TEACHING NOTES FOR WED THE 4TH OF JULY

THIS WEEK we were painting this cockerel in the style of an artist called Kate Osborne





We began by practicing washes with our brushes at a very shallow angle and severely editing our brush marks, then pulling the fronds out of the wash before it formed a hard edge before adding the salt for texture, we also practiced painting the tail feathers before 'fronting' by pulling a body of colour out to the dry area beyond the tail feathers, pressing our big brushes to the surface to get fat lines, then gradually releasing the pressure to this the lines out towards the edges to gradually this them out to a point.


Here are some student paintings, and lets remember that for week 10 from scratch this is really impressive, what has been learned so far is..
Learning how to paint without freaks or blotches,
learning flow control
Using enough water and painting faster
painting within a complicated shape,
Pulling shapes out of the main body, and 'fronding'
Plus, using hard and soft edges with 'fronting'

We used hard and soft edges with 'fronding' wet on dry to get the detail, here are my demonstrations

This is the last class of the Summer term, we will be back on Wednesday the 19th of September, it is your watercolour challenge over the summer to practice these same techniques with a menagerie of birds, we will have an exhibition on our return, have a happy summer all, but I hope to see you again in a non teaching capacity before then
G XXX : )

TEACHING NOTES FOR JULY THE 3RD 2018

This week we were completing our beeches river scene, we painted our trees wet in wet with salt and splatter for texture as we knew we didn't need much detail on them, because the detail was on the boats, chuch and ripples, and too much tree detail would have over egged the pudding.
Here are some student paintings near completion, 👇this was only the week after this technique was first introduced, so well done yous, and keep practicing your water throughout the summer, and we'll have an exhibition on september the 18th when we return to class.

TEACHING NOTES FOR WEDNESDAY THE 27TH OF JUNE

This week we were working on painting this rook, there object of this exercise was to get really dark darks and intense colours out of our palette, and paint within a specified shape avoiding un necessary brush marks.

We began by practicing random shapes, and pulling the pigment out with a splayed out brush before the was had a chance to dry to a hard edge.
One of the challenges with this exercise was to avoid brush marks which weren't describing anything, the way to do this is to practice fi





To get a more even streak free application, try not making repeated brush strokes she you are lifting your brush off the paper at the end of every stroke, this results in blobs where you have lifted off, and doesn't help each brushstroke to merge into the other, try to keep your brush on the paper at all times during a colour application, holding your brush at a shallow angle and sideways on to get the widest possible marks, practice this as an exercise on it's own till it becomes second nature to you.

This is the photo reference we were using

random shapes to get used to painting around a shape., we were also dropping small amounts of table salt onto the wash after we had pulled out the fronds bits to get this texture.



Next week we will be doing exactly the same technique as this week, but applying the technique to a cockerel, leaving it to dry, and adding detail wet on dry



As per request, next week will be the last week of summer term, and we will resume the next 10 week course starting on September the 18th 2018, however I may be planning a non teaching trip out on the river at Beccles some time during the summer and will email the details of that nearer the time

TEACHING NOTED FOR TUESDAY THE 24TH OF JUNE

THIS WEEK WE WERE Exploring how to represent water as a preparation for a trip in the River at Beccles some time in the summer, above are some watercolour artists representations of water, note how all the edges of the reflections are hard edged




This is the scene in Beccles on the river we are aiming at painting

1st we drew up the scene and added the background colour

Then we practiced putting a pale lemon wash down with zig zag edges horizontally, and applying pigment in vertical stripes to represent the reflections of trees

More practices

A demonstration of a previous workshop painting showing the intended outcome with high definition dark lines in the surface of the water to indicate it's flatness.

If you were unable to attend this class, please can you follow these steps at home, as we will be continuing with this painting next week, and it is important you know the technique to apply to the finished painting next week

TEACHING NOTES FOR TUESDAY THE 19TH JUNE 2018

This week we were translating our lesson on composition and colour balance, see

TEACHING NOTES for the 12th of june, into painting wet in wet from direct observation, we didn't finish these, but because the flowers may be over by next week, here are your photos of the flowers you were painting. The primary object of this lesson was about controlling pigment flow.

In my own sketch, ( this is not a finished painting due to time constraints ) I have used a combination of hard and soft edges, remember hard edge is against dry paper, and soft edge is against wet paper

We looked at paintings of flowers painted wet in wet, and wet on dry ( hard edged ) and gauged our emotional response to them, this will influence our choice of how to represent flowers when we are painting them.
We chose to paint our flowers wet in wet, so that we then had a choice of where, if any to have hard edges, the first wet in wet wash being the underpainting, but the main aim of this lesson was to control pigment flow, please find the reference for your painting and complete at home.