NEW ART PROJECTS GOIN ON?

You know, Osso. Now that some of my work is known, not to mention my image, I move from NObody to SOMEbody, for better or for worse. But I'm keeping my handle for other reasons.

Yeah.

JL, I especially like the hot sun through the railing, a new way to convey a subject. Im reminded of many evenings when I lived near Sacramento, in a little nasty town called Stockton Cal. It got that hot ..

you always were somebody JL,

Thank you Vivian you are a jewel among gems.

FM

Amen, Farmerman!

.... and now more????

OK Vivian I will work on scanning and uploading more of JLN's work tonight. I copy and pasted your instructions re how to post them in the forum and Little k has kindly offered to allow me to use her web site at MSN instead of the Realm.

So hopefully by tomorrow there will be more of JL No Body to look at.

JD,

I wait to see if my favorite gets posted...
(the women in black, not related to recent war protests.)

ok, i'm totally new to the world of painting, but i like it all the more so. i always meddled into arts and crafts, but was never patient enough to take a class or anything. it started with a card - christmas card, then another, then i thought i'd do something bigger... so, here are the cards and two paintings i did. cards and the tree with a bird are watercolors, the figures on the beach are oil and acryllic. don't know what to do next, don't really have time for any classes, but would still like to learn more about techniques. any suggestions on where to look? online, or some good books for beginners... anything.

if anyone knows any good websites, so that i can self-educate myself in all of my free time, that'd be so wonderful. i need educatin.

calling osso, farmerman, vivien, colorbook, anyone...

osso?

Im sorry dag , I dont know any websites that give instruction. Most instruction requires critique and assignments and practice and solutions to problems.


that third work, dont lose that wetness in your watercolor. It takes many people years to develop a good wet look. Another minor point, I like to use a combination of indigo and French ultramarine in my skies for the blue, and then repeat some of the ground colors in very light washes in separate areas of the sky
When you think of it like photoshop, that painting has 3 layers
Foreground and subject and the wood, the mid ground (your strongest rendering area) and then the sky.

Many times if you paint the midground, then the foeground, and then build the sky around each of these others(dont make a single wash but paint in between the tree limbs) thatll make your branches pop out even more.

Do you feel comfortable with watercolor? They can be unforgiving , and,
FARMERMANS ONLY ART LESSON TIP- Be quick to let go of a watercolor that aint working for you.In most cases, you cant fix it without making it muddy or loing that vibrant paper peeking through, which gives watercolors that life and brilliance. I dont even use the backs. I paint studies on 90 or even 72 pound paper, but when Im ready to commit, I use 300 lb smoother surface paper. or Bristol board

Hi Dag - I've pm'd you some info

did you want some crit and feedback?

The trees are beautifully simple and understated

The rather surreal one at the top - watch your light source - the shadows are going in different directions, which doesn't read right - I'd look at the work of some of the surrealists if you fancy going that route. It has an other wordly feel.

The bottom one is interesting, looking through the branches with the interesting negative spaces.

What I would suggest is simply playing with watercolours a little before starting another complete painting.

experiment with putting a thin thin glaze of water on the paper (only about 3-4 inches wide/deep as this is playing) and then try putting a smooth wash of colour on - see how the wet paper helps the paint spread.

Now try the same thing but change colours a couple of times as you travel down the wet glaze.

Now do the same thing on dry paper and feel the difference,

With trees and things, have the colours you see in them ready mixed so that you can quickly dab a bit of a different colour and drop it next to the ones you've put down and watch how the edges softly merge.

Try glazing - over previously painted pieces very very gently put a wash of another colour over - no going back and forth with the brush, just one stroke and move on - the underneath colour shines through like stained glass, a very different effect from mixing the colours in your palette.

Use the end of your brush to scratch into wet paint and see what happens - it can create lovely effects.

Don't (obviously) work everything wet in wet or it becomes amorphous and unsatisfying, you do variety.

I hope this is some use to you - painting is a language with a rich vocabulary of marks and the wider your vocabulary, the more interesting your paintings will be.

I'd suggest trying to get a second hand copy (out of print) of a book by Jeanne Dobie 'Making Color Sing' - it's a very very good book for colour mixing/colour theory and does really explain how to make your colours sing.

I'd also Google Kurt Jackson and see if you like his work - I love it and he has the widest vocabulary of mark making and his work is so wonderfully evocative of the places he paints.

Oh and regarding colour mixing - my classes have found it really useful when I gave them exercises on mixing complementaries - see what lovely colours Alizarin crimson and Viridian make - a lovely rich burgundy, through almost black and then into a rich deep conifer green according to the proportions.

Enough lecturing! I just hope some of this is helpful

keep posting

Vivien

Theres a bunch of old out of print watercolor rendering books by a now dead artist named Ted Kautsky. He admits that much of a watercolorists best works are really "controlled disasters".

Good ideas from vivien, just fussing with colors and getting the feel of what they do on wet and dry paper, or color on dry paper and then hit with a mist from a spray bottle.
The Tom Lynch books have all the "tricks" that one can play on watercolors, (additives, glazes, salt, use of aluminum foil, etc etc) but get your colors in a comfort zone as vivien said.

I use her green and red mix to make my blacks for conifers and shadow because the black has much more depth than does a simple Paynes grey or lamp black. Both of these tend to be flat looking.

oh boy, i need to learn the new lingo first! all i have is a bunch of inks, and a bunch of oil colors. well and brushes. and that's as far as my knowledge goes. i will need to get at least one of those books, obviously, as i don't know a thing. my main problem is impatience, i want to paint instead of practicing techniques and figuring out what works how. on the other hand, when i'm on the roll, i can sit for hours and days and not budge, but it has to be a project or else i don't last. so, my first stop will be self-discipline, and toying around with paints and inks that i have. by the way, i only have a few, just the basics. some colors you mentioned i never even heard of. i suppose i should stock up first? oh boy, well, i am excited anyway. off to look for those books!

so what medium were the paintings you showed? I'd assumed they were watercolours.

You do need a small range of colours to start with - a warm and cool of each of the primaries - good starting point there could be ultramarine and cerulean blues, lemon and cadmium yellows, cadmium red and alizarin crimson - then earth colours burnt umber and burnt sienna and then viridian which is a lovely peacock green which is great in mixes. Then as you progress you can add to this with things like magenta - useful if you paint flowers and it mixes with other colours to make lovely singing subtles. I also like cobalt, prussian and pthalo blues to add to this list later, permanent rose, rose madder alizarin and several others that I can't think of off the top of my head. They aren't essential, just nice to have. I prefer to mix my own blacks as they then have hints of colour to them and are more interesting.

You'll also need big brushes as well as small for putting down larger areas of colour freely - with oils this isn't a problem because you can use brushes from your local DIY store - the ones meant for varnish which have longer suppler bristles are particularly nice I've found.

Inks can be more difficult as they often stain and can't be lifted out - but they do have a lovely quality so don't let that put you off.

Oh dear what have you started?! it's an expensive addiction!



you can make your exercises into mini paintings to add interest - just don't add the pressure of creating a 'finished piece' some may well be nice enough to be called finished pieces, though small.

and yes, i especially need to play with watercolors, they are tricksy. with oils, when i don't like something, i just plain paint over. grrrrr. the backgrounds are impossible to do right. the foreground is impossible to paint in last. it is just impossible all around. grrrrr.