Watercolour Workshop - Sep 2011

[dennis]

This weekend (2 days) I attended a Watercolour Workshop in Takapuna held by the well-known New Zealand Artist Jacky Pearson.
I needed to get my hand into paintings watercolours again as I was getting a bit rusty. Her impressionistic style is very different from my own normal style so it was a bit challenging for me. Anyway, I survived the ordeal, and here are just 2 photographs of some of my work on day 2.

This is an enlargement of one of the figure exercises.


We were each given a photograph which we had to transform into an impressionistic painting.
Still lots to improve on this quick painting. Practice, practice, practice .......  Follow your own advice , Dennis    
You have to work fast to stop any fiddling with details                                

[Val]

  I love the figure exercise. I have been trying to put figures in a painting recently! I keep practicing but mostly they still elude me. I really like the looseness in these.
Street scenes have always eluded me, structures and buildings just never seem to turn out right.
I do however know the solution....a brilliant man once told me...practice, practice, practice!   
 

[dennis]

 

[nolan]

looks like you had a lot of fun

[dennis]

It was - but tiring after lots of concentration 

[Val]

 
Out of curiosity, in the figure exercise...did you first paint the figures with clean water and then add the colour? 

At first I thought yes...now I'm thinking probably not, some of the colours are too well defined...  could be a combination of the two... this is positively delicious! I love puzzles! 

[smokie55]

I think it is fabulous work Dennis. To me the picture you started with causes me anxiety. It has way to much going on and I would have trouble not fiddling over all the details. That may be why I look for such simple scenes to work with. Then it makes my paintings boring.

They way you have simplified the scene, yet kept it interesting and engaging with all the lights shadows and choices of colors is great. Even at on 30 % of the details. You have my eyes dancing around the surface wanting to be there and walk the streets on this day.

Well done I say. I need to find a way to practice like this. I like doing pastels and I bet they would be  good practice for setting a quick impressionistic scene. Easy to work fast and clean. I could then go to locations and  work fast in a book and get that loads of practice I really need.

Once again, inspiration and job well done.

[dennis]

Val, I put down the figures directly onto the paper in a very slightly watery mix and then dropped in the various colors to suit such that they did not mingle too much. The colors dropped in are of a slightly less watery mixture.

In general always work from a watery mix to a less watery mix and so on, unto the last application is almost pure pigment. If you add a mix with more water to the previous layer you will get blooming (cauliflowering) as the new water moves the previous pigment away to the edges.

Smokey55, thanks for your comments. Scenes like these many try to add too much detail. These HAVE to be simplified to be able to make a saleable painting. I changed lots of detail and added some of my own in to make a nice composition yet in general you can easily recognize the scene. We talk about this type of simplification in the Perfect Painting series.

When you try this style don't be afraid of making what you think are mistakes. What are mistakes to your eyes are brilliant work in the eyes of others. I have lots of "mistakes" in that trial painting, yet you see it as fabulous work - see what I mean?

This type of work is made for pastels. Give it a try and then post some of your work for us to enthuse over

[Val]

Just my luck... I majored in cauliflowering! 

I've pretty much conquered the cauliflowering, still happens now and again but getting much better at understanding how the paints work. Will have to do a few practice runs with the figures.
Thanks for the insight. 

Hi Smokey55... I still have troubles figuring out what to leave in and what to take out. I think its one of those things that comes with practice. Boy...that word is sounding like an echo in my head! 

[smokie55]

Great words of wisdom Dennis. We are our own worst critics. At least I know I am. I find it hard to get past the mistakes. I strive to reach perfection in each piece. Somehow I will have to learn to trust my ability and just concentrate on the overall composition. Its not the little strokes so much as its the whole picture that makes the painting great.

I know someone who used to do cross-stitching. And they did a really nice piece. very colorful and great composition. However they finished the piece and told me of a bunny that had one extra row of stitches in its leg. Definitely a mistake. One I never noticed until it was pointed out to me. For many years I saw that piece hang on a wall and could never not look at that extra stitch once it was pointed out to me.

This, along with what you said should help me understand there are no mistakes. Its about what others see in the picture. Sometimes you just have to let it be.....

I plan to do some work with pastels to try and loosen me up a little bit. That and some life drawing courses should really help me along with my quest.



 

[dennis]

Its not the little strokes so much as its the whole picture that makes the painting great.

There is the whole picture in a nutshell 

About your own "mistakes" I always tell my students to "Zip the Lip!!"  because normally nobody notices them until YOU point them out 

[Val]

Truer words were never spoken.

About a month ago a fellow cruiser learning to paint asked me to look at one of his paintings... 'what do you see wrong with it?'  I replied, ' I see nothing wrong with what you have done, just a few things I would have done differently.'  We then had a long discussion about why/how he did certain things, and things I would have done differently. He thanked me and told me that everyone else he had asked immediately pointed out all the things they thought were wrong with it (most of whom are not involved in art other than looking), and discouraged him to the point of stopping. I gave him the PB web address and hope he joins us shortly. 

[dennis]

Val, you are a great ambassador  Tks

[nolan]

awesome, thank Val 

[Kelley]

Great job passing the word Val!