Water Reflections and Shadows Lesson 5, Watercolor

                                               Shojin Lake by Mount Fuji, 1934                                       Koitsu Tsuchiya  

No, alas, I did not do this lovely wood block print.  But I have stood on the shores of this lake. and one time when I took the bullet train from Iwakuni to Tokyo, an Australian business man sitting next to me swore that the CEO's of Sony and Panasonic lived in the clouds in the summit of Fuji.  " Economic Gods,"  he added in case I didn't catch the joke.

This print could drive you crazy if you give it much thought.  I mean, which came first, the mountain or the sailboat....in the reflection.   Not only is this a beautiful piece of art, but it also calls our attention to the surface, the horizontal plane of the water, and how objects are  reflected in long or short  narrow horizontal shapes on that plane.  And how did the sailboat end up sailing on top of the mountain, anyhow?

1.  Look at assignments.....compare light or dark with value strip.  Adding yellow?  (doesn’t brighten)...cobalts are lighter than pthalos,  some quinacridrones are lighter  than their bluish tones suggest.  Value= tone.

2. A reflection is not a shadow. A shadow appears as an absence of reflection...a whole shape in still water,
a broken shape in disturbed water (as with a reflction). A shadow will let you see below to an undefined or defined undersurface.               
4.  Hand out Patricia Seligman’s printout and discuss. Weak light, pale shadows, strong light, strong shadows.
“Shadows are cast away from the light. As long as there is light in the sky, the reflection of the tree will always come toward you.  The shadow, though is cast away from the light, only coming toward you if the tree is backlit.”  Patricial Seligman...How to Paint Water
5. Paint work on your waterscape and boat(s) or try painting the boat and shadow sample from P. Seligman’s book.. ...or a waterscape from one of my books.

6. Assignment: Read page 68 to 69.

And I spent a very pleasant hour, albeit a gray and rather damp one, doing some small gray and rather damp sketches of Elliot Bay and Seattle.  We were on Alki Point, and it was soooooo peaceful.  Our big thrills were the waves stirred up by ferry.  A couple of times I thought I was giving my precious Da Vinci brush to the fishes.