Watercolor Painting for Dummies (42 page)
Read Watercolor Painting for Dummies Online
Authors: Colette Pitcher
Tags: #Art, #Techniques, #Watercolor Painting, #General
Okay, after all this drawing, how about a little painting? (This is, after all, a book about painting.) This project allows you to practice your drawing and shading skills as well as work with perspective. Then you get to give your paintbrush a workout as well.
The farm scene in this project is a collection of cubes (buildings), pyramids (roofs), and cylinders (silos). The scene uses two-point perspective. Should you need to draw your own two-point perspective, measure the roof line and the ground line and see where they would converge. All horizontal lines also travel to this point: the windows, doors, siding slats, vents, bricks, and shingles.
1.
Trace and transfer the outline in Figure 8-16 onto an 8-x-11-inch piece of watercolor paper.
See the steps in the “Transferring your drawing to your watercolor paper” if you need a refresher on how to get the image out of the book and onto your paper.
2.
Activate your paints.
Make a puddle of ultramarine blue, one of burnt sienna, and a mix of both.
3.
Paint the sides of the buildings that are all on the same plane (see Figure 8-17).
Instead of painting the sides one color, make them more interesting by making a graded wash — a transition of cool to warm (see Chapter 6 for more on painting gradations). A 1/2-inch flat brush makes painting rectangles, like the barn, quick and easy. Cool is blue, and the warm is the burnt sienna. They create gray when mixed equally.
Figure 8-16:
An outline of cubes, pyramids, cylinders, and shadows in perspective.
Use a pointed round brush to paint around the fence posts, windows, and doors (negative painting — see Chapter 4) to leave them white.
Figure 8-17:
Build some barn siding.
4.
Paint the silo (see Figure 8-18).
This cylinder shape uses burnt sienna for the reflected light and ultramarine blue for the core shadow. Keep the edges wet and soft.
5.
Paint the eave under the leading edge of the barn roof (see Figure 8-18).
Make a graduated stripe of ultramarine blue at the top to burnt sienna.
6.
Paint the cupola (see Figure 8-18).
The
cupola
is the ornamental top on the barn roof. It’s a collection of cylinders and cubes. Paint in blue and brown as you did with the silo and barn.
Figure 8-18:
Add a cylindrical silo and fill in some of the barn’s features.
7.
Paint the roofs (see Figure 8-19).
Paint the roof of the barn and the smaller building with a diluted burnt sienna. Pay particular attention to the edges so they can be seen. Look to use blue next to brown (burnt sienna) or vice versa so there’s a contrast between edges.
8.
Paint the front of the barn and the details (see Figure 8-19).
Use burnt sienna with a lot of water to paint the front of the barn. This will define the right-hand side. Use diluted ultramarine blue for windows and shadows under roof overhangs. Lift out the fence by painting clear water over the rails and blotting with a towel.
Figure 8-19:
Raise the roof and color in the details!
9.
Paint the foreground (see Figure 8-20).
Paint a road using dry, rough texture. Notice the perspective in the road. It’s larger where it’s closer in the foreground. The severe curve also gives the illusion of depth. Paint some yellows, oranges, and greens loosely for grass around the road. I added a green tree to define the silo and house-like building.
I used a dark mixture of blue and burnt sienna to paint some of the fence dark. The cupola casts a shadow of diluted ultramarine blue.
Figure 8-20:
Add the foreground to finish out your painting.
In this part . . .
T
hese chapters give you tips and instructions on painting inanimate objects, lifelike animals, more than one landscape, more than two seascapes, and just a whole lot of painting projects.
Animal, vegetable, or mineral — whatever you long to paint, these chapters show you how.
In This Chapter
Seeing what makes up a still life
Realizing that surfaces are like underwear — beneath it all
Setting up your still life
Resolving a couple of issues
Painting with Pitcher
A
group of preschool children came into the gallery for an art tour the other day. It was raining, and the kids hadn’t been able to go out for recess. Needless to say, the group was full of energy. “Who likes to do art?” I asked to get their attention. Immediately, 20 little hands shot up into the air. “Who knows about different types of paintings? Everyone show me, if you were a still life, what would you look like?” Every hand went to their sides, and the children stood at rigid attention.
Brilliant,
I thought,
I’ll use that one again!
Like the kids, you know that
still life
is a category of painting that involves subjects that do not move and never will move. Everyday items you find around the house can be arranged and painted as a still life. The subjects won’t talk back, won’t fidget, and usually can be eaten for dinner. What more can an artist ask for?
Items you can use to create a still life are: food (fruit is a popular choice), kitchen items, fabric, hobby items, sports gear, flowers, and antiques and collectibles. You can choose from an unending variety of items and combinations of those items. As you explore the still-life genre, you can choose pieces that symbolize deeper meanings and let the viewer see into your personality.
In this chapter, you make still-life arrangements. You’ll think about backgrounds and surfaces, and consider specific elements like flowers, fabric folds, patterns, and more.
