Saturday, July 26, 2014

New Products from Winsor & Newton

A few weeks ago I attended a demo of Winsor Newton products. At that session, they introduced us to two new products: watercolour markers and crayons

The markers come in 36 colours and can be used alongside your traditional water colours and mediums. Each marker has two tips, one fine point for details and the other chiseled like a marker we use on white boards for wide strokes. They are fairly easy to use. After colouring/painting with the marker, all you do is take your paint brush with water and blend to create the effects you want. Personally, I wasn’t drawn to this even if they were kinda cool.


I was more impressed with the watercolour sticks which look like kids square crayons and come in 48 colours. When applied directly on dry paper like a kids crayon, they produce nice strong colours. Similar to the marker, all you do is apply water to create effects that you want. These sticks are much better than watercolour pencils. I’d say they’d be great for beginner watercolourists. They would also be ideal for travelling and quick sketches.

When I got to see these new products, they were not available for commercial sale. It was expected that we’d have them in stores in Canada by the end of this month.

Still considering myself as a beginner with watercolours, I want to focus on having better control of the products that I have before trying something new. Maybe I’ll grab a few colour sticks in a few years to provide different options.  And you, will you be getting these new products?

Danielle

Saturday, July 19, 2014

How many ways do you know for bringing back the white?

Watercolour papers are traditionally white which allows the maximum amount of light to be reflected back through the wash, giving that characteristic watercolour ‘sparkle’. Since watercolour is a transparent medium and white is a desirable quality, this means you must decide from the very beginning where the areas of white will be in your painting
 
There a number of ways to save or re-create white areas in your paintings. You probably know most of these but you might find a few ideas that you may not have tried.
 
First the most traditional approaches
  • Leaving the white untouched: for large areas, it might be easier to paint around the area. This is the simplest of the methods 
  • Masking fluid: this liquid medium come in colorless or colour and is applied (not with your good brush) to mask areas of work that need protection when color is applied in broad washes. It is specifically designed for soft sized papers to avoid staining. To apply use an old brush covered with soap or a shaper.
  • Opaque paint or acrylic paint (Titanium white): This will provide you with whites but they won’t get as luminescent a white as the paper. It tends be more artificial looking even with the bright permanent whites. 
  • Scratch method: You can scratch out small highlights using an exacto knife (craft knife). The method is best for fine details such as hairs and tiny highlights. This method provides some beautiful luminous highlights. Scratching the paper is a final option because it wrecks the paper surface. Ensure this is the final step in your painting and that you do not have to paint a shadow or colour over it otherwise, you can’t get that white back. 
  • Lifting dry paint: With a clean, moist brush, make several brush strokes in the area where you want to lift out the watercolor. Wipe the watercolor from your brush onto the dampened portion of your paper towel. Repeat the brush strokes. If you need to remove more color, rinse out your brush, blot it on the paper towel, then lift out more color. Wipe the watercolor on your tissue. Repeat as needed. Although any of your regular watercolor brushes can be used to lift dry watercolor paint, I prefer a white taklon angular brush. The bristles on this brush are a little stiffer. Therefore, you must go easy on the paper and remember to ensure you have enough water to reactivate the paint and you must blot often.
 Here are a few less common approaches:
  • Permanent masking fluid: this is a non-removable, transparent liquid mask and is better suited to small details. As regular masking fluid (above) it can be applied directly onto the paper, or mixed first with watercolors. Ensure that the fluid is thoroughly dry before painting over it. 
  • Aquacover: This product which isn’t easily found, allows you to add the white later on in the painting process. This product comes in five five shades of white to match the most watercolor paper you use. Even better it can be applied over small or large areas and colour can be applied on top. 
  • Lifting with bleach: If you want to enhance the lifting of the watercolor, you can add a bit of bleach to your water and use the same technique as above. A mixture of 50% water and 50% bleach works well. However, you must be careful as bleach can destroy your brush! Use a synthetic brush for this technique.
  • Winsor Newton Lifting Preparation: This process is quite simple. You first apply this lifting preparation to the paper first and allow it to dry. You can then paint as you would on any paper. Any corrections can be done by sponging or lifting as above with wet brush. This medium helps with the lifting of staining colour (e.g. Permanent Alizarin Crimson). The paper doesn’t return to its pure white form but better than just lifting. However, it requires you to know ahead of time where you will be lifting.
  • Gum Arabic: because adding gum arabic to your water colour will slow the drying time, this will make it easier to blot out areas you may have applied paint by error. If you plan on using this, you should know that it increases the transparency of your watercolours and it might give I a bit of gloss and make your painting more luminous.
  • Magic sponge: some of us may have used this product to clean our house. Would you believe that you can also use it to completely remove unwanted paint from your paper? To do so, dampen the sponge and gently wash off the paint on paper. I’ve used this in cases where I wanted to redo a section of a painting. Caution, this will be harsh on your paper. You must let the paper dry completely after you have removed the paint. With your hands you’ll be able to gently rub the paper to remove the little “pills” that might have occurred before you resume your painting. 
  • Crayola crayons: I've had some success in using a white crayon to create short lines where I want to keep whites in water. This has a hit or miss effect, but nevertheless creates an interesting effect.
Have you tried anything else you'd like to share with us? 
 
Winsor New has some new watercolour crayons and markers hitting the market later this month (I got a sneak peak about a week ago). However, I doubt that they could be of used for bringing back the white to our paintings.
 
Apologies if this is written quickly. I have the Ottawa Watercolour Society coming to my garden (http://www.daniellesgarden.ca/ and https://www.facebook.com/danielle.beaulieu.142/media_set?set=a.10152074736715766.1073741828.598715765&type=3) in less than  two hours for a plein air session with a demo from a local known artist and I'm a bit excited.
 
For today, a painting by Alvaro Castagnet. This was a demo painted in Munich recently and posted on Facebook.
 
Would like to hear what ideas you'd like to see on this blog.
Have a great week
Danielle

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Why values are important

     “Value does all the work and color gets all the glory.” – Unknown

There will be nothing new or revolutionary contained herein. Many of us know or are aware of many of the following points which have been explored by thousands of others before us. So, let’s look at this maybe as a little refresher. 

In keeping things simple and primarily in the realm of watercolors, hopefully we can explore some ideas and concepts pertaining to values which can help us with our practice and our paintings. 

So, what is value? Simply, it is the lightness or the darkness of a color. If you’d like to get more complex with this you could I suppose, but there is no reason here. I suppose the word “tone” could be interchanged here, but let’s stick to “value.”

To illustrate this, there are value scales. There are many value scales out there, and you can even create your own. Here is one for example:

This one happens to be numbered for our convenience. Personally I find a numbered scale a wee bit confusing. That’s because when I read or see an instructor telling us to “paint down to lower values”, he is speaking generally to “get darker”. But when I hear “lower”, I start thinking about a number, not a darker value. A low number to me is a 2, which happens to have a high value. Just a quirk of mine I suppose. I just assume leave numbers out of it. Therefore, dropping your color down the value scale means to “get darker”, not go down numerically to a high light value.

The concept of a value scale is easy enough to understand, gradually and incrementally getting a little bit darker and darker with each step. However, incorporating or remembering to incorporate values into your work or practice, especially if just beginning, well that takes a bit of practice.

When first beginning, it is important to understand that all colors have a value, and just because you change color does not necessarily mean you have changed value. This may be a tough thing to work through at first, but you’ll soon catch on with enough practice.

It's impossible to make a picture without values. Values are the basis. If they are not, tell me what is the basis. - William Morris Hunt

 The best way to show depth is to have variation in values. The best way to learn this is to paint without color.-Tom Lynch


So why values? Well without them, you’ll never get any depth or form….or any interest! Really, without values you won’t get much of anything, which includes a successful painting. So, it’s probably safe to say that values in your paintings are the biggest and most important compositional or design element in your painting – period.

One of the best ways to help further the appreciation of values (or at least the appreciation that you should have) and their importance, is to practice value drawing, or sketching and monochromatic painting. By learning how to paint in one color, you can achieve a better understanding of just how important values are and the impact they have.

Having discovered, seen and read of the importance of values from so many books and videos, I often wonder why it is often buried in the middle chapters. Maybe so many are so eager to jump right in with the mechanics like how to color mix or how to do a flat wash, that this important topic is treated with less enthusiasm.

I’ve thought that if I would ever teach a workshop or had a student, I would never get any business. My first month’s lesson plan would simply read “monochromatic studies” and the supplies list would be some paper, your favorite brush and one tube of black pigment. Play with color on your own time!

It very well may be a failed business venture, but I’d stick to it anyway. The benefits to students would be immense, although it would be a hard sell to the new and aspiring artists. You could learn a lot of basic things, (though it would not be immediately evident to the student), but also one of the most important things as well – values. Truly, if I could be a beginner all over again, as I often tell myself, I am anyway, values is where I would want to start, hands down. Why didn’t anyone tell me when I started?

Value and its study are not flashy or colorful, and not many heed the importance of it through monochromatic practice. That is a shame really. Can you imagine being a beginner, opening a book, and the author’s strict first instruction in Chapter One tells you to do nothing but monochromatic value studies for a month? Your fingers couldn’t move fast enough to get to Chapter 2. Or return it for a full refund.

 But what is often lost on us and what we must try to remind ourselves of is that in order to paint that wonderful looking landscape, or that beautifully lit still life in Chapter 2, you couldn’t really get there without Chapter One - Values.

“Color is an inborn gift, but appreciation of value is merely training of the eye, which everyone ought to be able to acquire.” - John Singer Sargent 

Read values relatively. Find the lightest light and compare all other light values to it. Do the same with the darks. -Irwin Greenberg

The best part about being an artist is that you don't have to copy the values found in your subject. Your job is to... decide how you can go beyond the references to alter or enhance the values. -Tom Lynch

We won’t get into value design, planning and placement here so much, but suffice it to say that if we simplify things greatly, we should spread our value shapes around like Ed Whitney used to teach- like papa, mama and baby bear. We want to make it interesting for the viewer.

Training your eyes to see value is best perhaps done through the study of black and white photos or converting color photos to gray scale. Personally, I find it easier this way as color can confuse me. Make no mistake, like anything else practice is needed. There are thousands of subtleties in value within any one picture or photo but it’s easier to see these if you first learn or train you’re your eyes to simplify.

How? Learn to know what to look for. One helpful way could be to first identify the lightest light shapes, which are highest on the value scale. Then perhaps identify the darkest dark shapes, lowest on the value scale. It’s a good way to begin. All else will be mid tones or mid value shapes from light to dark.

It should be clear here that we try not to look at objects – a mountain, a leaf, a vase, a shadow pattern within a wine glass- but shapes. Maybe when trying to identify these light, mid and dark values, it would be beneficial to turn whatever you are looking at upside down. Worth a try.

Once these are identified, the lightest values will be the white of paper, and darks, well as dark as you can get your darkest pigment to flow. 

Both the challenge and “life” of your painting will be in the remaining mid values. This is where a painting really can come alive. 

As explained by watercolorist Don Andrews (see previous blog about one of his books http://arttutormembers.blogspot.ca/2014/05/book-review-interpreting-landscape-in.html), values can be likened to that of a musician. The really high and really low notes are used for punch or emphasis, but the majority of the song is carried somewhere in the middle range. You can see how this may apply to painting.

Designing your painting for impact has to include value- there is no way around it, which can bring us to different types of value paintings: full range, high key and low key.

For a strong composition, you want the values to be in quite different amounts, not similar. Try this rule to start: two thirds, one third, and a little bit. -Marion Boddy-Evans

Establishing the two most extreme values as soon as possible helps me take note of all other values that will fall somewhere between them.- Kenn Backhaus


Basically, a full range painting is just that, a painting that makes use of values ranging from 1 to 9, if we use the scale shown earlier. By using the white and the black values for accent “notes” or emphasis, in other words, minimally, this may support and help the painting have a little excitement. However of course, there are no right or wrong “formulas”. This full range is what may be considered a balanced way of painting.

On the light extreme side of things, high key paintings may be paintings where the darkest value is no higher than a mid value 5 on our scale for example, making use of only values ranging in the 0-5 area. High key paintings are just fine, and may appear to be light and airy, but they may also run the risk of coming off as a bit “washed out”, incomplete or directionless.

On the other side of the scale, the dark side, the low key painting may have the lightest value at a mid value 5 for example, making little use of the higher values. Low key (dark) paintings may read as moody, dramatic or sullen.

There is nothing wrong with any of these, just be aware maybe where your range is and do a bit more exploring in the other direction. 

Where ever your watercolor studies and practice take you, do yourself a rather huge favor and include value study on a routine basis. Practice looking for it, identifying it and trying to paint it, especially monochromatically. With all the countless other elements to concern ourselves with in painting, whether it be color, techniques, design, unity, balance, or whatever else, value is the ticket, for without it, none of the other stuff really matters.
 
Neal (nmserie on AT)
 

Friday, July 04, 2014

Tips on Using Photos for your Paintings

Most of us probably create paintings from photographs since taking photos is the easiest way to get references of a subject we wish to paint. Photos also help us capture landscapes, flowers, birds, etc, we may not see again or want to paint from the comfort of our studio.
 
When using a photo to produce a painting, we must be wary and attentive to what we are seeing—and not seeing—in a photo. To do this, we must first understand the limitations of photos such as color accuracy, depth of field, and the warms and cools of highlights and shadows. There’s some distortions that come with photos.
 
If you're finding that your painting from photos are ending up stiff, or just not working right, it may be because you're not taking enough photographs. When taking photos, don't expect to take one perfect shot. Take at least half-a-dozen photos and use them to reconstruct the scene you want to paint. If you use a few photos  to generate ideas and composition, you'll get a more natural looking painting than if you try to recreate the scene from one photo.
 
It's also important to realize that the brain doesn't question photos. However, it will question elements of a painting, even if it is an exact replication of a photo. It's important to carefully compose our paintings with aid of photos and not copy them.
 
I have lots of photos I store in various folders on my computer. Most of these photos would not make great paintings, however elements of them combined with other ideas could some day be used for paintings. When I’m ready to start a painting, I’ll search through numerous photos for inspiration and print a few. Then I'll do small sketches to familiarize myself with the subject and try different compositions.
 
If you want to create your own inventory of photos, here are few tips
  • Don't rush to take a photo. Walk around the subject before taking photos and consider the various angles and best views. When I first took photography courses, we were required to take 24 photos of each subject. This is a good exercise to force you to look at your subject differently.
  • Take wide angle shots to capture essence, mood, light. These assist as visual reminders of the context.
  • Experiment with taking photos a different levels. There are interesting views that are not at eye level. For example, you can take a photo from under the flower or use a ladder for a garden.
  • For photos of buildings, it's best to take a photo of each section square one. Taking a number of photos from the same spot will distort the building proportions.
For those of you who paint portraits, here are some tips for you.
http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/10/painting-portraits-from-photographs/

If you're looking for a source of photos without copyright issues, try "Paint my Photo (PMP)" which is a free website where you can find thousands of photos. You can join at http://www.paintmyphoto.ning.com/

Today's inspiring photo is from Herman Pekel:

Herman Pekel watecolour

Last weekend, Jen (aka Jaka) submitted an article. You are all more then welcome to contribute to this site either an article or an idea or two for me to research.

Have a good week
Danielle