Ways with Watercolor by Ted Kautzky

Author:Ted Kautzky
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486138329
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

In painting Picture 1, the sky was done first, using a mixture of raw sienna and French blue and applying the color with direct full brush strokes on the dry paper surface. In this case, I did not previously wet the paper. Beginning at the top left corner, there was more raw sienna in the mixture, but as the wash progressed, plenty of blue was introduced in the clouds. You can see on page 50 how the proportions of the two colors varied as they were mingled through the sky area. This big wash was carried right down to the horizon, disregarding the mountains but painting around the silhouette of the house and barn, ending with a warm mixture carried across the distant field down to the row of bushes. The mountains were then put in as a superimposed wash, mostly blue, and the middleground field was painted in proper value, using the raw sienna with the Hooker’s green. At this point the picture looked as suggested by the black and white reproduction at the top of page 49. (Incidentally, the half-way stages shown throughout this book were repainted after the entire painting in each case had been completed. This I had to do because it was not convenient to stop in the middle of each subject to have photographs taken for reproduction. I mention the matter lest you detect some slight differences between the washes and delineation in the half done versions and the finals. These differences are unimportant, but they might cause you some puzzlement if you did not know the reason for them. I would not want you to be worried!)

Returning now to Painting 1, the next step was to paint the stone fence and the foreground field. French blue and raw sienna were used for this, with plenty of the blue to give the dark values required for the stones. I used knife strokes, as you may notice, to model the stones while the wash was still wet, and a fairly dry brush for the grasses and weeds. The fenceposts and trees were done with a strong, dark, pigment mixture and finally the buildings at the point of interest were painted with a minimum of detail and with a bit of white paper left for sparkle.

The White Mountain scene, which forms Picture 2, was begun with the sky painted directly on a dry surface. Burnt umber and French blue were the pigments this time. They were mingled with the brush fairly full as I modeled the big cloud, leaving a few bits of white paper to suggest touches of sun hitting its upper edges. Of course, I used care in following the profile of the mountain top, for its silhouette is important to its identity. The sky wash, as before, ended very light at the bottom. When it was dry, the darker slopes of the mountain itself were painted with blue to which a little umber was added to gray it a bit. Dry-brush strokes were pulled lightly across the edges of the snowy areas to simulate the effect of trees showing through.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.