Art Every Day Month - Post 11

Complementary Colors

Leaves on the Forest Floor - Detail of 11" x 15" Watercolor on paper -
Study of chromatic neutrals from complementary colors




Source photo

 Walking along the trail on an overcast day, I was not so much scuffing my feet in the leaves as simply looking at them. I was impressed with how brilliant the browns and oranges and the occasional yellows were - and how, well, unsaturated, or unnaturally de-saturated, the colours of the other leaves were.

It looked like I was walking through one of these special effects settings on a digital camera, you know the one where you neutralize all the other colors except the one you are interested in showing.

The two complementary colours I used in this painting are orange and ultramarine blue, and their various chromatic neutrals range through ochre tones to khakis and dark dull grays. I layered several coats of watercolor paint, which allowed the pigments to pool and dry on top of each other, and which enhanced some already interesting wet-in-wet effects.

An Apple A Day 25 ... Acrylics - Layering

Apple on a light surface, acrylic layered painting.
Acrylic on paper, 7 in x 10 in.

An Apple A Day 24 ... Acrylics - Layering

Apple on a dark surface, acrylic layered painting.
Acrylic on paper, 7 in x 10 in.

Art Every Day Month - November 16

Graded Washes II - Allowing It To Happen

Today's challenge was graded washes, using Opera magenta, prussian blue and permanent yellow, and allowing the colors to blend on the paper.

My friend Patricia Scarborough says it's good to "allow" things to happen and not force them, to let things happen at their own pace. She'd be good at watercolor painting.

The technique of watercolor is that you dissolve in water the pigments and dyes and binders of the paint, and then you allow the colors to disperse on the paper according to their own characteristics.
Some watercolor paints have particles that settle on the paper and emphasize the texture of the paper or the trail of the brush.
Some are made of floating powders that dry in a dusty layer wherever the water carries them.
Some watercolor paints stain the paper permanently, and some are vulnerable to smudging anytime at the touch of a moist fingertip.

Watercolor paintings keep on painting themselves long after the brushes are rinsed and the rags are hung to dry.
That's the key to understanding watercolor technique.

And the hardest thing about using watercolors is allowing them to respond, on their own, to the physics of the fluid surrounding them.
No meddling, no touching-up, just letting it happen.

No forcing it.
Allowing it to happen.

Art Every Day Month - November 5

Layers: Optical Mixing

For today’s watercolor exploration, I chose three primary colors: magenta, permanent yellow and ultramarine blue.

By applying each layer of color after the previous layer was completely dry, I was able to preserve the opacity of the layers. As the colors dried, they pooled in distinct layers on the surface of the paper, and by various means, I could move them around or lift them off the paper entirely, giving a unique textured effect.

Besides giving texture, these colors provide an effect for the viewer called optical mixing. In optical mixing, the viewer’s eye gathers information about adjacent patches of separate colors, say magenta and ultramarine, and the viewer’s brain mixes the colors into a rich purple, which is what the viewer perceives.

The lessons here are 1) the waiting is as important as the painting, and 2) what you get isn’t always what you see.