5th Street Studio

Today’s painting requires a little bit of drawing but the composition is pretty straight forward. Make sure you like your drawing and use a slightly smaller brush than normal this will give you some extra control.  By the way, I would use a round brush flats will just make getting the round form that much harder.

Wash the sky with a grayed blue color, I used ultramarine blue and a small amount of burnt sienna, leave a few interesting white shapes for an impression of clouds.  Run a wash of a raw sienna mix which has a little portion of the sky grey mixed into it.  Cut around the top edge of the cows, make it a good contour, really get a feeling for this edge, it is important.

Brush a second wash on the background hill with a green color, I used olive green, keep the edge of the cows. Paint the cows with a fairly strong mix of burnt sienna, and ultramarine blue, but these are not grey cows they are white faced herefords, they are a beautiful rust colored brown.   Darken the form of the cows making sure to leave a feeling of light on the top edge.  I put a cool grey on their faces with a hint of eyes and mouths but this is not a portrait.  Less is more, I promise.  Add the shadows underneath them. A few details, fences, weeds, and darker passages in the field, and trees.  It should be loose but with a nice feeling of detail.

This is a painting all about the small piece of light or white paper that moves along through the center of interest, it slips in and out of the buildings, weeds and trees.  White shapes should have a variety of edges, soft, hard and texture and have movement or direction.  Try not to make them just a flat boring stripe across the middle of your painting.  Entertain the viewer inside of the shape, putting texture, thoughtful details, and interesting color accents.  It is a hard thing to learn to do but well worth the effort in transparent watercolor.  As always, use a really expressive brush and try to establish the form of the objects with the type of brush marks used.  This is just as important in the very first marks of the painting as in the last details.  I actually believe you would be better off worrying more about the brush work, and value and edge control than using all of the bright expressive colors available to us today.

I want you to really make this a colorful watercolor and pay close attention to the reflections in the water and the movement across the surface of the water.  This feature is created by linear brush marks that dance across the surface, with some pieces of texture but very little roughness.  If there is too much roughness there will not be any reflections.  Just hint at the people the are a blob of color for the heads, a broad side of the brush mark for the torso and just some small little downward marks for the legs.  Keep the figures simple and yet believable.  Try to express the figure at about 6 heads high and their bodies about 3 heads wide.  Have fun.

Okay so I having some fun here with a quick sketch I made with a nice soft pencil, I wanted the emphasis to be on the posture of the two women, especially the one leaning away from the other person.  It is almost like the words are moving her back.  Very fun.  The painting is not memorable but as I always say they don’t have to be they just have to be an honest and straight forward  approach to a unique composition.  Get in the habit of drawing daily and really working on the lines and gestures of the things around you.  Learn a shorthand interpretation of things that you find interesting.  I am not too concerned that the woman on the right has a big head lots of people do and maybe she is just having a big hair day.  I wish I could have a big hair day but now I can have big forehead day.  Sketch in the figures using a soft pencil it doesn’t have to be a dark one like a 6b but just one that puts a lot of graphite on the paper.  I want to see the drawing. work the colors from the figures into the background and leave white paper on the edges of the women.  This is not a figure painting with all of the details in place it is a composition with fun shapes and vibrant colors. Big Difference. Paint the background cutting around the figures and then follow up with some darker passages on the figures.  Restate the drawing, try not to completely copy the first drawing just emphasize a few contours. A few more dark accents and fun little marks and this is a done deal.