Daily Painting
Greetings! I thought I’d share last week’s paintings. These would be the final watercolor and ink paintings of December and 2015!
My intention was to show you all eight watercolor and ink paintings then move on.
Well, the world of blogging has evolved. It’s no longer enough just to post pictures and move on. One can, but the work has more meaning if put in context. Oh, yes, and I torment myself about meaning. 🙂
So, about the ink and watercolor studies. Why?
Demo Prep
One reason I’ve been asked to do a demo next August for the Southern Oregon Society of Artists; I want to do the best job painting that I can. So, I’ve embarked on a schedule of daily studies. I evaluate the studies looking at the following:
- Looking at the overall value pattern – lights and darks. For example, the paintings on this page are mainly middle tone. The darkest dark is about midway on the light to dark scale. I need to work on achieving good dark tones when needed.
- Use of ink. You might notice that sometimes I use the ink primarily as an outlining tool. On others, I use ink cross-hatching to support the tonal values. I’m experimenting to see what I like.
- Drawing skill. How accurate am I in drawing what I see?
Drawing Talent & Camping Trips
My second reason for doing these studies is that this is the kind of work I do for my “Drawing Talent” (Talent, OR) project and while on camping trips. Talent is where I live.
I like to be able to draw and paint my environment. I figure the skills I need to work on include the following:
- Focus: The ability to concentrate solely on the task at hand.
- Speed & Accuracy: Draw and paint what I see as quickly and skillfully as possible
- Tone & Color: Work on learning the vocabulary of tone and color.
Over-arching Issue?
Improve drawing and painting skills.
Painting Plan
Initially, I was going to paint color studies using blue and orange. It seemed like a logical next step after painting in red and green for the week before Christmas. However, after the first study, I switched to yellow and violet. Maybe the yellow paint tube just spoke to me. 🙂
Results
I am pleased with the exercise of creating these small studies. I think they’re worthwhile. On to doing more!
Yes, I’ll continue the watercolor and ink studies. I’m working on a theme for the first week in January!
Thank you for stopping by; I hope you enjoyed the work!