May 5th Course Notes

Loosening up exercises - don't forget to use your board at an angle

Exercise 1

• Use 1 colour to paint a graded wash
• Load up a large brush with colour
• Move from left to right in one stroke
• *Dip brush in water but don't wash or wipe off excess on the side of the water container
• Paint left to right each time touching the bottom edge of the previous line of paint (still wet)*
• Repeat from * to * until you reach the bottom of the paper or until you get as far as you need to be
• Colour should be darker at the top than the bottom
• Once you have painted a line avoid going over it again

Exercise 2

• Load up a large brush with fairly dark colour
• Move from left to right in one stroke
• *Dip brush in water but don't wash or wipe off excess on the side of the water container
• Move from left to right in one stroke this time leaving a small gap of paper between one line and the next*
• Repeat from * to *

Exercise 3

• It's important to use a non-staining colour for this exercise - we used Ultramarine (which granulates well also)
• Load up a large brush with fairly dark colour and paint a large area - move from left to right - don't dip the brush into water use more paint
• You are aiming for a solid wash
• Before the paint dries completely remove in areas with kitchn paper
• draw with a sharp stick to get lines
• Dry then drop on more water remove with kichen paper

Project 1 – floral, wet in wet with salt and plastic food wrap

• draw 3 large flower shapes of different sizes 2/3 of the way up the paper (should touch the edges of the painting)
• use ultramarine and viridian in different amounts on the bottom (larger) section place food wrap on one section (don't use over the whole area) Think in diagonals and paint quickly so the paint doesn't dry
• turn painting upsidedown and paint utramarine blue and alizerin (or madder) sprinkle on salt in definate areas (don't sprinkle all over - it's not pizza!)
• put aside & allow to dry naturally ( you can't use the hairdryer as the salt flies off!)
• Decide where you want the centres of the flowers to be.
• paint large centres with clean water before dropping on paynes grey - the edges will blur. You can add more paynes grey if the centres aren't dark enough
• Draw lines from the cetres radiating outwards and a few dots for stamens
• Allow to dry before adding the shadows and 3D effects on the flowers - we used lemon yellow and paynes grey.
• Keep rough - don't think about it too much - don't paint all the shaows the same colour or size

Project 2 - nude, wet in wet, glazes

• wet the paper thouroughly with clean water, then dry areas you want to stay white/paler with kitchen paper.
• drizzle, splash or throw on colour (I used madder and raw sienna)
• Allow to dry naturally or dry with hairdryer before applying the glaze
• cut out and draw around stencil with a water soluble crayon (we used a stylized copy of a Matisse nude)
• glaze the background of the nude (ultramarine and viridian - it's important to use a darker colour than the background colours. yellow glazed over blue won't show up much) with broad free strokes and a very large brush you could add foliage if you wish
• you will notice the underlying washes will be darker but are still visible
• it is important to use transparent colours for glazes, wait for the painting to dry between washes and don't use more than 2 otherwise the washes will go muddy