Tuesday the 8th May 2018 teaching notes

here is my finished big tree again.

This week we didn't continue with the big tree, I thought it was best for us to return to understanding value mass wet on dry, which is what we did for the smaller tree, when we understand that wet on dry, we can then do it more easily wet in wet, which is harder, because we have to control big colour shapes  from running into each other.

We started by identifying the big colour and tone shapes  by doing an initial 1st wash of flat green without any brush marks but with a variation of colour and dry brushstroke edges, leaving it to dry, and blocking in the darker tonal masses ( shadow in this case ) in the same way

And added smaller colour shapes, but in my case I kept the smaller colour and tone shapes lighter so they wouldn't interfere with the simplification of the big colour and tone shapes

We alternated the tree washes by beginning this painting which is a simpler way of unifying value mass, as the trees are all backlit, and the only thing which defines them as trees are the shapes their edges make

The main thing we needed to remember during this wash was surface water consistency throughout the painting time, and to remember to dry our pigment to water ratio down when we wanted our pigment to stay put, which we needed for the purple bits. Above are 2 demonstrations of the same scene, see how different they are, but I'm happier with the 1st one, please add another layer if you are not happy with the 1st.

We drew up our painting and applied the 1st washes wet in wet ignoring the trees, as these are hard edges which is not possible to do wet in wet.

We will continue with these washes wet in wet on dry next week, but in the meantime, please practice your application techniques