Painting Hair

Yesterday evening at art class I painted the woman's hair. I started by painting the thick main strands in raw umber. After that I became a bit timid, I wanted to paint the thin wisps of hair that surrounded these main strands, but did not know how. Fortunately Julie came to the rescue (this after all is why I am attending an art class). Julie showed me how a flat brush, and the correct consistency of paint, leaves the bristles of the flat brush in thin little clumps which allow the painting of thin parallel lines which look just like wisps of hair. I used Winsor Newton Artisan Water Mixable Thinner to get a paint of just the correct thickness to achieve this effect. I finished the hair like this with mixes of raw umber, burnt sienna, ultramarine, and just the gentlest hint of white to show off highlights.

During the evening, one of my fellow students started to tell me what my painting told her about the character of the people I was painting. She told me that the fellow on the left was a serious person, but having fun in this painting; and that the woman in the painting has a generous personality. Hearing people read emotions into my painting has given me perhaps my greatest yet sense of satisfaction that I am beginning to achieve my goals.

Watercolour Project 4

Yesterday I completed the fourth in my series of ten watercolour projects from the book "Step-By-Step Guide to Painting Realistic Watercolors" and once again I feel that I have made some important steps forward. I am not, however, sufficiently satisfied with this image to move on without repeating the work.

The rose does not look sufficiently three-dimensional to me. This may be because I have not found the correct values, and could be the result of the rather "paint-by-numbers" approach I took to the painting (by which I mean that I copied the books instructions and believed that would be sufficient to complete the picture).

The wine looks very patchy, not at all evenly coloured in the glass. In part this was because I was trying to carefully paint around the reflections, and I think it dried out at different rates - next time I will try to paint out the reflections with latex, which might allow me to work a little faster. As well, the wine does not convey the curve of the glass, and I think a little improved contouring is in order.

There was a lot of fine detail which I was not able to achieve, at first I tried to use the very tip of the brush with little paint to draw the detail, but I found that the paint dried too fast, and spoiled the effect. Then I tried to work faster, with more paint, but it seems to me that the surface tension of the water limited the amount of detail I could achieve - perhaps a little ox gall would help to lower the surface tension.

So many things to try! Interestingly, the scan I made of the picture which you see here (you can see a larger image by clicking on the picture) does not show up these errors as they appear in the original watercolour. (230 x 305, Fabriano Acquarello 300 gsm hot pressed watercolour paper, Winsor Newton Artist's Watercolour, 21.10.07)

Joan Armatrading

I have taken the day off work today, so I can pick my son up from school, and I am spending some more time on my watercolour projects, listening to Joan Armatrading in the background. It is perfect music for painting watercolour. I'm taking time out to write this while my work is drying, and because - despite my cold - the music and the painting are putting me in a great mood.

I am really loving painting with watercolour. I'm not quite sure why. A part of it to be sure is the book I am working from. The projects give a feeling of accomplishing something while forcing me to practise the techniques of watercolour. I think another part of my enjoyment comes from the immediacy of watercolour. I paint a section, and stop. I cannot rework anything, that will destroy it. This is quite unlike any other media I have tried. Pastel, oil, acrylic, all allow me to rework and rework and it seems that I rarely finish anything. Watercolour is teaching me some important painting disciplines - planning, patience, colour accuracy, drawing accuracy.

I think that long term watercolour will not take me where I want to go. I suspect oil or acrylic has more room for experimentation, and I will want to try that. For the moment, I am very happy painting with watercolor.

(Later in the day) Well, I've finished this, my third watercolor. For all of the many, many errors in this painting, I'm very happy with this work. I have learned so many lessons over the last few days painting. The biggest problem I had with this painting was the background. I could not control the ballooning of the water into the blue paint no matter what I did, and then when I tried to repair it, I made things worse. The paint was Cobalt Blue - does it have any characteristics which make it especially hard to work with? How do I overcome this?

(230 x 305, Fabriano Acquarello 300 gsm hot pressed watercolour paper, Winsor Newton Artist's Watercolour, 16.10.07)

Watercolour III

I continue to work through the projects in "Step-By-Step Guide to Painting Realistic Watercolors."To the left is my first attempt at "Project 2." It has been quite a challenge. In particular I note three difficulties I have experienced in painting this project: (1) charging one color into another, and softening edges - for example the yellow and taupe shadows behind the card and in front of the truffle. On rereading the books instructions, I believe that I need to work on getting just the correct amount of moisture on both the paper and the brush; (2) Getting the colour depth correct - the brown of the truffle should be deeper; and (3) I cannot seem to paint smooth lines, so many of my lines have little bobbles along their length. This is most easily seen this on the lines of icing.

(230 x 305, Fabriano Acquarello 300 gsm hot pressed watercolour paper, Winsor Newton Artist's Watercolour, 13.10.07)

Family Art - I

My wife has attended Julie's art class in the last few months. Here is what she is achieving with pastel. It is not yet finished but I think that it is amazing.

The Couple - IV

Since restarting my art class I have been working a little more on "The Couple." It's coming along quite nicely I think. I have (1) removed the brown line in the background; (2) reshaped the eye of the woman - I think that it looks much better now; (3) worked a little more on the hair, this is going to be a real challenge to me. How do I suggest that I have painted every single hair individually, without actually doing so? I need some tips, and plenty of practice I think! Finally (4) I have been quietly and slowly building up better tones and colours, especially around the woman's neck. My plan going forward is to continue to slowly modify shapes and colours to complete the sculpting effect, (hopefully along the way the hair will also be finished) then it should be complete. The colours I used for her neck were: viridian, cadmium red medium, naples yellow and chinese white. I sketched in the hair with raw umber.

Watercolour II

On the left, you will see my recently repainted "Stained-glass Irises." I found the experience of using hot pressed paper for this painting to be measurably more pleasant than cold pressed paper I had used the first time. I do not know for sure how much the manufacturer of the paper influenced that feeling, so I shall have to try and procure some cold-pressed and hot-pressed from the same manufacturer to experiment with. I am much happier with the colours I mixed and I am also happier with how my colour gradients (from yellow to green on leaves) turned out. I found that in order to best create the gradient, it is important to understand the relative tinting strengths of the 2 colours I am trying to blend, ...and the only way I know how to discover this is to try it a few times on a scrap of paper. I was not quite so careful with keeping a good bead when blocking in the colours, and you can see a few spots of ballooning as a result. Once again I have seen the need for patience with art. Also, I often found that I had too much paint on the brush, and this led to what I feel is quite poor drafting of the soldered joints. Eventually I realised that I was dipping the whole brush into the paint, and all that was needed to properly fill the brush was to dip the tip in the paint, and let the brush draw up what it needs.

I read that watercolour brushes should have a sharp point, and I found that my brushes were not so well pointed that I had the degree of control I would have liked. I will perhaps look arond for some better brushes. All in all, after 4 hours of painting and despite the errors, I am much happier with this second attempt. I am looking forward to moving on to the second project in my book.

(230 x 305, Fabriano Acquarello 300 gsm hot pressed watercolour paper, Winsor Newton Artist's Watercolour, 4.10.07)

Handprint

In yesterday's blog I mentioned in passing one of my all-time favourite art websites "Handprint Watercolors." I first found this site while making some obscure technical search about paint pigments. Let me explain, I am a chemist - this stuff is important to me.

My blog, that you are reading now, is my journal, and so I was interested to read the almost poetic journal section of the Handprint website - the first pages in several ways record my own experiences of learning to paint from books, how my lack of technique and knowledge took away the pleasure in painting, how I bought many more supplies than I needed (perhaps in the mistaken belief that if I owned enough supplies I would become and artist).

But the thing that draws me back and back again to this site is the effort which the author has gone to, to prove to himself the various qualities of paints and papers and brushes; the arduous cataloging which has gone into this site; the well presented opinions on techniques, and books and choice of palettes and so much more. This is a treasure trove of information, written for his own use, with no time limit imposed (not for some target demographic, due for a publishing deadline), and shared freely with anyone. Even incomplete this site is better value than many of the books I own. Thank you Bruce MacEvoy!

I see that the author has also recently started up the "Handprint - Painting a Day" blog. As of this moment I cannot imagine me completing a painting a day, first - I have a day job, second I have a family, third I have an XBox360. My wife and I both have a dream of retiring early and spending our time travelling and painting, then it might happen. In the meantime I will try to ignore most "Painting a Day" blogs - but this one, I will probably visit many times as I continue my journey learning art.