3/10/08

SEEING SLOWLY & CAREFULLY

Happy Birthday to Suzanne G:-) today, who's looking forward to learning more about painting reflective surfaces like glass. This painting's for her to study. Check out the shapes created by the darks and light values. Check out the placement of the darks and lights. Examine the edges carefully.

Some edges are sharp, hard. Some are soft, fading away. Some values literally disappear into another value, never having an edge.

Seeing what is there is so critcal in making something look real on a flat piece of paper. We all tend to observe what's around us fairly well. But I think the trick to painting realistically is not to just observe, but to carefully see and slowly look at the shapes, values, and their edges, then paint what we've seen. Keeping the really white shapes pure white helps a bunch in creating the depth in a watercolor. Painting really good darks where it's the darkest gives great dimension to the reflective surface, too.

At the end of this month, we have a special demo planned for Thursday morning's class on reflective surfaces. I'm looking forward to it. Painting glass and brass is easy to do as long as you look slowly and see where the edges and values are. We'll make it look REAL, three dimensional. Wish you all could be in class.

"APPLESAUCE SOON?" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 10 x 22" Collected

3 comments:

Dawn said...

another stunning painting, I wish I could come to class and watch the master paint! again lovely! and Happy Birthday to Suzanne G!

About said...

Oh we ALL wish we could be in class too!!! What fun to work with a group of like minded people, learning and experimenting and cheering each other on! This is a wonderful painting. I like that while your work is realistic, it is still 'painterly'...beautiful.

Carol Carter said...

your work and your blog are stunning! i especially like the variety and depth of your subjects. you are a very accomplished artist! i look forward to the workshop...

happy painting.

carol