Another great project to familiarize yourself with color mixing and the properties of certain colors is to create a painting with two compliments using a black and white photo as reference. In this case I painted from a B&W photo of a tea pot using Ultramarine Blue and Azo Orange. Ultramarine being on the warm side and Azo orange having some yellow in it, they created some nice warm tones. I tried to mix mostly grays and highlight with some pure color for contrast. Try it with three sets of compliments, blue/orange, purple/yellow, red/green. It's fun and great watercolor practice.
Experimenting with edges
Using a simple object as a subject (fruit, pear, cup, vase, etc.) as reference,
paint 5 small (approximately 5"-7") paintings of each edge below.
Apply large wash areas.
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| Edge to edge |
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| Over lapping edges |
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| Wet in wet blurry edges |
Wet the entire 7" square evenly with clean water, allowing it to sit until the area has a slightly mat finish. You want the water to soak into the paper for a minute or two. Apply a color to your object/foreground with a brush loaded with color. Use lots of pigment, not much water! Using another brush, quickly apply the background while the paper is still wet. Again lots of pigment! (Watercolor dries lighter in value and intensity) Your edges between the object and background should be soft and undefined.
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| With line |
Draw your object using a pencil, brush or marker. Then apply paint.
5) Incorporate all 4 edges above. I'm leaving that to your imaginations.
The purpose of this assignment is to explore various ways watercolor can be applied to define edges of objects. Or not define them! Consider lost edges, particularly in shadow areas in future paintings.
