Carrasco Studio

On the Trail of Watercolor Easter Bunnies and other Fuzzballs.

Our famed watercolor group at the even more famous CandP Coffee shop has erupted with all sorts of rabbit images for Easter....and other furry beasts.

Mary

  As usual, the class is composed of old hands and dudes (a Far West metaphor for Far West Seattle), and their individual progress was amazing. Mary, a gifted illustrator in her own right, jumped from working almost solely in line art to handling subtle glazes in shaping the form of a polar bear and a couple of very fine rabbits. Sara, a first time student, painted a brilliant hula rabbit while her mother Rebecca surpassed herself with a bunny in an Arts and Crafts mode. And Kim produced a jumpin' prairie hare.  Wendy painted a hatted cat with attitude, Elizabeth painted a " Whoops! Stuffed bunny", Carol did a lovely liquid rabbit sketch, and Ingrid stole the show with her "Dressy chickens."

  Sara                                                         Rebecca

Kim

    
Elizabeth                                                        Carol

     Ingrid                                                                           

I wanted to focus on the qualities of pigments....staining, granulating and glazing, and the idea of furry animals seemed to provide a good vehicle. As you can see in my example below, the addition of raw umber (R), Lunar black (middle), or burnt umber (L) to a re-dampened (or if you feel gutsy, a wash) of raw sienna can give a nice "furry" quality. And, if you want to get down and "Durer", you can painstakingly render the dry under washes with strokes of pale gouache or darker strokes of watercolor

 

In fact, I started the first  class with a print of an Albrecht Durer rabbit (circa 1502) and the whole unit has been devoted to the class experimenting with the qualities of pigments...underglazing, the subtle blending and textures of sedimentary pigments, and the advantages of using glazes over all to tie in different forms and values in a composition.....and,  the use of negative space as an element in composition.

Albretch Durer

The last two classes were concerned with watercolors  and colored etching of animals in illustration for children's books.  We looked at the work of Tasha Tudor, Beatrix Potter, Tenniel , Rackham and Grandville, and contemporary work by artists such as Jane Dyer and Maurice Sendak.   We noted how animals in costume, both as parodies of famous persons and as important additions to children's literature, has been a tradition of  illustrators from the time of Italian grottescas through Victorian lampoons  to today's Jane Dyer's charming illustrations. 

Beatrix Potter

Grandville

                                                                    Arthur Rackham 

                        Jane Dyer

Consequently,as a result of our discussions, I noticed some very fine animal fashions evolving in the latest class creations.  

Perhaps next Tuesday, the class will surprise me with bunny bonnets.

Over the years, I've had a few animal fashion epiphanies myself.  A waspish chantuse....a soulful (soleful?) fish flautist, a very hip daddy-0 goat......

Jazz Band                                            © Jennifer McCabe Carrasco 3/28/ 2008

 

Arctic Daydreams

This is where I learned to memorize images and then go inside to draw them.  My ink would freeze, otherwise.

Black and White, Color, Here to There in Watercolor Values

For all interested parties, I am giving a hands-on demo at Daniel Smith (4150 First Avenue S., Seattle, Wa, 98124) on September 18 at 11 am to 12 noon, 1pm to 2 pm.  The theme is about working with value in watercolor, something I've noticed is a problem for a lot of students, and, frankly, a challenge for me as well.

The Daniel Smith Lunar Black watercolor pigment is a great vehicle for doing value studies, and I have found it to be effective even as a method of establishing values and then glazing over the black and white rendering with color glazes.  Sort of like the Venetian method of oil painting in the 1500's.  The trout is an example of this.

I know all of us have been cautioned about using black in paintings, especially watercolor because carbon black or ivory black is so opaque and tends to make a "black hole" in your painting.  However, this Lunar Black is a different kettle of fish.  It GRANULATES and sparkles on the paper, and is terrific even for mixing with a stain or glaze.  I did this with the leaf in the following example.  The middle image is a little lighter in value than the actual leaf, but that was a choice on my part.  I both glazed with some Lunar Black and sap green and use it straight in wet areas to create the spots.

 

And here are some black and white studies and the color watercolors coming out of the studies.

I have shown also how you can work with a photograph you have altered to black and white on your computer.  I usually flail away with paint in plein aire situations, but for teaching and careful rendering (especially when you live in rainy Seattle), it's often more practical to work with photos.  I think one needs to work directly in the landscape or with object/figures to get that energy transfer and to take chances, but from time to time, it is necessary to work inside with a photograph.

So, you will be able to experiment....and since there will be materials, the charge for the workshop is $10 for supplies.  You'll get three pieces of paper, some Lunar black and some other colors to play with, and Dan Smith and I will have some brushes you can borrow.  The class is limited to 15 or 20 (I forgot how many), so if it appeals to people, it may fill up soon.

Oh say can you see.....the Lunar Black blending with the greens?

 

Babbles and Torrents. Watercolor Lesson 3

Thanks again to Mitch Albala and his wonderful presentation.  His book is a jewel, and he is one of the best teachers I have ever had.  For the next 4 classes, we'll do a water reflection/landscape with exercises based on some of Mitch's exercises in his book, Landscape Painting. This book is one of Watson Guptil's top sellers, and is available from that company or through Amazon.com.  I can recommend it highly, no matter what media you are using.

In case you are wondering about the "old hands" and "dudes" business,  I am just substituting the terms for beginners and experienced painters.  It gives sort of a down home bunk house flavor to my discourse.  You know....southeastern Washington wheat farmer.

Lesson 3....Waterfall

Old hands Work fast and loose this time.   Don’t be afraid of being crude and direct. ! Use only your large brush!

Mix several dark value neutrals in your wells.  No paint straight from the tube!
Alizarin and viridian or blue green.  Pthalo or manganese blue and burnt umber, auroelin yellow and purple. Manganese blue and burnt sienna.

Plan the directions of your waterfall and apply a light value of one of your neutral mixes for each side of the waterfall with only your large brush. (1)

DON’T PAINT THE WATER ITSELF....the rush of white water is your paper left untouched. (1)

Add darker values of neutrals to your rocks with only your large brush while the lighter washes are still wet. Let them float and disperse out. (2 and 3)

 

 

With PALE cobalt blue washes, use the sides of your flats to mark out the lines in the water and go behind some of the waves and foam. (4)  Slip some  of that blue glaze over the farthest area of land and rocks as well....the glaze will unify the shapes and push it back.

(4) (continued)

Go back and forth, making your rocks darker where the light doesn’t hit and where it shows  the geologic directions.  Vary your rock sizes! When your cobalt marks on the water are dry enough, go over the farthest  part of the water fall with your big brush with another Pale glaze of cobalt or a mix of cobalt and a little violet to “push” it back in space. Big brush only.


Dudes......Show how to get secondary colors from primary, then tertiary.  1+1=2   2+1=3  (breakdown)  All three make a neutral.   Complements...opposite on the color wheel

Mix colors and  finish the “daisy”  Then, out of your primaries, mix a green fish, a purple fish and an orange fish.  (Don’t get opaque...paint with water, then drop in your secondary.  Now, mix a very dark color by mixing all the primaries together.  Paint lines on your fish...give it gills and eyes and fins.  What happens if the paint is still wet?

 

Assignment:  Old hands go online and find some photos and paintings of  water and reflections....it could be with boats, land, docks, etc.  Bring one you like to class.  I will have you design a water/ marine painting for a 1/4 sheet from this
 using some of the principles from Mitch’s book.  This will be a 4 class project.

Both Dudes and Old Hands read 18-37 of Jan Hart’s book.

Still waters run deep. Taking time to calm down...reflect.

©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.

Drawing Lesson 1 The Path of a Pencil through Space and Time

"In Brazilian rivers, there exists a fish which sees with a two lensed eye, a kind of bifocal adjustment that permits the creature to examine the upper world of sunlight and air, which with the lower half of the lens, he can survey the watery depths in which he lives"....Loren Eisley

 

I like the idea of this creature as a metaphor for an artist, a creator who looks intently at the world and sees both the surface and the depths.  

I have decided to include both the present......the searchers in my class, their drawings and their presence,  and entries of my drawings and quotes I have placed in my journals. I also include a summation of each drawing lesson. 

I have 35 journals I have kept over about that many years...my mother, an inveterate writer, gave me my first journal and told me to fill it. Thirty-five years later, the first journal is a mess....the bindings are gone and all the pages are loose.  But I am so glad I have it, since I have forgotten so much.  It is a record of my past.  Time unbound.

 

I lived in the Philippines for 16 years.  the journal starts there when I was 36 years old.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain....4/28/10

You will learn five basic skills...edges, spaces, relationships, light, whole....components to whole.  And format.......(show demonstration with rocks and frame.)

My hopes and expectations for the class....that you can learn to switch over to “see”mode. I hope you can make it to every class...it will have a great deal to do with your success.  Life happens, so I will put the lesson and the assignments on the blog....do access my blog after every class and do the assignments in a timely manner .  These assignments can’t be done at the last minute.  Like piano practice, put aside at least 20 minutes for each assignment in a quiet place...not to be disturbed, not in front of the TV.  One a day. Consider it meditation.

All drawing is the same...some is just more complex.  Anyone can learn to draw.  This class will not make you an artist: it will teach you a skill, quickly.  For example, you can be taught to ride a bike, but not to be a cyclist.
In this class I will teach you accuracy and segue, hopefully into more expressive drawing.

Discuss  Milton Glaser video.  Conscious looking..to understand the world. 

Draw and date in your sketchbook: ALWAYS SIGN AND DATE.

a. Your hand.......Draw quickly..
b. Your face (use mirror)
c. A person from memory.. Draw quickly....

Training the eye......Discuss and demo stereotypes, natural urge to hurry, to be “efficient), YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO DO BUT FOCUS AND DRAW. Don’t be anxious  We all start somewhere..

1. Read page 89 -92 Blind Contour drawing of hand......turn away from paper(taped), use soft pencil,  DON’T LIFT POINT,  Go Super Slow! Don’t look at paper.  Find an edge and follow it SLOWLY with your eye and pencil at the same time.

2.  Memory drawing...hold a live flower in your hand (not a daisey, please!)  Choose a fairly complex flower..  LOOK INTENTLY. TWO MINUTES, close eyes and see it in your head..   Hide it  and do a line drawing...don’t lift pencil.  Stop, fish out the flower, look intently for another two minutes. Hide and finish drawing.

3. Do a “semi-Blind”contour drawing of your hand, looking down at your paper only to change direction of your pencil line.  SLOWLY.  Don’t lift the point.  15 minutes 

Assignment.  Chapter 2 and 3

Do a “semi” blind contour drawing of: 1.  a crumpled piece of typing paper.  2. a set of keys   3. a twig with a leaf or flower attached  4. a dandelion or an alley weed.  Spend at least 15 minutes drawing the object....Don’t try to draw all of these projects at the last minute. (Defeats the purpose! )

Remember, take the time, make the time, to do these drawings when you can close out the demands of the world.  Fall into your drawing and your subject. Become the dancer and the dance.

".....great footed blossomer, are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,  How can we know the dancer from the dance?"

  W.B. Yeats        

©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.                            

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.

Gurgle and Slosh...Watercolor lesson 4

I must apologize for the quality of these photos...it was evening in my studio, and I was painting and photographing at the same time!

Watercolor Lesson 4...Fall class...CandP

Read these directions all the way through before you start. (up to “Assignment”)  Sequence is important because of drying time!!!!!

 Washes.  Prepare and tape two pieces of paper.

     1. prepare an intense dark value of blue.  Then mix your primaries for a warm dark         brown neutral. Have   enough of all these in your sauce cups or wells for two                     paintings.  Don’t be stingy.   
    2.  Wet all of 1st  paper with your big soft brush.

    3.   With the blue value paint, start painting with your big brush at the top of your 1st paper, catching the   “lip” of the color as you go down, adding water as you go and fade out to no color about 1/3 way down   the paper.Wet second paper and do the same.

       4.Pick up some clouds with your brush or paper towel.  Do this for both.

  5.  Turn your papers upside down, re-wet your paper if you need to, and do the same with your warm umber...fading to no color about 1/3 toward the middle of the paper.

4.  Examine some of the possiblities  of images in my photos for your “tide pools”  make some quick sketches. Don’t spend more than 15 minutes at this. (time yourself!)

5. Painting the images.  With the warm umber, paint in your rocks....start in the ‘‘back”  or 1/3 up from the bottom of the paper, adding rocks down to the bottom, getting darker in value  as you reach the bottom.  Remember, relative size (smaller=far away) as well as lighter value =farther away.

LIGHTLY sketch in some tidal critters....shells, fish, coral, kelp, crab, etc etc. and paint them with colors of your choosing.  Use stains, if you can, since you don't want to lift the images when you glaze over them.

HAVE SOME FUN....DON’T BE WORRIED ABOUT MAKING THINGS LOOK TOO “ REAL”  Just, for each color remember....lighter values can appear farther away, and smaller relative shape (Big Dark Shark vs. small light shark) can create a feeling of distance.

6.  Masking fluid can be fun...you can block out shapes you want to remain white.

7. Decide where you want your horizon line......you can tape it if you want.  From that line, do a wash of greenish blue.  Cobalts are great for this, but use what you have. (It will be hard to remove stains)  Start with your big soft brush and  intense color at the horizon line , like you did for the sky and let it fade to nothing by about 1/4 down at the bottom of the paper.  Wash over your critters lightly . Don’t stroke too much and lift the paint!   Come to the water’s edge (1/4 left! ) let it dry. )

At the bottom of the paper, define the wet edge of the sand and water with some intense fading umber (Wet the edge first), perhaps going around a few shells and rocks.        Let it dry.  Work on your other painting.

Come back to the first painting when it is dry and paint in some ripples and swells and little waves by either adding or subtracting paint. Soften the horizon edge a bit with a damp stiff brush.  Remove some paint to include the sail of the sailboat on the horizon.  Add some darker values for the rocks or seal or whatever poking above the waterline.

Assignment: Read  pgs 86 to 87 and 122 to 123   and finish your second painting and bring to class.  Come to class with  two taped pieces  of 1/8 size paper

The Only Fish in the Sea (Not) Water color Lesson #2

This is an example of glazing, not in watercolor, but in acrylics...I started with laying out  the  simple shapes in the LIGHTEST value ....pale browns, olive greens, pale reds, etc. , and to keep it simple (I was on a tight budget and of course, needed it done yesterday), I used a MEDIUM value next of all the colors, and then used the darkest and most intense values (sparingly) last.  The reason I bring this up in a watercolor class is that IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME STEPS I USE IN TRANSPARENT WATERCOLOR....with the exception, as you can see....where I used an opaque blue white for the fish and the guy's shirt (as a little dash of seasoning on a beige background)  This is one of a series I did for Tommy Bahama's flagship store in Vegas.

It's acrylic paint on Roclon canvas that has been primed with beige gesso.  My first layer of paint was the glazed "bloom" of orange for the background, and then I went from light to dark in my values of paint.

Here's the black and white version, so you can see the value change.

So many people tell me they hate acrylics because the medium is "garish".  It's not, if you glaze, and make your colors your own...cool down that shrieking green with a little red, chill out a magenta with a little ochre, and GLAZE a complimentary transparent green over that shocking orange.

OK.  Next week please bring a tube of Lunar Black from Daniel Smith.  If you can't make the trip, let me know and I can either pick up one for you or make arrangements with another student to get a tube.  You can also share!

Yep. You guessed it.  The next lesson is about VALUE.  Don't miss it!  And I must say, I was so proud of the way you toiled away at your apple rendering in the last class.  Most of you got it by the end of the lesson, and I have to tell you I was thrilled.  I promise, after the next "basic" class, we are going to get a little more wild and crazy, and your lovely individual style will find more expression.

Water color Lesson #2, Fall 2009

 

2 .Watercolor Class, Fall C and P   Contour drawing.  Using only secondary and tertiary colors. Fruit and and fish.  Warm and cool colors.  Structure.

Look at leaves!  Color samples...warm or cool...guess what combination of primaries.  Secondaries or tertiaries?

1. Contour drawing....mountain ash, boston ivy.  Why? It centers you and slows you down.....gives you focus and a quiet meditation.  SLOW....find an edge and start SLOWLY...back up on shared edges, don’t lift from paper...turn away from.paper.  This is an exercise in looking that happens to use the physical skill of drawing. Focus entirely on the object you are drawing....let the world and your internal “edit” fall away.  (ten minutes)

2. The difference between Hansa yellow and A. yellow, Manganese ,pthalo,  and cobalt, alizarin crimson, cadmium red and earth red.  Notice degrees of staining, granulation and opaque quality.
Mix some secondary and tertiary colors in your pallatte wells.  Make them fairly intense.

On two small pieces of watercolor paper...Draw very lightly (1) Three apples  (1) three fish.
Notice the structure of the fruit and the fish.....this is what drawing can show you.   Put a pale wash of yellow on all six shapes.  Work quickly.
On the second and third apple and and the second and third fish drop in while still wet,  secondary colors and tertiary colors. Let dry.

Show how to make shadows of cobalt and umber (or manganese and umber)  (I don’t like stains for shadows.)
Put shadows to the side of the apples.

Glaze some stain color patterns (dots, stripes, zig zags )on your fish.
 Use red and green (which is what primaries?!!) (mix each with a bit with a complement) to do the curving stripes on your apple and mix a brown from red and green for stems. 

When fish are dry, try wetting all of # 2 fish and using a blue/umber wash on the bottom to show shadow.  Then use  Lunar black for shading on the last fish. (with a light hand!)

Assignment.  Reread 1-15 in Jan Hart’s book.
On a quarter sized paper, lightly draw arrangement of  five fish of different sizes and shapes and angles, or 3  fruit and  branches, leaves or vines. Spend only 20 minutes sketching out your arrangement. Think of the negative space.  Don’t get too complicated.  Use large size or group shapes for a focal point.  Start light, paint shapes with water, then add a pale wash and then let colors bleed into the shapes.  Work from top to bottom.  Use some of the cobalt/raw umber or lunar black to show modeling or shadows.

Using a cool color to create modeling....letting a blue "bleed" into a wet warm colored shape to create a shadow below.

 

Or, using Lunar black to create shadows or modeling....paint area with clear water and then paint with a glaze of lunar black, letting the granulated black pigment "fade" out as it approaches where the light hits the form.

As you work with the paints, I think you realize that the blog entries, while giving you some information and also as a definite reinforcement for what you did in class, are not a real substitute for being in class.  It's a commitment, and I know how our lives are so tangled up with other people and other promises, so the combination of the blog, your efforts and all my support will contribute your feeling of success in this class.  I just hope you will end up loving painting as I do.

Last, but not least, I want to emphasize that I am NOT teaching you splinter skills!  You can use the concept of glazing with watercolor, wash drawings, acrylics and oils. When I was taking lessons on trompe l'oeil (fool the eye) painting and my still life looked too "jumpy" or full of unrelated objects, a GLAZE (over dry paint with oils) of raw sienna, dioxide purple, cad red, or hookers green...(lightly, lightly!) made everything unified...until I punched a bunch of stuff up  and had to glaze it again!

If you have a chance to go to the Vancouver show of Dutch painters, take a look at Rembrandt's lace collars and cuffs...he calmed down that blinding flake white with a swish of umber glaze that puddled deliciously in the impasto valleys.

I'm no Rembrandt, but I was amazed at how a glaze could calm down a rowdy bunch of grapes or day glow oysters! (you should have seen my lobster before I washed him down with a tint of purple)

©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.

Fishing! (with watercolor)

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.

Frozen Dreams

We were talking about Alaska last weekend, and I dug up some of my journals of my trips to different parts of Alaska with Ben,  a bush pilot I was hanging out with over a period of about three years.

Here are some entries from the Copper Mountain trip I took with him in October of 1992.  He was flying provisions and people into a gold mining operation in the distant mountain regions that border Alaska and Canada.  It was an adventure......beautiful, cold and involved some pretty fancy flying.  Ben was such a good pilot and so experienced that I didn't feel much apphrehension as we wound through the snow covered peaks and valleys, banking and twisting to arrive at the small landing strip on
plane skis.

 .

Coming up the Matanuska Valley, I saw a little red "Beaver" plane going the opposite direction.  One bright red speck against all that white and black hugeness.

The valley was so gorgeous and silent, and I really liked the gold mining crew.  The men worked long brutal hours and two women cooked for them....wonderful food...homemade bread and cookies and huge meals.  A lot of the miners were college kids from the lower 48 or rough and tough older Alaskan men and women.  They weren't supposed to transport alcohol, but there was a lot of that plus canoodling between some of the men and women.  Ah, those long cold nights.

As I mentioned, the landscape was breathtaking, but one thing that shocked me was the total lack of concern for the environment.  All the cyanide tailings were trailing into the creek.  Gold mining is a curse on the environment, and I saw many rugged Alaska individuals spoil the bounty of the country with trash and disregard for environmental consequences. 

I think I put this in an earlier entry, but it was such a part of the trip I'll put it again.
The lights were so spectacular, and I was half awake and shivering in the 4am....it seems like a dream.  The lights even made a sound....like the crackle of cellophane.

Ben and I took several trips, and each one was a revelation to me. I got over my fear of flying. Period.

Several years after we stopped seeing each other, Ben went down with his plane in Yakatat Bay.  They found his body a few weeks later.