottom. Red, yellow, and blue were put in wet in wet to shade each item, each done in a different color order. 

The other of the beach pail is the finished product of the 2color painting. 

two color painting exercise

PAINTING IN TWO COLORS

This is a 2-part lesson in learning to think out of the box when it comes to color.

Be sure to look at some of Carol Carter’s amazing paintings on her web site. Notice 4 things: 1) How her backgrounds move from warm to cooler either top to bottom or side to side. 2) How her colors are clean “out of the tube” colors. 3) How she may place color from the cool side of the background into the warm side when she’s doing the foreground. 4) How she uses “back runs” or “blossoms”. 5) How she incorporates “surprise” colors. She doesn’t pay as much attention to “local” color as she does colors that create a mood.

Exercise #1

Choose one of these two sketches or draw your own. I just want some simple, easy to shade shapes, that connect in some way.

Choose TWO colors, a warm and a cool, that you think will work well together to create a mood that you like. These do not have to be complementary colors. Do some color samples to see what you might like to try. Maybe go for something unusual.

Working either top to bottom or left to right, wash the background with dark cool, gradually lightening it, and then gradually add your warm color until by the bottom of the picture (or right) you have pure warm color. (I did the beach scene with aqua and yellow ochre.) You can miskit off areas if it makes you more comfortable. You do not have to have a perfect half/and/half background. But it’s nice if some of your objects are completely inside one color, and some are completely inside the other color. (EX: The seashells are completely inside the ochre color. The pail is mostly in the aqua.)

As you “watch your paint dry,” try spattering in some clean water drops to create blossoms. In my example you can see the blossoms in the aqua and in the sand.

 Let this dry completely. Remove any miskit if you used it.

Start shading your figures in the color that is opposite from what its background is. If the shells have an ochre background, I will shade them with the aqua. If the pail has a blue background, I will shade it with the ochre, adding some blue in areas if I need it.

As you paint, leave patches or pure white so that you can add a “surprise” color later.

NEXT TIME: Trying the same shapes, only using 3 colors to shade.