Week Three
Landscape and the Limited Palette

• The Limited Palette and the Landscape (no sound)
• Sandy Allnock Painting Plein Air Set up (Creative Commons Video)
• Right Side of Page (Top): Database of Daniel Smith Colors (Staining, Transparent, and Opaque)
• Composition Tips
• Springpoint photo and image of page of today’s demos:
  
  
• Week Three Exercises (3 Tasks) – even in landscape light comes from one side!
  • Task 1: Cloud Blot
    Make a gradient wash of blue tipping the paper upside down and blot the paper using paper towels and q-tips or cotton balls on what would be the highlighted side of a cloud.
  • Task 2: Cloud Study Including Ground Plane
    Using blue and brown mixed into varying degrees of blue gray create a cloud and ground plain painting. Either work outside if you are comfortable with that OR shoot a cell phone picture (avoid architecture as that is a whole different set of problems to solve) and make a limited palette painting.
  • Task 3: Tackling Green Ground Planes and Blue Skies
    Using a photograph, lay down varying saturations of light to dark blue and try blotting the color out. On the ground plane use first a wash of yellow then add green. Use different tools to pull the green along the paper. Try different blues to see how much your watercolor will lift from the paper. NOTE: Staining colors will not lift the same as transparent watercolors. Staining usually remains in the fibers of the paper. This will help you learn a lot about your paints and especially the durability and tolerance of your brand of watercolor paper.
    When done you may attach your Cloud Blot and Cloud Studies in an email and send for a critique. A video critique will be returned. Critiquing is optional.
  • This Week’s Resources:
    • Liz Osbourne: Luxe, Calme et Volupté, Small Watercolors by Elizabeth Osborne (with gracious permission from local filmmaker and videographer John Thorton)
    • John Singer-Sargent | Street in Venice (Creative Commons Video)
  • Suggested Landscape Artists to Look At:
    • Google Search of Trevor Chamberlain
    • Google Search of J.M.W. Turner’s Skies in His Sketchbooks
  • Demos (Landscapes in Hyperlapse)
    • Hyperlapse Landscape in with Black Watercolor
    • Hyperlapse Landscape in Color with Yellow Undertone for Grass (Blot for Clouds – better paper – better blots!)
• Books:
  • John Singer Sargent’s Watercolors
  • Watercolor Impressionists
  • Learning the Story Behind Paintings – Andrew Wyeth an Introduction by Thomas Hoving

 

All lessons are the property of and copyright of Cheryl Knowles-Harrigan except where attributed.