Do you remember when your cousin dared you to jump off the edge of the patio? Or when you balanced on the edge of the high board...drawn to the edge but afraid at the same time? That's the perverse, frightened, attracted feeling I felt when I first saw this beautiful creature, waving it's delicate chiffon fins about five feet below me in the coral reefs in the Philippines. I so wanted to drop down and get a closer look, to put my bare feet on the coral next to it and double-dog-dare the fish to sting me with it's deadly barbs.
But I didn't.
I floated off, and lived to paint to and give art lessons to my friends in Seattle.
Here's the first watercolor lesson of the fall season.............and check below the lesson for the steps I took to come up with the Lionfish....the transparent staining colors, the granulating pigments, the glazing, etc.
Hi Watercolor students.....Here’s my recap of the first class and I want to tell you, you were fabulous! Thank you all for coming, and thanks to Sarah, Ellen and Phil, we had enough tables for all. I paid Phil for the table from your donations. Cam and Pete now have enough tables for Lots of Parties and I was able to sail into the class, concussion free (remember, my canopy door is unreliable). with my back almost purring.
Now that you have experienced the first class, you know a little more about what to bring and how to arrange your supplies. I suggest that you tear your big sheets of paper into four smaller sheets before you come to class, and “blue tape” around the edges (see fish example) to give it a clean margin.
Get a hose or a kitchen sprayer to clean off muddy mixes or antique clots of paint on your palatte. Keep the newer paint blobs. Start clean...by the end of class you will have plenty of mud. If you have a plastic palatte, either sand the wells with sand paper or rub with Bon Ami or Comet (thanks for the suggestion, Nancy) so the paint doesn’t “curdle” when you mix it. Organize your paint tubes in some baggies....cool colors (blue, green, cool neutrals) and warm colors...red, yellows and warm colors...in separate baggies. Wrap up your watercolor brushes in a table mat or get one of the handy brush carriers. Paper towels or T-shirt rags are great for sopping up messes and dabbing, a spritzer to keep your paints and /or paper wet, two containers for water, and you are set. Pretty simple,actually. Advice from the Queen of Chaos.
And, with all of us, we are reminded that watercolor, despite it’s unmerited reputation for being a medium for Sunday painters, is a demanding medium. I don’t know if you noticed, but it does need focus. When I demonstrate, I am always torn between talking (language=Left brain) and painting (spacial and intuitive= Right brain). Not only does it wear me out, but it also usually results in an inferior product. Women, especially, are supposed to be good at multi tasking, but I think most of us will admit we end up with most of the tasks half baked. After a day of dealing with family and jobs, we need a break from being pulled in forty directions, and I hope the classes will provide this for all of you....a meditative companiable time to really sink into the process, to quietly focus and leave the chatter and demands of the world behind.
1 Draw a LARGE Fish very lightly with pencil on half paper....touching almost either end.
2. Painting your fish(es) with water, apply a watery tint of yellow (Azo yellow or Aureolin yellow is best
...transparent. on your largest fish) Now, using only a turqoise blue or Pthalo blue, alizarin red or a perlene scarlet, drop these watery colors into the fish...barely touch the yellow paint...watch how the pigment moves. You can tip it if you like. Try this with some of your other pigments. Also, see what happens when the paint starts drying. Now, LEAVING A MOAT between your wet yellow fish and the background, prepare a wash of pale pthalo blue or turqoise (cyan) and carefully apply it to the wet background, only. (negative space)
3. Review of color wheel....mix on meat tray. Secondary, Tertiary. Complements (mix all the primaries together) Show how after image appears. show how all primaries make a neutral. (black eyed Susan)
4. Difference between (Demo)
a.Staining pigments (organic synthetics....pthalos, quinacridone, azos...bright, transparent stains) b. Non staining, inorganic pigments......(cobalts, manganeses, burnt umber and raw sienna, ultramarine blue, lunar black , casecade green, cadmiums and chromiums)
5 Demo a glaze across fishes and water, Yellow (intensifies yellow on yellow, creates green on blue) Don’t over stroke! (and must be dry first)
6...color wheel....using only the three primaries. Secondary, tertiary, and a neutral in the middle.
7. Beginners...Then glaze stripes, zig zags and dots on your fish with primaries. Experiment with your colors.
8.Extra time? Do an arrangement of fall leaves....paint them yellow and drop colors in them while wet....experiment with your inorganic granulating colors as well. How can one leave yellow or red “veins” in the leaves?
Assignment.....Re read page 1-15. Try painting some small paintings of single colorful leaves, using the same techniques you used in this class (The rhododendrum leaves are always a good choice, any time of year) Start with pale colors and work into brighter, more intense hues. If you want sharp lines, wait until the pale yellow or pale colors dry, then glaze into the shapes. Tape them on your fridge or your bathroom mirror so you’ll think about them)
First Step...I sketched the outline of the fish in brown Stadler pencil, a soft, water soluble brown, and then painted it in with a pale yellow (Azo Yellow, Daniel Smith) wash. I also taped blue tape around the edge to mask off a crisp white margin.
Then, while the yellow was still wet, I touched in a mixture of lunar red earth (granular) and burnt umber (granular) Both colors are inorganic pigments. I let the pigments "travel" without stroking them....just tipping the paper to help them move in the direction I wanted them to go.
Line in some defined light areas when the underpaint is dry.
Wet some areas with clear water and drop in some vermillion or burnt sienna and red into the wet area. Let it spread and bleed.
Mix some hematite violet (Primatek) and Luna Blue (Primatek) and apply to clear wet spots for eye and spots.
Add hematite violet and a little red stripes, then add hematite violet and luna blue thin line while the stripes are still wet.
Finish stripes and add more intense and darker colors.
Glaze over all of body with orange and touches of cobalt violet
Add Luna blue/black to stripes and more orange on body...then remove some paint from fins and some from the "swelling out" part of the fish's body.
Then add clear water , then Luna blue (Primatek) to background, leaving a "moat' between the fish and the background so they won't " bleed" into each other. In some places near the fish, add more of the Luna blue pigment so the color can "travel" out from the fish.
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