Tag: reflection

Pear on a Reflective Surface

For the past 4 weeks I have been taking a short course in oil painting – we have not laid a bit of oil on canvas in this entire time period! Instead, we have learned so much about color – theory and real world (too complex for here) – contrast, tone, value, intensity, neutrality, and so on and so forth. Finally, in the last 30 minutes we finally got a painting demonstration of painting values on a pear. Some people painted along, but I just watched the instructor.

First thing, we mixed a dark value of burnt umber and ultramarine blue. Then we made a middle value grey by mixing in some white, and then the lightest value by adding even more white to the middle grey. After that, we used cad red light, cad yellow light, and yellow ochre, doing the same to each, but for the middle and darkest values, we added some of the middle and dark greys to darken and tone. I was really surprised to see the beautiful green the middle grey made when added to the yellow ochre, and I absolutely hated the cad yellow light’s greenish cast. Ugh. I rolled out cad yellow deep instead as it was much warmer and orange-ish.

The photo we used was blurred a bit, and then a notan (the rendering of an image into values of white through black, with shades of grey in between – in other words, a grey scale of the image) of the same was printed onto a piece of paper. We painted our values onto this paper, using the methods described above. Some people just kept their areas as values of color, but it made me a bit nuts, so I blurred mine together. The result was much more to my liking but more challenging, too. I made a lot of messes and lost my values quite often along the way.

Our teacher, Harvey, is really good. I have another 8 week session starting in a couple of weeks and I think it will be a good adjunct to a 4 week private class with him starting mid-March. Harvey is not just an artist, he is also an experienced art teacher as he has taught high school art for many years. Experience as a teacher is showing here – he is articulate, logical, and clear. No complaints, and I feel fortunate to have made his acquaintance – I like him, too, as a person, and that adds to the enjoyment of a class.

Oil on paper, about 5×7, value study of a pear. Colors used are titanium white, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, cad yellows and red, yellow ochre.

The End of a Year

Like most people, I look back over the past year, I look ahead to the new year. New years are like morning – something to anticipate. Yesterday is the past, and so is a past year. There is a bit of melancholy in looking back as awareness of passing time grows more acute each year but, it is always offset by the anticipation of the future. I don’t know if other people feel like that, but to me there is always an element of joyful anticipation even in times of gloom and sadness. I’ve lived long enough to know nothing lasts forever, but the patterns repeat, and therein lives hope. There is enough change and enough consistency. And I prefer to dwell on hope rather than despair – but to avoid it is foolish.

So, what has happened in this past year? For me, the most difficult thing has been the loss of my closest friend on November 30th. I am not lost because of his death, but just feeling a loneliness. On the other hand, I have rekindled a friendship from years ago that could prove to be a pleasant addition to my life. A door closes. A door opens.

I have also learned and realized a lot about my family – my parents in particular. I found two letters, one from my mother, one from my father. The first was a letter written by my mother 6 months before she married my father. The second letter was one written by my father 12 years later. While the contents are personal and private, what was most important was seeing my parents as people in a very different perspective – such different personalities and approaches to life! I think of the grasshopper and the ant in Aesop’s fables – my mother had the gaiety of the grasshopper but lacked foresight, went along for the moment, and my father was the ant, always planning and working toward the future, but often failing to value the moment he was in. (I’m sort of both!)

In some ways – perhaps in many ways – 2022 was about re-evaluating life and people. As I move more into retirement and into free time, I am less concerned with the connections -the ongoing desire for connections – with people, but more appreciative of them when they occur. It is so easy to want more from others than is realistic with copious free time, and it takes a bit of effort to rein it in. Once done, though, a bit of disappointment – but again, another door opens, and there are things to look forward to doing and experiencing.

For me, life is always a balancing act. There is sorrow and sadness, there is joy and hope. Reality is a harsh teacher, but if you pay attention, there is much to be learned and the subtle pleasures of little things – like the yellow volunteer flower on my doorstep – remind you that the small individual person, event, critter, plant, in the big, vast world has a whole universe within to be explored.

So, welcome to 2023!

Water, Water, Everywhere

More practice paintings. Negative painting will return in the not-too-distant future. Before all those negative painting exercises came in, I ran across the watercolors of Javid Tabatabaei. He has a wonderful way of painting skies reflected in water. His YouTube channel shows his tricks – definitely watch him if you want to see what magic he creates with a very simple method.

Normally, I paint the sky first, and then I do the distant hills. Water on the ground is left to last. Tabatabaei strokes in the sky and the water where the colors of the sky are reflected, but he leaves areas of bright water white or with a light tint of gold or yellow or blue, depending on his needs. For the sun, he paints around the circular shape of the sun; he does the same for the moon. Other times he will lift the paint. This technique creates a lot of drama.

Below are a couple of studies I followed on YouTube as well as a copy of a painting from Tabatabaei’s Instagram account, to see if I had learned from his demonstrations. I did. And to tell you the truth, this is one of the most fabulous ways I have ever seen for painting water and sky in watercolor – a big thanks to Mr. Tabatabaei for sure! Very simple, very elegant.

The above is my first attempt to follow Tabatabaei’s technique; this is from a YouTube study I seem to be unable to find at present. This is also on HP paper by Fabriano, and I was not really in a comfort zone as far as using it. Still, it worked out quite nicely. Here, I tried to lift out the image of the sun, but it really didn’t work. White gouache failed too. So, a painting lacking in success in a lot of ways but that water and reflections are yummy!

The one above is also from a YouTube video by Tabatabaei. He has a couple of YouTube channels, come to think of it. That may be why I am having problems finding them! This one and the one below are on Arches CP paper.

Finally, my version of one of Tabatabaei’s paintings using his water / sky technique. It worked out pretty good, I think, and I can see I am going to have a lot of fun painting water! Expect a monsoon or flood . . . of watery watercolor paintings.

Thanks, Javid!