Blog

Ron Kasprisin is Professor Emertius UW

and a Signature Member of the Northwest Watercolor Society

He lives on Whidbey Island, NW of Seattle

Play

Yes, play. "Play" is a free activity without failure with no winner or loser, competition, where the rules or starting points change as play evolves. Play is where skills and confidence are born and nurtured, without the fear of achievement or comparison.

If you approach the act of painting as a playful activity, you can make great strides in your painting experiences. So let us start there, no comparisons to anyone else's work, we are all different; and no competition!

Two Places to Start: 1) a sketch/scribble book; and 2) beginning approaches to painting

The Sketch/Scribble Book:  I add the word "scribble" for those of you who are hesitant about sketching, so let us just call them "thoughtful scribbles"; Why? because you dont have to be an accomplished artist or designer to visually think through how you will approach a painting. A lesson learned: years ago when taking a workshop with Eric Weigardt, he watched me do a prep sketch of a subject and chuckled: (paraphrasing), Ron as an architect your sketches are great and they are too much! Wow, I thought, Why? Eric explained that with so much detail my tendency when painting was to focus on the many individual shapes instead of painting the larger picture, clusters of shapes, less detail and more overall composition. In another long-time-ago workshop with James Godwin Scott of St. Louis, I watched James, in the field, simply draw a few lines that indicated the overall movement and direction of his emerging composition. Wow again. SoOOOOOOO. your sketch/scribble can be detailed and exquisite or simple, strong with direction.

For those wanting to improve their sketching skills, an important aspect of painting, i suggest reading Betty Edwards "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" available in used editions in many bookstores, just read the sections on pure and modified contour drawing as no "perspective" analytics are involved.  You only draw what you see!

Below are some examples of sketches from both my travels and my visual thought processes in preparation for painting:

The Port Gamble Sketch is more of a field documentation sketch. If i can make this work i will also download sketches that are visual thinking sketches.

What Does the Sketch Accomplish? Composition and Value

You can always just start a painting without any significant preparation or forethought, we all do it and it can be fun. Establishing a starting point and direction with composition and value is also a way to prepare you for the playfulness of painting once you start.

Composition: Composition is the bringing together of shapes into a harmonious whole that essentially has as story, whether simply representing something as it is or delving deeper into how the artist shapes a composition to relay a message.

there are basic principles of composition that i will go into detail next blog that help us arrange and structure or assemble the composition. Examples include "diagonal movement and direction", "repetition with variety", "cross structure", "radial burst" and so on.

We will get there, not to worry.

Value: Value is the relationship of light patterns, dark to light, etc.; and, value brings mood and drama to the composition. For example, the eye will go to the point of the highest value contrast, dark against light; the mood softens and the drama lessens when i place a middle value next to a light value or middle next to a dark as the contrast is less, AHA! remember that team!

So the incorporation of composition and value, without color, begin to emerge the essence of the painting with compositional harmony and direction (around a center of interest), and with added mood and drama through value patterns. again, dont fret we will get there.

Some composition/value sketches of selected topics:

Beginning on the left, same image of the old Olympia Brewery in Olympia WA with an upward compositional movement with two very different value patterns applied to the same image; the middle sketches are of an old building in Coupeville WA with six different value patterns experimented into the same composition; and finally, oysters and apples with the strong darks and lights exhibited in the apple sketch.

AND, if the value pattern is not working, CHANGE THE COMPOSITION; if the composition is not working, CHANGE THE VALUE PATTERN. more on this in a dedicated blog.

Let Us Play at Painting Watercolor!

Three Basic Approaches:

there are many ways to approach a watercolor painting and the more experience you develop, the more points of departure you will find. Starting out let us begin with three basic approaches and their variations:

Dry on Dry: all this means is that you are taking a fairly dry brush with pigment to dry paper and this is used in representational art (realism), detailing, etc. and if you really like this approach i suggest switching to acrylics.

Wet on Dry: this is called the "direct method" and is my preferred way of painting. It consists of taking a wet (charged) brush and pigment to dry paper. there is a lot of control and yet the ability to be flexible and fluid with your washes.

Wet on Wet: this actually was developed in the southwestern US by artists painting in the hot absorptive sun where washes disappeared as soon as they hit the paper. sooooo, the paper is prewet and as the water seeps into and is absorbed by the paper, the a charged brush with pigment is applied to the drying wash. with experience, the artist learns what happens when pigment charges are put into varying degrees of dampness in the paper.

A key point: this is all about WATERcolor. Here is why:

in every painting activity, the medium--what actually carries the pigment is the key to understanding how to work WITH the medium. Okay?

Oil painting: oil is viscous and slow moving if at all, highly controllable

Pastel: clay, an opaque chalk like substance that does not move, not fluid, and can be manipulated with cloth, fingers, tools etc. to smear and smooth it on surfaces

crayons: wax based, again, not fluid and semi transparent, easily manipulated with pressure, easy to blend via pressure with color buildups

acrylics: water based using opaque pigments, fluid but less transparent, and lights can cover darks due to opacity

watercolor: water is fluid, moves with gravity, evaporates into air depending on humidity, absorbs into paper and there it is!!!!!! WATER

Okay i will send out some exercises to get you going tomorrow or monday before we leave on our trip. get ready, absorb the material and get ready to play. ron k