Gilly Marklew watercolour artist and tutor: February 2013

Thursday, 28 February 2013

PORTRAIT IN COMPLIMENTARY COLOURS

This week we started a portrait chosen for it's complimentary colours.
We were still using any red blue and yellow, and mixing our washes on the paper instead of our pallets to give us scope for differentiation.
First we scaled up our reference and gridded that up using diagonals before transferring this to our WC paper.
We did a test wash on a separate piece of paper to test out how to represent the skin tones in our 1st wash.

In my demo, I kept the first wash fairly light for the highlights, and mixed my colours on the paper, after mixing the pure pigment to water ratio in my pallet.
For those of you that mixed your colours up 100% in the pallet, can you please have another go, and mix on the paper before next week on a separate portrait, so you can compare the difference next week.

My first wash below looks a bit scary at this stage, because I have identified the features without darkening up the skin tones, but by doing the 1st wash pale I have have left room for darkening it down with warmer colours.
This 1st wash was to identify the highlights

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Next week we'll have the chance to build up our washes in soft, or hard edged layers, like the example below.

Sunday, 24 February 2013

FILM OF A WATERCOLOUR PORTRAIT SPEEDED UP!

Hello learner!

I have made an actual film of me painting this actual portrait from scratch speeded up!
The film is too big to post on here, but click on the links below to view the film in whatever application you have on your computer for viewing films, it should download in the download box on the top right of your screen, this is a little box with an arrow on it pointing down, click on this, and you will see the downloaded film, double click on the film and the film should appear on your screen in front of you.

the first is bigger than the second one, and will take longer to download, but is clearer quality

This is the 1st film I have ever made, and I learnt how to do it from scratch yesterday, so please forgive mistakes.

I hope it opens for you and that you enjoy it,

from your hardworking tutor,

Gilly ; )

http://www.goodworks.myzen.co.uk/GillyMarklew/Site/video.html

http://www.goodworks.myzen.co.uk/fullsizefilm.m4v

http://www.goodworks.myzen.co.uk/mobilesizefilm.m4v

DISTANCE LEARNING WITH GILLY AT ART TUTOR.COM
http://www.arttutor.com/artists/gilly-marklew

AND POWHOW LIVE ONLINE CLASSES
http://www.powhow.com/my-classes

Thursday, 21 February 2013

DRAWING AND PAINTING BUILDINGS IN PERSPECTIVE WITH COMPLIMENTARY COLOURS

THIS WEEKS CLASSES BOTH DRAWING AND WATERCOLOUR WERE ABOUT SCALING UP, DRAWING BUILDINGS IN PERSPECTIVE, AND CREATING COLOUR BALANCE WITH COMPLIMENTARY COLOURS

WE SCALED UP WITH A GRID, THEN FOUND THE VANISHING POINTS BY LOCATING THE MAIN FEATURES IN THE GRID

THE DOWNING COLLAGE CAMBRIDGE EXERCISE ( ABOVE ) WAS QUITE TRICKY, AND THIS EXAMPLE WAS INCOMPLETE, BUT THE CABING IN THE WOODS BELOW WAS A BIT EASIER, AS WE WERE PRETTY MUCH INVENTING OUR OWN SCALE AND VANISHING POINTS.

BELOW ARE 2 DEMONSTRATIONS I DOD FOR BUILDING FEATURES INTO A PERSPECTIVE FRAMEWORK, AND ADDING FROSTY TREES WITH A SALT RESIST EFFECT FOR THE TREES.

THIS IMAGE IS NOT COMPLETED, AND IT IS THE INTENTION TO MAKE THE CABIN WARM OCHRE OR ORAGE WITH A SHADED SIDE IN PURPLE WITH BULE SNOW FOR A COMPLIMENTARY COLOUR BALANCE