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55. DEVELOPING MY TEACHING CHOPS (WATERCOLOR, PART 3)

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  PAINTING ON LOCATION IN 4-VALUES: After developing a feel for the placement of lights and darks in the painting and simplifying the infinite values of nature into four: (1) light, (2) middle light, (3) middle dark, and (4) dark, I would take the class outdoors to apply the principle to natural surroundings.  One issue I had with students when first presenting 4-value, monochromatic paintings was that they wanted to get into C O L O R   straight away.  A limited palette of G R A Y S   felt to them like their hands were tied behind their backs.  But after their initial resistance, they could see that their paintings were much stronger through being given such strict limitations...and they learned how to manipulate light, which is essential in creating powerful paintings, and particularly, powerful watercolors. I chose locations that offered a variety of interesting possibilities and were easy to get to on public transportation.  For example, we went to the Palace of Fine Arts, Stow La
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54. DEVELOPING MY TEACHING CHOPS (WATERCOLOR, PART 2)

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WET-INTO-WET: Another essential watercolor technique is known as 'wet-into-wet.  When thinking of watercolor, this technique is one of the first that comes to mind to many people.  It's so named because fluid watercolor pigment is brushed onto a wet surface resulting in soft, amorphous edges.  It is a perfect technique for creating wispy cloudy skies, atmospheric landscapes, and subtly modulated forms. Below are some of my class demonstrations.   The example on the left shows what happens when pigment is applied at various stages of paper wetness.  The middle examples show the different ways the wet-into-wet approach can be matched to subjects.  On the right, three colors (alizarin crimson, phthalocyanine green, and French ultramarine) create abstract compositions on areas of different degrees of moistness... Emil Nolde created hundreds of loose and evocative wet-into-wet paintings with his superb wet-into-wet watercolor technique... The students were particularly attracted to
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53. DEVELOPING MY TEACHING CHOPS (WATERCOLOR, PART 1)

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FIRST: THE BASICS Watercolor is often viewed as an intimidating medium, and it can be intimidating if you are not prepared.  Much of that concern is caused because watercolor is transparent and very fluid, consequently it's easy to create ill-defined shapes and muddy colors...both of which can quickly lead to dull paintings and lack-luster compositions which lack 'punch.'  Because of its fluidity and transparency, unlike opaque and viscous mediums like oils and acrylics, watercolor can be 'unforgiving'...hard to overpaint and correct. For these reasons, I developed an approach and exercises that started from the ground up. I saw learning and mastering painting, and watercolor in particular, as similar to learning to play a musical instrument.  As learning scales and developing dexterity by practicing finger exercises are essential in playing music, so learning the principles of color and mastering a variety of techniques are, for most students, essential to learning
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52. DEVELOPING MY TEACHING CHOPS (BASIC DRAWING, PART 6)

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BASIC VALUE/TEXTURE EXERCISES After the class was comfortable with dealing with 2-value and 4-value exercises, I introduced assignments in which the students experimented with various ways to modulate and blend a more subtle range of values... The students used different media and materials to create a variety of value scales...graphite pencil, charcoal, charcoal pencil, conte crayon, pen & ink, etc.  They came up with imaginative ways to configure them... ABSTRACT MODULATED VALUE COMPOSITIONS I brought in the concept that line quality, type of materials, texture, and composition could, in themselves, convey expression and meaning.   Creating space, volume, and movement through the modulation of value as well as using the entire picture area to create a dynamic composition as well as spatial ambiguity... The students found a variety of ways to present the modulation of values... THE ILLUMINATED SPHERE After the class had become familiar with modulating value in different ways, I in
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