TEACHING NOTES FOR TUESDAY THE 5TH JUNE

it was mooted that this last stage the surface water detail was unnessesary, and I agree, as to leave it blank is to suggest a surface mist, however we had a go as it was useful to understand the technique

This week we were completing our value mass trees silhouetted, by adding swans and a suggestion of the surface of the water, so we did a clear wash in stripes, and added the pigment only in the middle, being careful not to allow it to run to the edges, we then put it to one side to dry before painting in the swans. 




We were also completing our painting of the house in the woods, and exploring in particular what elements of a painting pull our attention, it was useful to look at the tonal squares on the chart ( below the photo ref ) and we were all in agreement as to which squares within each box dominated and why, have a look yourself and see what you think, then look again at the house to understand that the isolation of white in this photograph creates a focal point in its self, look also at the isolation of purple and violet, and the way in which this draws your eye to the house.
We are not always presented with perfect compositions in real life, but by doing these exercises it helps us to firstly see them, then to exaggerate and invent aspect that create good compositions.

Below is an example of the same scene drawn in different ways, the left hand drawing is totally about detail, and has ignored the bigger tonal shapes, and is therefore more difficult to read, think about the right hand drawing in relation to the box shape exercise above to understand how to organise tonal and colour shapes in a composition as opposed to only looking at the detail.Here are 2 paintings by an artist some of us know and love, Lesley Munroe from the Shotesham art group, you can see very clearly in her paintings how she has organised her colour shapes, and makes good use of isolating blocks of white and complimentary colours with the occasional small amour of intense paint.

we can see clearly as the painting progresses and we add pigment to each part of the painting, that this changes the overall balance, an isolation of red on the roof may dominate too much

windows and doors that are too dark may create too much of a focal point by virtue of them being an isolated area of detail  in themselves, whereat a tree with no house will attract too much attention, you don't need a degree in art to see where your eye is drawn to, but it helps to know that to bring something forward you must =create goal or colour contrast, or to make something recede do the opposite and place a colour or tone next to it which is very similar, otherwise take colour or tone out.

Ask yourself how much detail you need to add to your painting, there is no right or wrong answer to this, but remember that detail will attract attention, so it's perfectly acceptable to put detail in one area and leave the rest loose, the trees around the house for example could be worked up more, but best left high definition wet in wet in my opinion.
I am hoping to get you to work from direct observation at some stage so if the weather is clement enough next week this may be the time.
I look forwards to seeing you next week, and if you were unable to attend class this week, please try to keep up  from these notes, as each class is sequential and consecutive, and we are building on skills acquired from the previous week.