recent sketches

I found a great book in a used book store by Ernest W. Watson called “Course in Pencil Sketching“. I am going through each exercise to improve my sketching and conceptual approach to sketching. There are some great tips in this book that not only apply to pencil sketching, but to watercolor painting. In both sketching and watercolor the ‘white’ is the paper. Here are a few tips I have picked up so far:

1. make the edge of a shadow where it hits the light spots darker than the rest of the shadow.

2. if there is an dark opening – a door, under a bridge, etc. leave areas of white in it to break up the dark and make it interesting.

3. Look for reflected light in a shadow and leave white.

4. Break up linear areas (like clapboard) with diagonal lines to make interesting.

Here a some of my first sketches I did based on exercises in the book:

House - pencil sketch

House 2 - pencil sketch

Windmill - pencil sketch

Caterpillar – Watercolor Painting

Caterpillar - Watercolor Painting

This watercolor painting of a black swallowtail caterpillar is based on a photo I took last summer. we saw a butterfly lay some eggs on our dill and we followed the progress of the caterpillar hatching and then going through subsequent instars until it got to this size.

This painting was done mainly with three new pigments I bought last month – rose madder, naples yellow, and manganese blue. All of these are very airy and transparent. I slowly built this painting up in layers of washes. I think this is my best painting so far overall as far as being a complete whole. I am finding that if I have a plan and just work it out slowly then everything works itself out. Also, if I just copy what is there in the photo then the ‘realism’ part of it works out ok. It is when I try and put in what I think I see that it loses the realism part. The key is slowly building the dark values and leaving the white of the paper for the light values.

Winslow Homer’s Bible – “Chevreul on Color”

I am reading a book about Winslow Homer called Watercolors by Winslow Homer: the Color of Light. There is one chapter which goes into detail about how Homer studied a book by Michel-Eugene Chevreul called Chevreul on Color. Chevreul (wiki link here) was a chemist and director of a dye factory. He did research to discover why some dyes looke washed out. He discovered that the dyes weren’t fading; the proximity to some dyes next to those of other colors caused optical effects in which the dyes appeared faded. Chevreul’s book (link to google book copy here) was Homer’s “Bible”.

Michel-Eugene Chevreul

Anyway, the chapter in the book about Winslow Homer (by Judith Walsh) goes into detail about Chevreul’s color theories and how Homer incorporated them into his paintings. It is a great chapter because it gives valuable advice in a simple way that can be applied to your own artworks. I was planning on putting the points of interest here, but I quickly realized that I can’t do it justice in a few sentences. I highly recommend that you get a copy of the book and study that chapter – it will be well worth it.

Chevy 3800 – Watercolor

Chevy 3800 Watercolor

This watercolor is based on photo I took of an old abandoned truck in Hadley. I could probably put in some more detail to try and make it pop a little more, but I’m ready to move on to something new. I added the white highlites with gouache. I was using china white, but it was too transparent. Then I got the idea to try and scratch the paint off the paper, but the china white was kind of tacky and didn’t come off easily. I don’t like using resist.

I transfered the drawing to the paper, but when I laid down my first wash it pulled up a lot of the pencil, so some of the lettering/shadows is a little rough. This painting was a good challenge – I’ll probably go back at some point and put some more detail some day.

I am now working on a painting of a caterpillar using the three new paints I bought – rose madder, naples yellow, and manganese blue. These paints seem very transparent, so this next painting will be delicate.

The Virtual Paintout – Mexico City

I did this painting to relax in between working on my “Chevy 3800″ watercolor (which will be done in a few days I hope).

This painting is for a great website called The Virtual Paintout where every month artists are invited by Bill Guffey to visit a city on google maps street view, and make a painting of a scene they find interesting. This month the location is Mexico City. Apart from presenting many exciting art possibilities, Mexico City is a fascinating place – and I spent hours roaming around looking at the city and environs. I decided to paint a watercolor of the Museo Jose Luis Cuevas where there were giant sculptures on the street.

I’ve been reading a book about Winslow Homer and his watercolors. It is very inspiring. There is an interesting chapter that mentions how Winslow studied a book called Chevreul on Colors. I will look into this more.