1ST 2ND & 3RD OCT COURSE-WORK FOR SAWSTON, COMBERTON beginners & CAMBOURNE

Sawston and Cambourne did wk 1 beginners watercolour exercises, starting with a pigment to water ratio scale of light to dark blobs of ultramarine blue, see bottom of 1st pic below.

We did this by not adding any more water, as we picked up a small extra amount of pigment to apply to each blob, but always mixing the ratio in the pallet 1st, so we could measure how dark it was before it went on the paper.

 The reason we needed to practice this is that we will need to know how to do tonally dark and light paintings. See examples below

each colour has it's own tonal range, see right, we need to understand the principle of this, as well as the practice of translating colour into tone, in order to paint light and dark paintings.

Following on from the pigment to waster ratio blobs, we then did the 1st wash on the hills  reference, this was a pale flat wash from top to bottom. We had to be sure to have plenty of water to avoid getting streaks, to keep the paper at an angle so the water didn't pool in the middle, and to hold the brush at a very shallow angle to use the whole length of the brush hairs, to ensure a larger area of coverage, and therefore using fewer brush-strokes to ensure a more even coverage.

Sawston, cambourne and Comberton new all did the colour wheel this week, staring with painting the 3 primaries, red yellow and blue, unmixed with any other paints, we then mixed our secondaries from the 2 primaries either side of it, and the tertiaries, ( 3rd mix ) from 1 primary and 1 secondary, the above example for positioning only, the aim is to have a gradual change in colour from 1 to the next, ensuring that each section looks half way between it's neighbours on each side.

The reason for doing this is so we can mix beautiful variations of colours to add to our paintings, like the neutrals we mixed for the darkening of each hill in front of the other, this makes for a more interesting painting than just using blue or brown straight from the pigment well

 Some of us went on to look further into mixing neutrals, ( dull or muddy colours )
by doing the intensity scale below. we started with an unmixed colour and gradually added a complimentary colour ( it's opposite on the colour wheel ) turning it gradually from intense, ( bright ) to neutral, ( dull ) and back to intense again with the complimentary colour.
See neutral nude, and intense flower as an example.
So remember intense is unmixed, and neutral is mixed amongst the primary colours.

 This still life was set up as an example of intense dark colours, and also for more advanced who have previously completed all the beginners exercises above, to work on during class.

ALL BEGINNERS EXERCISES ARE THE ESSENTIAL FOUNDATION OF WATERCOLOUR TECHNIQUE, AND SKIPPING THESE WILL INHIBIT PROGRESS AND FRUSTRATE THE LEARNER. So if you have missed this class, please complete these exercises before your next class, as I will not have time teach these fully again in class.
But if you have completed them and are feeling a little overwhelmed! take heart, as we will be consolidating our understanding of these techniques in all future lessons, but you will need to bring these exercises to class with you as a reminder.

 
Next week SAWSTON will meet at the Cambridge botanic gardens at 1.00 P.m.  at the main gate on trumpington road, see link for more info  http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/Botanic/Home.aspx
We will just need our pencils and pads and something to sit on, if you have any small camping stools for the Greenhouse if the waether is bad. If not I can provide 2 larger camping chairs on request

IMPINGTON DRAWING AND M M 2ND OCTOBER 2013

 This week we looked at the effects we could get with charcoal.
We discovered that we could block in a larger are of tone ( shade ) much more easily than using pencil, we also discovered that we could soften edges more easily using our fingers to smudge. examples left


Also this week we were learning how to measure proportions by eye, see below.
We started by measuring sight size, that is transferring the same measurement from our pencil directly to the paper.

The other method is by gauging proportions by means of units, i.e is the width wider than the length, and if so, by how much.

we measured a champaign box by discovering that you could fit the width 4 times into the length.

See gauging proportions below.

 we used these same principles to measure our still life, which was set up to be tonally light, so we had to stay within the top tonal range of the value scale we made on week 1.Here are some examples.
Next week we will meet at the Cambridge botanic gardens at 10.a.m.  at the main gate on trumpington road, see link for more info  http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/Botanic/Home.aspx
We will just need our pencils and pads and something to sit on, if you have any small camping stools for the Greenhouse if the waether is bad. If not I can provide 2 larger camping chairs on request

COMBERTON CLASS REF FOR IMPROVERS AND ADVANCED 25TH & 26TH OCT 2013

In this term we are doing a further exploration into the relationship between music and art, we hope to discover what mood we can translate to our viewer through our choice of colour and application.

So we looked at images along with various pieces of music, some sad, some dramatic, and some light and still, and we reflected on our response to each image as we made group decisions of which painting we would associate with each image, the choices were on the whole unanimous, concluding that dark blue and neutral images correlated with music which was still and somber

Whereas dramatic music related to bright intense paintings with a lot going on as a generalisation

And lively music to visual expressions with vigorous line work of brush marks

Look at these images and see what your response is.

Next we had an exercise in choosing photocopied images of paintings associated with different music.

Then we did an exercise in recognising the intrinsic tonal value in pure colour, and colour diluted.

See below

Then we started working on a photograph I took on our Flatford Mill painting holiday, we made the colour choice to use only the top light light section of our value-colour wheel, but before that we had a look at the differenc a new colour bias had to the mood of the image.

The image below was for the less experienced in the group, as I had already de- saturated the photo in colour, and lightened it tonally so they only had to copy what was there in preperation for making their own colour choices from something less obvioius

We will continue these next week

OUR VISIT TO THE BOTANIC GARDENS WILL BE ON WED 23RD AND THURSDAY 24TH OCTOBER.

CLASS REF FOR COMBERTON ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS WED'S 25TH SEPT

1. 
   
2. 1. Unconscious incompetence The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognise their own incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the next stage.[2] The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.[3]
   
3. Conscious incompetence Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be integral to the learning process at this stage.[4]
   
4. Conscious competence The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.[3]
   
5. Unconscious competence The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.
   

The quote above was explored as the route we will journey on as absolute beginners, and how we will progress.

We began by looking at the choices we need to make as artists in being able to represent what it is we are looking at, and how we feel about that subject, and how to translate that feeling to our viewers.

We looked at different tonal values in colour, and explored different colour groupings.

Our aim for this lesson was to get to grips with basic watercolour techniques, and to be able to distinguish light and dark tonal values in colour and to be able to represent them in watercolour, so we started with a tonal grade from light to dark, it started with a clear wash, and through pigment to water ratio differences we painted consecutively darker circles of tone to end in the darkest, with the aim of building glazing layers up to build the picture below

Next week we will add consecutively darker glazes to this image, in layers to consolidate our understanding of painting flat washes and pigment to water ratio.

Because there needs to be drying time between glazes

We worked on the-colour value ( tone ) relationship exercise below, using the intrinsic tonal value,

 ( lightness or darkness ) of each colour in our palette, we also watered down some colours to make them lighter tonally so that the colours appeared lighter at the top and darker at the bottom.

To help us to see the tonal vales of the colours we looked through the camera on the black and white setting.

Towards the end of the class we practiced doing washes of very pale colours wet in wet without over mixing on the paper.

We will continue on the theme of colour and mixing next week.

Also, our visit to the Botanic garden in Cambridge will be on the 23rd October 2013.

CLASS REFERENCE FOR IMPINGTON, SAWSTON AND CAMBOURNE 24TH 25TH & 26TH SEPTEMBER

This is class reference for Impington drawing and mixed media, 

Sawston and Cambourne drawing and watercolour.

We looked at images which were tonally light and tonally dark in colour and black and white,

Then we did a tonal grade of 10 boxes ranging from light to dark in pencil, and used this as a guide to gauge the tonal range of the cone ball and cube exercise below.

We scaled up the the image to make our drawing larger, but proportionally accurate using a scaling grid.

Because of the use of diagonal lines, the grid can be enlarged or decreased in size.

The grid is used as scaffolding to locate the position and proportions of the objects, however, some people can draw this accurately by eye and may not need to use a grid like this.

We made the scaling grid by placing the photo near the bottom left of our drawing paper, we then drew lines extending from the bottom and left edges of the photo, then, before lifting it up we drew a diagonal line from bottom left and top right corner and beyond onto our drawing paper.

Having done this, we removed our photo from the paper, and joined up the bottom and left lines to meet each other on the bottom left corner, and using a set square, joined up the right and top lines to meet with the diagonal on any point on that line depending on how big we wanted our picture to be.

See grid above, the shorthand of this is to draw the union jack based on the proportions of your photo.

See above.

Below are some examples of learners accurately drawing proportions and tonal ranges.

 

 

 The 2 still life's I brought in were to demonstrate groupings of objects with tonal ranges at extreme ends of the tonal scale.
Look at the absolute whites, especially on the white vase, and ask yourself what tone the vase is if it isn't as white as the highlights.

Next week, drawing and watercolours are going to complete their tonal drawings using watercolour.
And Impington are going to use charcoal, which I will supply