The next lesson in the Tate Watercolour Manual, Lessons from the Great Masters by Tony Smibert and Joyce Townsend, the book I am studying, addresses composition. The authors chose to feature the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot to demonstrate balance of design. The art historian Ernst Gombrich notes (The Story of Art) that Corot strived for ‘clarity and balance’ […]
Today’s warmup exercise: I noted yesterday that I had some questions about brushstrokes and how I could make them visible in my watercolor tone studies. They all seemed to fade into the background wash within seconds. I am working through an interesting watercolor manual called, the Tate Watercolour Manual, Lessons from the Great Masters by Tony Smibert and […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: My experiment today is a continuation of my warmup exercise (see Lesson 10 – Brush Strokes). I extend the utility of the marks I make and use them to build a composition. I made four vignettes of landscape-like compositions using a number 20 round brush and sepia pigment. The idea was to begin with marks […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: Two factors influenced my artwork today. First, one of my favorite artists, Paul Klee, described a way to ‘make visible’ one’s inner state was to take a pencil point ‘for a walk’. Although I’m not clear about how to translate my inner state to the paper, I believe the practice of ‘taking a point for […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: Again, I had to stop reading Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art to try out some of his hypotheses. I’m fairly certain that to Kandinsky, his view of the spiritual nature of form and color was not hypothetical. For example, he says that ‘keen’ colors such as yellows are naturally suited to sharp […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: Lately I have been applying latex masking fluid (frisket) to my watercolor paper as a first step in painting my abstract studies. I add all my pigments (inks and watercolor washes) after the frisket has cured. This leaves paper-white traces on the finished study, after I remove the mask. Today I wanted to […]
Today’s ink experiment: Perhaps I quit today’s experiment too early. I usually work with watercolors, although for the past couple of days I have combined them with waterproof inks. I have added ink to some of my compositions in the past week or so: Abstract 52515, in which I inked the white traces left by latex masking […]
I don’t ask to take breaks at work. I like what I do. But break time is mandatory and they tell me when I have to leave for 15 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I love going out in the sunshine and exploring the environs, which consist of a parking lot and a restaurant that has […]
Today’s watercolor experiment: I tried to apply what I learned in yesterday’s Purple Woods for another take at depicting a number of trees receding from the foreground. Like yesterday, I only used two colors (except for the fox): permanent mauve and aureolin yellow. The principle to which I tried to adhere in today’s composition is the […]
Having been an observer of leaves during the time of change from summer to autumn, I have included them as subjects in many of my recent watercolor studies (Leaves in the Rain, Fallen Fig Leaf, Fall Fig Leaves). Now that they are mostly on the ground (the leaves, that is), I can either turn my […]
