Carrasco Studio

Mysterious and Mutable...Watercolor and Water Lesson 1

Water and watercolor are a true marriage of image and media...the luscious slurp of a big brush loaded with water and pigment on a prime sheet of watercolor paper is a product of fear and delight.  Delight because it is so sensuous and fear because if you screw up you are doomed.

Your renderings of water can be smooth and sinuous as a trout slipping through a dim pool, or as turbulent as a storm on a raging sea.

Your water reflection of a "flowering pot" can glance off a shallow puddle on a concrete deck or show a choppy vision of sky and sun behind a copse of trees on the surface of a mountain stream.

Water can twist and turn a reflection into an exuberant abstract expressionist explosion or expand it into long horizontal blades in the water.

Cand P Watercolor Lesson 1  Water and Water Color

1. Lesson 1, Intro...Mitch’s lecture on May 4th! Bring a friend!

2.  Intro: class registration, badges.

3.  Pictures of  water reflections. Reflections are NOT shadows. ....think of “open mouth” shapes for curved or bent reflections. Inclusion of light and dark in rippled reflection. Slashes of light and dark, lozenges of color or broken wiggles of color...ranging from one transparent color to the next.  Length of reflection is  usually length of object, but painters often exaggerate for effect.

 Demo of laying wash.   Demo with maskoid.....let colors “bleed” into wet shapes and lines....with flat, round and rigger brushes.. See above...

4.  Old hands....  Do two washes, let dry.  Practice different brush “wiggles” on scrap paper..then do one water reflection with brilliant colors reminiscent of Venice.  Divide second paper in half, sketch in Cameron’s trees,  Then paint trees and “match” trees in a lake of reflections.Temper your greens with complements (reds) and purples and neutrals..umbers, etc.
8.  Beginners.... Tear and tape two 1/8 paper....examine different types of paper....and types of brushes.Flats, brights, rounds and riggers.  Do  2 washes ( why let  dry ?) and then do color wheel. Give out pigment listing.  Print out complement combinations under the color wheel.

Practice brush strokes with water on brown paper.  Then try some “psychedelic” reflections...remember to keep the water in your watercolor.  Try all three brushes.  For the second one, go with brightly colored reflected buildings. (Venice)

Assignment: Please read pg. 92 to 93  of Jan Hart’s book very carefully.....think how you would paint a “wild water” waterfall with lots of rocks and white water.  Remember, you get white in watercolor by leaving that part unpainted!  For those of you who missed the class, you can find many of the puzzling terms in Jan Hart's book...i.e....types of paper and brushes....color wheel and complements...washes.  Look 'em up!

And, last and perhaps least, you can easily apply the rules of watercolor to depicting water in other mediums.  For instance, a glaze of transparent green over some rocks and a sheen of sunset in a far horizon over the sheet of calm ocean water will do it for an acrylic mural and a slash or two of white glaze and some darker blue line wiggles over an opaque cobalt blue (with some subtle duck reflections) will work for an acrylic vignette.  (Remember, with transparent watercolor, you would LEAVE the white of paper showing instead of painting white.)  Quack.

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 9/17/09  All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.

Harvest Table, Sukkot Thanks

  I just finished doing a centerpiece panel on a table I had decorated years ago. My client's family had grown to grandchildren, and she needed to extend her table another couple of leaves.  As I remember, the initial finish was very complicated and took ages to do, and when I looked at the table leaves to match I was in despair.  Also, it just wasn't up to my standards today.

So, I suggested that I design a panel for the middle leaves, and I would separate the end edges with a small border to offset any discrepancy between the new and the old finish.

My clients are Jewish, and since the table will be often used as a family dining table, I suggested using artifacts from the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.  I looked up the items on the Internet, and decided to use the Lulav (palm leaves, myrtle and willow in a woven palm container and a citrus called the Etrog) for my design, with some grapes thrown in for jollity.  My client is an opera singer, so he suggested the mandolin and music motif in the center.

     

I did the drawing on tissue for the client's approval....drawing one fourth section and folding it twice and tracing it for symmetry. (Well, sort of)  Too much symmetry gets my back up...raises my Zen hackles, so to speak.

After approval of the design, I did  the prep and stippling of the boards...about six layers of different stippled glazes.

 

  Then I covered the panel area with a frisket that I picked up from a sign painting company.  It's called Transferite and it's like a big sheet of moveable masking tape.  I've had a roll of it forever, and to keep it from being too sticky, I dust a little talcum powder on the surface before I lay it down.  I cut out everything with an Exacto blade except the foliage, the grapes and the lulav and etrog, taped off edges with blue tape, and sloshed on hooker green Liquid Golden acrylic mixed with a little bone black.  Then, while it was still damp, I spritzed it a little with a mixture of rubbing alcohol and water and picked up some of the mottled areas.  I waited and then added several layers of green and black, let it dry and then peeled off the remaining Transferite on the fruits and leaves and the lulav.  Then I started painting them with liquid Golden Acrylics....beginning with transparent glazes until I got the rich colors I wanted.

Then I painted all the sections I planned to gold leaf with a vermilion red.

After that, I started wiping on water based (diluted slightly with water) polyurethane over all the two panels, again and again....sanding with 320 wet dry every three or four layers.  After about 8 layers, I again frisketed off designs and borders I planned to gold leaf and cut out the areas of decorative borders, painted vermillion in those, painted with size and applied gold leaf.

 

I waited overnight, then removed the tape  and patched the gold leaf wherever it was too distressed (my gold leafing, out of necessity, always looks very antique), cleaned up wherever it was needed. vacuumed my glittering studio, put on many more coats of urethane, and there you are.

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 11/21/09 All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.