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Watercolor Skills Workbook - EXCERCISES

  • March 30th, 2005

Projects and exercise division. Clearly about learning to use a medium more effectively for beginner to advanced intermediate?

Realism

Color

  • Exercise: Palette Layout
  • Exercise: Combine Colors
  • Project: Still life w/ pure Primaries
  • Project: Still life w/ alternate Primaries
  • Exercise: Tertiary mixes from complimentary pairs (3 pigment colors)
  • Project: Still life using blue and orange (painters work to color schemes)
  • Exercise: Color recognition (can you tell what is primary or secondary)
  • Exercise: Mix and Match strips from master works (can you make the colors, then apply them to a drawing or BW photo)

Drawing

  • Project: Drawing a still life on mirror tiles (benchmark)
  • Exercise: Drawing a silhouette
  • Project: Drawing a silhouette of buildings (skyline)
  • Exercise: Measuring with pencil and thumb
  • Exercise: Drawing a bottle using the box-ing up method
  • Exercise: Assessing angles
  • Exercise: Working with silhouettes/proportions and angles together
  • Plumb lines/ Spirit levels
  • Project: Painting a still life
  • Gadgets and gizmos – Grid behind object, grid in front of object, view finders, angle measures
  • Exercise: Drawing on Clingfilm (compare drawing to trace on window)

Negative Shapes

  • Exercise: Stack of chairs
  • Exercise: Potted Plant
  • Exercise: Face in mirror
  • Project: Still life – draw the negative spaces, use view finder to complete them
  • Exercise: Checking compositions (with L shaped cut outs, are you using whole space)
  • Exercise: Drawing and painting the negative space of leaves (arrange and trace)
  • Project: Painting a landscape using the layer on method (thinking in terms of color washes)

3-D Form

  • Exercise: Drawing the basic forms
  • Project: Painting a white still life in monochrome washes
  • Project: Using color tone to create form (edges are not a line)
  • Project: Using brush marks to create form in landscape (lines, dots, circular, flat washes, dots of paint, curved brush marks)

Illusion of Space

  • Exercise: making a tonal study (higher contrast in foreground)
  • Project: Painting a monochromatic landscape
  • Project: Creating the illusion of space using color alone (temperature: blue distance/warm-pure foreground, more variety in foreground… START W/COLOR STRIP)
  • Exercise: Use degree of detail and definition to enhance spatial illusion
  • Project: Painting a landscape that includes water
  • Project: Painting a landscape demonstrating the illusion of form and space (how to pick what rule to use – i.e. color or detail or both depending on desired mood)

Beauty

 Composition

  • Exercise: Composing abstract shapes (Use rectilinear, curvilinear, mixed)
  • Project: Producing a painting from a paper collage (use paper in 3-4 tones to create scene and then paint it)
  • Exercise: Copy a master-work (you can trace it first…)
  • Project: ‘Nother still life. Make tonal sketch, pick theme unity arrangement… etc)
  • Project: Landscape (do tonal study, line study, detail sketch,, think about Golden Section)
  • Project: Paint landscape with Artistic License (adding clouds, changing angles)

Creative Color

  • Project: Using color creatively in backgrounds (picking the best foil)
  • Project:  Using color to create mood (or season.. or time of day)
  • Project: Painting a still life using the cool family of colors
  • Project: Painting a still life using the warm family of colors
  • Project: Painting a landscape using the cool family of colors
  • Project: Painting a landscape using the warm family of colors
  • Project: Intensifying realistic Color
  • Project: Reversing Intensifying realistic Color (inverting color field)

Celebrate Medium

  • Exercise: Exploring the qualities of paint. () dribble big brushes, wet/dry… explore
  • Examples of Experimental Techniques: Wet on wet washes, Lifting off, back runs (blotchy), Salt, spattering, wax resist,  textures paper, plastic wrap presses, indents on the paper,.
  • Project: Using Special Effects
  • Exercise: Abstract beginnings using the imagination (start with abstract color washes, pick on and then sketch on it, then roughly finish painting)
  • Project: Developing images from abstract beginnings same as before, bigger.
  • Project: Producing a preconceived image from abstract beginning
  • Project: Adding defination to an abstract or semi-abstract beginning (pencil, richer paint. pen etc)

Personal Vision

Change Subject

  • Exercise: Build up a visual resource collection (she uses a loose leaf photo album)
  • Following an interest or theme
  • Project: Painting a close up view (a series of close up view studies, macro- lens)
  • Project: Painting a view through a window/door (including the frame)
  • Project:  Working in parks, garden and other special places (take studies do paintings)
  • Project: Working from your imagination (using non-visual inspiration – like illustrating a story book. Can find visual resources after find idea)
  • Project:  Painting a special occasion (from memory sketches, etc.)

Change Approach

  • Picking a format that is suitable is fun or changes conceptions
  • Project: Try an elongated format (panorama,)
  • Project: try a square
  • Project: try a vertical landscape
  • Project: make a small painting (miniature)
  • Project: make a large painting (larger than life)
  • Project: Go fast
  • Project: Go slow
  • Project: Paint a landscape in situ
  • Project: Paint landscape in studio
  • Project: Make a drawing first
  • Project:  Experimenting with different surface
  • Project: Combining water color w/ colored pencils
  • Project: Rescue Operation (crayons/pastels)
  • Project: Rescue Operation (crayons/acrylics)
  • Project: Painting assessing changing or keeping (how to cull)

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