From Photo to Watercolor

We didn't finish our one point drawings this class, but we did start with another. This piece was also one that we used a photo reference for. But we just roughly sketched before going in with the paint. I personally don't like how it looks. Larry did suggest doing it over. He said that doing the same piece over will improve it every time. It's kind of learning from your mistakes but with the same piece. I will, and we'll see how it comes out. 

Updated Watercolor Grapes... Fail

I told you I'd update on those grapes, so here it is. We had no class today because of February break, so I though why not. It still looks horrible in my opinion. The shadow coming from the grapes makes it even worse. I am starting to like the colors for the grapes. One Larry told me to not use again is the gouache which is the opaque watercolor paint. I used a white to highlight the grapes in this painting and he said it's just better to stick to the habit of using the white of the paper as the highlight. 

Perspective Drawing

Today we worked with perspective drawing. I've had a little experience with this before in the drawing class I took in the fall, so it was not new to me, but still fun. So for the two point perspective drawings, the lines meet at two separate vanishing points on opposite ends of the paper. For the one point perspective drawings, the lines meet at one point on the horizontal line. We did a little practice with the two point, but will actually be painting our one on point perspective drawings.  

Apple in Watercolor

We painted the classic apple. I did one before during my fall class with Cynthia for that still life piece I put in the art show. For this piece, we did a lot of playing around with color. For this specific apple, I used yellow for highlighted areas and blue to shade. One thing I did improve on was the shading since my grape piece. I tried to make it a little more softer on the edges and darker towards the object the shadow is coming from and I used blue as a base color instead of the brown I used before. 

Watercolor Practice

I practiced some value paintings on my own based on what we did in class. They were of ones that Larry demonstrated for us and I just wanted to practice on my own. The top on is of a 3D box. Again, I used only one color. I started out by going over the whole thing with a light wash. After it dried, I went over some sides of the box and finally only the right hand side. You can see how much value was added to the piece by jut doing that. The one underneath is one of a house, and I used the same technique. 

Practice Watercolor

In Larrys class, we do this thing at the beginning of each class where we critique outside paintings. So we bring in pieces that we've worked on at home and present it to the class where we're then able to receive advice and all that good stuff. So I brought in this piece of a Japanese cherry blossom. I saw something similar to it on a youtube tutorial where he used a tap technique to get the flowers on the tree. I don't know if you could tell that I attempted to do it and it didn't work, so I just went in with the brush. Some advice from the class was to make the tree a little more roomy, if that makes sense since it is a Japanese Cherry Blossom tree. Also for the branch, ensuring the that the branch becomes thinner as it extends. I love the colors though. I primarily used a very beautiful color called opera rose. Oh, and another thing, instead of trying to shadow with a darker version of the one I already have, just use something like blue to shadow. 

Mixing Colors

We played around with color today! It was awesome. We created our own color charts with some basic colors starting from the top on the left hand side, we have: Burnt Sienna, Opera Rose, Ultramarine Blue, Windsor/Phthalo Blue, and New Gamboge Yellow. Mixing two colors, doesn't just give you one color and you can see that with the chart below.  I used a flat brush for this chart. I started by wetting the area I wanted the paint to touch. (Paint only goes where water is!) Then I put a little bit of each color on both sides of my brush and I went in. I kept my strokes limited and mostly let the paint do it's own thing and these were the results. I think it's beautiful and amazing!