Student Work and a demo on sea waves

 In class I did a short demo on how to do sea waves, taken from this youtube. It's only 12 minutes and worth the watch. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-LDUK-XhRM

First make a graded wash of dark blue at the top to lighter blue on the bottom. (He used indigo, but mine is quite black, so I combined it with ultramarine)

Dry completely. 

Then draw some wavy lines at a slight diagonal.

Darken directly under the line with indigo or blue, then pull it out to the next line, lightening as you go.

Dry that, then do the same for the second wave. Dry and do the third wave. Each wave will be slightly lighter than the one above. I also added a little pthalo to make the waves slightly greener on the bottom.

You can create blooms if you like as you watch the paint dry...just wait until it has lost its shine, then drop tiny bits of water.

Dry completely.

Then, using white ink or white gouache, paint over the wave line with white. With a thin brush, wiggle some watery webs over the blue water. Make some smaller so the webbing is not all the same size.

Here are some fun result from students today:

Shirley strengthened the darks in the fence and added pink flowers

on the fence line.

Jackie took a watercolor of the ocean and rocks on the shore.

She added collage to the foreground rocks, and is beginning to add

collage to the rocks on the side, mostly using masa paper. I like

how the collage makes it look like waves are beating against the rock.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. You can purchase a pen called Chalk Pen at your local Dollar Tree in the craft section. They come in colors, but I like to use the white for covering over darks, a lot like a dry-brush look. Also nice for tiny dots for distant flowers, etc.

More on collage with watercolor

The Iron Gate

To apply collage to a painting, you will need:

    mat medium

    old brush for applying the glue/medium

    possibly tweezers or something to hold small pieces

    variety of papers such as listed in the last post (masa, inside of envelopes, rice paper, magazines, etc.) These can be pre-painted with acrylic or watercolor.

After painting as much on the steps and walls as I wanted, I cut strips from the paper I'd prepared to use for the iron grating. This black was fluid acrylic painted on the inside of envelopes, then spattered with white and rust color.

I use mat medium for the glue. You can apply the medium to the painting itself or to the pieces of collage. Use a brush that you don't care about, because the mat medium will make it unusable for anything else. After you place the pieces, brush over again with mat medium.

Below is strips cut for the iron grates, glued on with mat medium. 

I wanted to add some texture to some of the stonework. I used the pieces of masa paper that I'd painted on. I tore them to give them a rougher look, but you can cut them instead. 

I added the points onto the iron rails. I used the dark blue to collage the post. The knob on the top of the post is from the inside of an envelope.

I used strips cut from masa paper for the wall in the back. I used bits of torn

green for the foliage growing through the rocks and the foliage at the top of the wall. 

I painted in some lines between the stones. 

I painted the shadow on the steps stronger, and painted in the small shadows from the 

railing. At the top I painted lightly some black railing over the green. I also painted in

the grass growing over the sidewalk.

I put in some darker greens to bring out the foliage and used white gouache

to make small dots for flowers in the greenery.

To finish I added some more railings in the gate. I also collaged some thin strips of green at the bottom of the steps and on the sidewalk. 

Keep working on the collage until you are happy with the results. Here are some student works, some finished, some in progress. I am missing a photo of Barb's...she did her collage stonework with a magazine photo of butterfly wings...it looked really neat. Bolder than I would have done on my own.

Margaret painted the iron work, then collaged in the stonework and greenery growing on the walls. Looking good!

Dolores collaged in the roof with rice paper that was painted. She used masa paper on the flowers.

I love the light airiness of the picture, and how she put just enough collage on it to bring out the 

most interesting bits.

Here Dolores took a painting of an historical cabin she'd done before. The sides of the cabin are collaged with envelopes with wood grain pattern painted brown. The redbud tree buds are rice paper painted pink. I wish I'd taken a before and after photo. This looks so neat, and somehow the

collage really pulled it all together.

   

    Kerry painted everything, then used bits of masa paper, torn, on some of the leaves in the foreground.

Also torn masa for the stonework on the chimney. He cut strips for the roof of the house, and rectangles for the windows. 

Shirley did a loose painting for the cabin and trees. She used some black magazine for the shadow on the roofline; torn masa for the chimney; cut masa (painted in gray tones) for the fence line. She's not finished, but it's already looking good. Knowing that the fence would be collage allowed her to paint over that area in her initial wash and not worry about painting around the fence.

More work, but not collage:

Kerry's most recent: rustic windows. The cool in the glass really plays well with the rich warm in the wood.

Vicki's first negative painting.  Also not finished yet, but

definitely getting there. I think we decided to turn the painting to a landscape position, and it looks better.

Sylvia's barn scene, watercolor and some pastel in the sky. This is a full sheet

of paper, and very ambitious. Not finished, but I'm hoping to get a photo of it

completed.

Iron Gate/Part 1

 Beginning a painting with watercolor and collage together.

Collage can be an effective way to add interest and texture, or even correct problems in a painting.

You can start with any painting you've done, but aren't satisfied with and feel safe in playing around with.

Or you can start a painting with the idea in mind that part of it is going to be collage, such as this one with the iron gate. This is a reference I took myself in Aurora, Indiana along the river.

I started with a sketch with the bare essentials, the stairs and the wall.

I didn't even draw in the gate, except for the large post.

I painted the background in cool colors and the steps in warmer colors.

Dried. Then put in the shadow part of the steps, painting over everything that

might become part of the gate itself.

When I got to the post, I just continued color into the post as I painted the steps.

For the lines that form the stones in the wall, I used the long side of a credit card. Just make a puddle of mixed colors, drag the edge of the card through it, and press it onto the line. It makes a nice, broken looking but sharp edge. 

 I drew the railings in and first went over the rails with water, pulling up the paint from the steps into it. This removes the hard edges of the steps from where you want to paint the gate railings. Bonus, I didn't have to paint around all the rails.

After that I painted the gate and other iron works, shown below.  But on this project, I'm going to collage them in.

I am also going to collage in the greenery growing in the cracks.

So this is what I have to prepare to complete this project. You can use just about any papers for collage, but I prefer rice paper, masa paper, and the insides of envelopes (that my bills come in) that have interesting patterns. For the railings I painted the pattern envelopes in indigo and black acrylic. When they dried, I spattered white and rust colored acrylic. For the greenery, I painted a variety of greens on rice paper and masa paper, and also on some blue envelopes. For stonework, I painted a variety of colors on masa paper. 

Masa on left/rice paper on right (kinwashi)

Inside of envelope painted green, spattered with white

Inside of envelopes painted with acrylic black/indigo blue and spattered with rust and white to give rusty look. (I painted the darks with acrylic (fluid) so that the paint would not run and smudge when applied onto the lighter background. The masa paper is painted with watercolor. 

These papers will be used in specific places on the painting to create interest and texture.

I plan to cut straight strips of  the black and blue for the railings, and tear other colors for the greenery and stonework. You can also use magazines, newsprint, origami, wrapping paper, and other things to add color and interest. I try to keep to light-weight papers if I'm using 140 lb watercolor paper as my base for the painting.

Below is a barn that started out as a failed watercolor painting. Most of the trees are collaged in with masa paper torn into small bits. The barn wood is also masa torn in longer strips. The roof is mostly masa, an the dark shadows are black strips cut from magazines. The chickens in the front are the inside of envelopes. The foreground and sky are watercolor.

Next week, we'll demonstrate how to apply the collage using an old flat brush and matte medium.

Another negative painting--peaches and grapes.

 

Two weeks ago, we made a background wash by soaking a sheet of paper and adding 3 colors that blended softly together, no hard edges.

Last week, we drew a picture onto the background, trying to keep the center of interest in a place that had either white space or some interest to it.

I pointed out an article in Watercolor Artist magazine, spring 2022, by Mary Elle (p. 10) called Betwixt and Between. It was describing negative painting, a subject that I am very enthusiastic about. Linda Kemp is another artist that paints negatively...you might say she wrote the book on it. (because she did)

Here is the background that I painted. I also did another background that I put a different picture on.

Pardon the yucky picture...color looks weird. But you can see the sketch of peaches

that I did.

My first step was to choose a color that was contrasting, and I painted around the two most important shapes, the peaches in front. Brush the colors away from these shapes...you can even use a fine mist sprayer to allow the paint to gently drift into the background, yet leave a hard edge around these shapes.

Don't try to work too darkly at this point. Take your time with layering. 

The next step was to "find" more shapes by painting around the leaf shapes and enhancing the peach shapes also. Work a little at a time, keeping the area wet enough to allow the color to blend with the background without hard edges, except around the shapes you want to bring out. 

You are working backward in layers. The greatest contrast will be around your center of interest.

Keep working around shapes until you have the effect you desire.

When I'd painted all I wanted to negatively, I did some positive painting. My original intention was to paint it much darker in the background, but I changed my mind. So I added some green to darken the leaves and used french ultramarine and burnt sienna on the stems. 

I deepened some of the peach colors, especially in the back peach. For those color

I used warm yellow, transparent pyrol orange, and alizarin. I only used a blush on the bottom one, wetting the peach and then dropping in color. I emphasized the "dimples" in the peaches with some alizarin. 

For the leaves, I negative painted the centers (see my last post on leaves), and did very faint veins.

On this one I did a sketch of grapes. (The background really isn't that dark, it's just the photo)

This color is off, but it shows that the first thing I did was lift out some of the dark blue in the top, where I want light. I like to lift with a Winsor Newton #4 or #6 filbert Monarch. They are not too expensive and don't tear at the paper like some lifting or scrubbing brushes will. 

I did my first layer of negative painting with some blue on the bottom grapes and top grapes.

Here you can see I've painted between the top leaves and stems and around some of the leaves.

I've done some positive painting on the leaves, but then negative painted around the veins after the first layer dried. I added some purple as I painted around the green grapes, then when that dried, 

negative painted in some dark grapes. I also started to negative paint the grapes.

To do the negative painting in the grapes, you simply paint in the spaces between the grapes where it would be darker.  You can also see where I've added even darker blue at the very top to negative paint in some grapes. Then I lifted some hi-lights on those grapes.

I also painted some grapes very faintly at the bottom to look like they are in the background.