Before I went off to do my errands today, I slopped some paint on my watercolor block. I wet the entire paper, then washed with ultramarine rose and ultramarine blue: a streak of blue and a circle of rose. In between errands, I stopped home and filled in the circle with blue and overpainted the […]
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 watercolor experiment: I usually post a warmup exercise before I perform my experiment. Today, my warmup exercise and experiment are one and the same. I continue to pursue the elusive blot. The advice in the book from which I am learning (the Tate Watercolour Manual, Lessons from the Great Masters by Tony Smibert and Joyce Townsend) […]
Lately, we’ve been awakened to an annoying buzzing sound. The leaf blowers out here in California are annoying enough (haven’t they heard of rakes?), but this was even worse. I got up to look and there was a guy on top of a palm tree, calmly cutting log after log, moving down as he shortened […]
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 […]
I have a new subject for today and a break from portraits of my brother Mike. I was getting obsessed with portraying him and his essence. (See Mike Crying, Young Mike, In Transition, Final Transition, Double Mask, Stylized Portraits, Klee and Jawlensky-Influenced Portrait.) Today’s watercolor experiment: Today’s subject is an image from a dream I had last night. […]
It was hot today. In the 80s. Having recently returned from snowy New Jersey, I feel a bit guilty. But since I had nothing to do with it, I can easily forgive myself. I mention this because today, pi day (the date being the first five digits of the number pi: 31415), was the first opportunity […]
I’m taking a sabbatical from my fig leaf renderings for a bit (see Fall Fig Leaves and Fallen Fig Leaf), but not from leaves altogether. The persimmon tree in the next yard extends several branches above the fence, into our yard. We get the leaves and our choice of the fruit that hangs over. When the fruit […]
