Tag: trees

Class: Sketching Winter – Capturing the Colours of Snow

There are a lot of watercolor instructors out there. Many are good, some mediocre, and others not worth the time. Among my favorites are Rick Surowicz, Oliver Pyle, and Shari Blaukopf. Most important is if I like their paintings or not! Next is their teaching style. In person classes are hard to find, get to, and can be expensive, but online courses are often repeatable. I am beginning to find this to be the best venue for my own learrning. Blaukopf has a number of short courses, very reasonably priced, which fous on this or that. Shari Blaukopf fits both criteria – great painter, great teacher.

I have purchased a number of her courses. Over time, her classes, already good, have gotten even better with more details and focused studies. You can learn a lot from copying a painting – a long, traditional history for the art student – but when you watch a painter achieve a painting, how they apply paint, when they explain their approach, learning is an even better experience.

I can paint snow and have done it fairly well, I think. What I enjoyed about this class was to see her sequence of painting, understand the logic behind her approach, as well as the fact that her painting is pretty direct. Shari applies her colors directly to the paper, sometimes mixing on the palette and other times on the paper while adding other colors. The key factor in her success is she does not overwork her painting!! She also explains why and where she is using hard and soft edges, as well as warm and cool colors. Not everyone is this clear.

In the end, her painting always have a lively freshness to them, with plenty of detail mixed with a painterly quality. Perhaps a lack of fussiness? Whatever it is, her painting seems very spontaneous to me. Seeing / learning how she achieves this has been the highlight of her classes. She is thoughtful, plans ahead, and yet achieves a looseness that is hard to match. As watercolor – or “watercolour” – is such a challenging medium, good techniques are like gold to me.

WIP: Trees in a Drought #3

I am not sure whether this is done, overdone, or not yet done! Certainly it is more finished than before – and I am not sure I even like it – so it is in the garage to dry and to be ignored for awhile.

Oil paints are proving to be a pleasure to use. Their malleability makes them easy in comparison to acrylic paint. Add to that, they don’t end up looking plasticky.

Compositionally this painting has little to offer. It’s just a study of trees and color and playing with paints. A learning experience by doing. For instance, I finally “got it” when using brushes – and why painters use multiple brushes in oils. You know how you always see the artist holding 2 or 3 or more brushes in one hand, painting with the other? It is – for me at least – a way to keep colors more pure without creating mud. That was an eye-opener. In water based paints it is really quick and easy to clean a brush, but not with oils. Okay, new thing learned.

Below is the photograph I used as the basis for this painting along with all stages of the painting itself so far.

WIP: 3 Trees in a California Drought

I have been taking an oil painting / acrylic painting class through the local adult school, and the current teacher is pretty good. I am only doing oils this go around – I did acrylics last class – and I am finding them far more to my liking than acrylics. Much more to offer in terms of – what? – pleasure in using. With acrylics I feel like I am in a mad dash to paint and that really is not a fun experience. With oils, you can play and take your time, and that for this impatient person is actually a pleasure after the pressures I felt with acrylics!

This is what my backyard looks like – hell. There is no grass and there are too many big trees. Once we get rid of 10 more 35 foot tall trees and have the back yard plowed up to be rid of tree roots, then I might be able to make it far more habitable. Nonetheless, looking for something to paint, I decided to take a photo of some of the trees against the back wall and push it in color to an extreme. By pushing the colors in LR I thought I might find new colors to use in the painting. And, it worked – I found purples and turquoises and rather icky orangish yellows.

So, I am trying to do this alla prima, but it’s not going to happen. It is happening so far in two alla prima sessions, and probably will need three or more. I am not trying to create a masterpiece. I am trying to learn how to use oils. So, this is play, and here it is, after my second alla prima session.

Next class is in a couple of days, so let’s see where it goes from here . . .