More about composition...making value studies...perspective

 The value of a value study

In class each person brought a reference photo of their own. We discussed how to create a value study...again combining smaller shapes into larger shapes...and again painting wet, and changing color, not necessarily value, in the first washes of the value study.

A value study allows you to make decisions about your painting on a small scale before painting the final product. You can eliminate distractions; add a shadow; move an object; change the focus. This is all on a small scale. 

Can you use your black and white photo as your value study? Sometimes, yes. You can begin with the b/w photo and use a marker to add or eliminate details and to darken or lighten areas. You can use the marker to make connections between shapes. 

You can also use apps to help you do some of these things. I like to use Notanizer, which costs $3 to download to your phone. It allows you to change a photo to a black and white, to only 2 values, 3 values, up to 7 values. It lets you adjust each value also. This is a great way to help you see large shapes.

Eric Yi Lin recommends Snapseed. It has a lot of features and does more than just adjust values. It takes a little playing with, but I can see its uses.

Below is a youtube by Eric that he made after attending a workshop by Andy Evanson. He discusses Snapseed. He also does a good job of demonstrating the importance of a value study. (I have seen him do one on almost every painting demo) Eric has several others just on value studies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIvHjb8QXio

Doing outdoor scenes almost always involves knowing a bit about perspective. Here are a few I've found.

Youtubes on Perspective

This is by Eric Lin...he discusses doing perspective on buildings, keeping it simple, not mathematical

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBrMVl6ZbJQ

Perspective from Liron Yanconsky

Perspective Drawing For Painters - Tips Tricks and Techniques - YouTube

Perspective from MIchele Weber

How to Draw in Perspective for Beginners - YouTube

Advice on composing your own painting

 2022 Happy New Year!

Starting out this year with a request....to help understand how to compose your own original artwork from a reference photo. We all need help with this topic. So I will humbly bow to artists more experienced at this than I am. Here are two youtube videos you will find especially useful:

Eric Yi Lin - A loose painter who lives in Seattle area, gives three pointers

Real Secret of a Loose Painting - Visual Language - YouTube

Eric talks about communicating through visual language. He gives 3 basic steps: 

1. observe

2. analyze

3. Process & interpet

You might also look at his Oct 7, 2020 youtube How to prepare for watercolor painting - 3 questions to ask yourself. In that one, He asks

1. What attracts you?

2. How to bring it to focus?

3. What to add or subtract?

Dragonfly Spirit with Lynn Bower

Three Simple Strategies for Designing Your Own Watercolors (even if you're a beginner) - YouTube

She focuses largely on

1. how to combine "things" into larger shapes (sillhouette paintings)

2. How to plan lights and whites

3. How to suggest with brush marks

She said that technical skills are not as important in composing a painting as those 3.

So in class we tried to put some of these principles to practical use by taking a reference photo and asking some of these same questions.

Since the youtube was using a lighthouse, I chose these photos from Unsplash. 

by Pete Nuiz

by Peter Burdin

The first photo was a little hard to do step one, which was combining shapes into two major shapes, which made it more complex, so I chose the second lighthouse photo to demo. 

Often we watch an interesting video, but it doesn't sink in unless you try to do it yourself. So I had the class choose a photo and decide which shapes they wanted.The first step, as you'll see below, is COMBINING shapes into larger shapes as much as possible. The lighter lines show some possiblities I considered; the dark shape is the one I decided made the best sillhouette.  I could also have made changes at this point, possibly making the land shape more dramatic, changing the size of the lighthouse, etc.

 We then made a graded wash over the entire thing. I used blues and magenta. You'll notice that I also cropped the picture in, elongating it to show more lighthouse.

I then used the same colors on the lighthouse, beginning at the top and continuing to the bottom of my sillhouette shape, changing color gradually as the video recommends. 

The last step in this sillhouette shape was to find shapes you might want to make lighter or white by adding gouache. (a white opaque watercolor paint that mixes well with watercolors) First add the darker shapes. (I darkened the bottom of the island, separating it from the ocean). Then add light and white shapes. (I made two lighter hill shapes behind the island; whitened the glass part of the lighthouse; did some dry brush in the water at the bottom)

The original photo had interesting clouds in the sky, which I chose not to put in. But if I had, I would have tried to connect as many as possible into one big shape in the study to see if it added interest or took away from the painting. Also in the reference, the lighthouse was reddish and white, and I chose not to do that in the study. If, for example, I needed to paint this specific lighthouse, then those colors would have been necessary.

Remember, this is a STUDY, not a finished product. (but sometimes it turns out pretty well). 

Eric Lin is also one who, from the very first stages of the painting, tries to combine small shapes into larger shape to create unity and harmony in the painting. I think these videos discuss the same principles in a different way. 

What is odd, is that when you begin a painting thinking about shape that is interesting, after a while, your brain seems to be sensitized to looking at shape instead of other elements (color, texture, etc).

The other emphasis in this video is making subtle color change to suggest objects within your sillhouette. This can really be an important skill in watercolor painting. 

Next week, we're taking a reference photo of our own choosing and putting these principles and others into practice. KEEP IT SIMPLE