November 19 - Moonlight Madness - Wet-In-Wet

We're all set for moonlight madness next week! See attached image-6013. We'll use the wet-in-wet technique, learning about wetness of paper merging with thickness of pigment for each stage of the painting.

Recommended: let's try it first with your darkest pigment (if you have a Paynes Gray or Neutral tint, this is the time to use it). Then we can do it again in colors.

(Note: tube paints only for this technique, not pan paints.)

Suggest you prepare 2 sheets of paper and work small (maybe just tear your regular paper in half). You'll want to work on a water-safe surface - masonite or even plastic sheeting...let me know if you think you might need advice on this).

Practice Warmup - Moonlight Madness - Wet-In-Wet

Thought we would start off Thursday with a short "wet in wet" warmup exercise. Take a small - 6x6 ish - piece of practice paper, draw 2 rows of 3 boxes. Have your paint box primed (spray/rewet your pigments) and any 3 primaries ready. Here's what we'll do:

Wet all the boxes. Try to wet them evenly, not soupy, but clearly wet.

Make a thick (milk to cream) puddle of each of your primaries. Paint a line of each in the 1st box of top row.

Make a thin puddle (lemonade to skim milk) of each of the same primaries. Paint a line of each in 1st box of bottom row.

Wait a minute or less, repeat in middle boxes. Wait or minute or less and repeat in 3rd boxes.

Observe how the paint reacts to the wetness levels...!

(Then I painted a thick mix line diagonally thru each one). =

Here's my practice one attached.

November 12 - Hot and Cold

Well, warm and cool! We'll continue our color play, using a warm and a cool triad of primaries (the "split primary" system).

First we'll play with mixing colors.

Then, we thought it would be fun to try a simple painting using the two different color schemes. So, you could pick one we've done recently (3 pears, for example), or draw a simple image...bananas and a pear or apple are always fun and colorful! Draw it out twice, and also have some scrap paper handy for color play.

November 5 - Mixing Colors

What wonderful work came out of last week's color play! Let's continue that this week!

Let's take our "colorful object" on to the next step... "complementary grays".

So let's have another 4-squares fun time on Thursday! Quarter your page and draw your object in each square.

If you were with us last week, it might be fun to try the same pairs of complements you used, but this time we'll make the background a muted version of the complements.

I'd like to also answer any individual questions you might have stored up... on your colors, your brushes, composing.. anything!

Attached are:

2 pages of the Jeanne Dobie book showing the glow you can give pure colors by surrounding them with a gray leaning towards the complement.

My apple studies from last week with the added middle section of slightly muted complement backgrounds.

My triad background studies from Pears With Folds... just to show variety available with any triad!

And a wonderful example from nature... the Philadelphia Horticultural Society garden a couple blocks away... see how those red-orange leaves glow against the green-blue foliage!