My Week with Hazel Soan - Final Day

Apologies for the delay in  adding the last day of Hazel's workshop... I have been sorting out my wonderfully exciting workshop next week in the UK with Jean Haines.  Jean, as many people know, has been a huge inspiration to me and my art. Not only is she a wonderfully talented philanthropic artist, but has a heart of gold...she is a warm-hearted, effervescent soul who loves what she does and is happiest when she can share her love of watercolour. I'm looking so forward to my trip with anticipation as well as excitement.


Getting back to Hazel's 4th day ....

We extended our learning to 'painting animals in watercolour' on the last day. Hazel stared a wonderful demo for us on painting Elephants. I unfortunately discovered as I sat down to watch that I'd forgotten to charge my camera battery and was unable to document her demonstrations. I was kindly loaned some pictures taken by a fellow artist Sylvia Coward of the final day's painting session.

Here we used various combinations of (transparent )pigment to create our ellies. The three basic colours which Hazel used were yellows, blues and reds. I always thought that Elephants were grey or, at least shades of grey. But Hazel with her three shades stressed that tone and not colour was the important factor in creating wonderful watercolour. Her use of these colours were excellent for achieving the correct tones. These lovely tones were created in layers or washes.

 

In my first sorry painting I used Yellow Ochre- but watered it down as it's a semi transparent colour, Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson. No preliminary sketch.

 

The next Ellie was more in proportion.... here we used Indian Yellow, Alizarin Crimson and Prussian Blue. In that order. Added blues to the shadow areas gave the elephant form and depth.

My final attempt with variation of tone was the use of Raw Umber, Prussian Blue and Carmine. Again using the three transparent colours, adding the red as a last wash. Mixing in a little darker values of the palette for the shadows.


Here is one of  Hazel's Elephants..... please note the depth in her ellies with the correct placement of darks.

 Photograph courtesy Silvia Coward

We than went on to painting a herd of  elephants. Hazel's subtle build up of colours to create tone on all the elephants was interesting as none of the ellies were painted with the exacting colours, but attention was placed on the tone, ranging from dark in the foreground to soft muted colours for the ellies in the distance, still only using yellows, reds and blues. Placing the various colours, one wash at a time slowly building up tone. She added the background foliage using the same colours on her palette to highlight the light on the backs of the elephants and to bring them forward.

Softening the base of the feet with water gave the illusion of dust been kicked up as the ellies walked by.(photo Silvia Coward)


Here was my group painting, pity I added red in the background foliage.. that just killed the depth of my painting.

I thoroughly enjoyed my Elephant painting exercise.... I can see myself painting lots more of these guys !


Lastly, our final demo for the day was the lioness portrait. Here Hazel used her paper of choice- Khadi Paper, which is cotton rag paper made in India. It has a wonderful rough finish and perfect for textures. The colours come out more vibrant too.

She sketched her lion's head on the paper to follow the features more accurately. In this demo she said we were no longer painting shapes but painting inside a block, picking out the features one by one. Starting with the ears, a wet in wet section was painted, dropping in burnt sienna to the light ochre wash and the darks were then added, using Winsor violet. She lifted out areas of highlights with a clean damp brush then added sepia for more definition. She moved onto the face, again starting with ochre and burnt sienna, building up to the darks. The lioness' chin was next, after the ochre and b sienna was added a darker shadow area was painted in, using W violet. By dampening the paper inside the white bearded area with water and dropping in Winsor violet underneath leaves a lovely soft edge.The outline of the eyes were painted using sepia, softened first with a stroke of water on the outside so the eye wasn't left with a hard outline. She dropped in ochre and B sienna into the eye and a drier mix of sepia for the pupil but leaving the white highlight.

Again, photograph courtesy of  Silvia

My lioness from a photo in my collection... not at all happy with the end result as I had overworked it. I realised I had painted it too light and went back in with stronger pigments.... Big mistake!!!! But, here it is anyway!!!!!!!!

My workshop with Hazel Soan was truly a memorable one. A warm friendly bubbly persona wrapped up in a tiny slender frame, Hazel is overflowing with artistic knowledge and enthusiasm.
This is not only an account of what I witnessed through detailed instruction as the inspiration I found and the sense of  urgency at which I wanted to pick up a brush and paint. Thank you Hazel!

My week with Hazel Soan - Day 2 and 3

Day 2... ANIMALS.....

I was quite eager to see how Hazel painted her animals. Her wonderful Book, African Watercolours is a book I purchased a while back and have been itching to find out how she achieves her wonderfully loose strokes with minimal effort and yet so vibrant.

We started by watching as she effortlessly painted her Ostrich without preliminary sketch.... a light Yellow Ochre wash as her base and then dropping in colours to the neck and into the body whilst still wet.

This is my version...... (note: elongate figures to create better balance).... something I learned from Hazel which as you can see I forgot to do.....

Short fat Ostriches

This is what they should have turned out like.....courtesy Hazel Soan!

 

Note the lovely broken highlights on the backs!

She then did demo's of animals with backligting and sidelighting. In her first demo of a backlit animal she painted a wash for the background, no preliminary sketch as the subject is darker than the background, and just needed to be filled in with darker colours. The Cormorant was her subject for these.

 Laying down the first wash 

While that was drying she started the side-lit Cormorant which had a sketch drawn just to pick up where the highlights were going to be placed. She carefully placed her background washes around her subject, concentrating on where her dark side was and strengthening the colour on the high-lighted side.

Adding an Aureolin and Prussian wash.

(note the distortion, the pics were taken looking at an overhead mirror)

Back to the dried Cormorant, she then added the shapes of the log and bird using Y Ochre and Burnt Sienna mixed with FUM Blue.

The other Cormorant needed form so this was added once the wash had dried. Leaving wonderful highlights on his back and the log. The highlights were softened to blend in with the background.

Shapes are filled in using Aureolin, Prussian and Sepia.

Hazel's completed pair...... (below)

                                    My attempts















 We went on to Antelope next... this was exciting and we watched as she effortlessly added stokes to create gorgeous Springbok. A funny story she related to us was how she paints in the wild whilst driving....  she has her sketch pad resting on the steering wheel as she slowly drives past the animal. Now you can imagine how quickly she needs to sketch down all that information onto a piece of paper, before the animal bolts off. I admire people who have the ability to paint like this, knowing instinctively where to place her colours at a moments notice, from life.


She produced well proportioned animals without a pre-sketch, but I suppose if you have been painting for so long it comes naturally. Something I need to work on. Her confident, vivid bold colours are wonderful to see.

For our antelope we used a light Ochre wash as a base and added Burnt Sienna to the shape leaving a bit of Ochre and white paper to indicate light. FUM Blue was dropped in to the shadowed areas while still wet. Areas were softened with a tissue or soaked up with a clean brush.

On to Giraffes....... On our last and final Animal of the day we explored a Giraffe. Here we did a preliminary sketch first to preserve lights. For time constraints I'm going to suggest you visit Cathy Gatland's blog for a step by step of Hazel's Giraffe. I was quite happy with the way my Giraffe turned out.

Here's my version

On to Day 3.....

We were introduced to painting figures... not my strongest point, but felt I needed to plough in all my energies for this demo as I have painted so few 'figures' in the past, in fact, I don't think I've ever painted figures in landscapes before. I was very attentive to the demo she did...I was laughing so, at some of the forms that were taking place on my paper making me realise that I have a long way to go with figures. Firstly, My paint was much too thin, secondly the paint dried to quickly and lastly I forgot to 'elongate' my people. Again Hazel make this look so easy... a few blobs of paint here and there, and there we go, a wonderful figure in just a few minutes!!!

 Too wishy washy

My strokes of colour should have looked like this.........

Our next exercise was to paint people with objects such as umbrellas, bags or just painting with the arms crossing the body. Again painting with Blobs of paints to form Head, arms and legs, letting the pigment blend into each other but remembering to allow for  highlights on these things. At this stage I was ready to give up as I felt really useless. Her effortless application to figures as she explained along the way took on a wonderful painting ready for the frame.

The top row of figures in the next slide of Hazel's figures were people with props, the bottom row was an example of how Opaques and Transparent's interact with pigment already applied to paper.

If you look closely to the lady in the turquoise skirt, you will notice that an opaque yellow like Cadium Yellow was added for a floral effect on Transparent Turquoise pigment. The yellow pushed the turquoise away, leaving a lovely yellow on the paper. In the skirt example on the right, Hazel added Aureolin which is a transparent pigment to the turquoise and it changed the turquoise to a green. This, to me was fascinating, although it was logical and I had mixed the two types of pigment before in the past,  I wasn't aware that one could create wonderful effects like this. Something else I learned was......mixing opaque and transparent pigments in your palette will make 'mud'. Wow, now that was something I didn't know!!!!!!

Now you can see why I was laughing as I was painting this lady.

Staying with figures, Hazel painted a demo of two cricketers on a green field. She was explaining how to achieve reflected light on whites. Her colour mix surprised me as I would not have thought that Aureolin and Prussian Blue would be used to create reflected light on white. Fascinating!!!!!!!!

I did not have the same picture to emulate this painting, so I used one of my own.... a picture from a magazine.

.

Our last demo exercise for the day was a larger figure in strong light. Here Hazel had a wonderful reference. I was so taken with this demo as she again effortlessly added colours and mixes that just made this painting come to life before our eyes. I was specially taken with the way she made Coke-a Cola - Burnt Sienna and a splash of Violet at the bottom of the glass. Simple but so effective.!!!!

This is a similar painting I did as I didn't have a print of her version. Mine is a photo of my Dad with simmilar strong light on his shoulders.

We had worked HARD all day and at this stage, after all the concentration, we were feeling mentally exhausted. Just before close of day, she asked us to come up to her table to watch another demo of strong light on large figures. Here she used strong dark colours using a lot of Sepia to get the strong colours of the clothing as the light was almost creating a back lit effect. None of us attempted this as it was time to lock up the hall and drag ourselves home. Thought I'd post it hear just to show you how it looked. (done in just a few minutes) But worth attempting at a later stage...... if I remember the colours she used!!!!!

Apologies for the distorted view, a photo taken from the reflection of the overhead Mirror.

My week with Hazel Soan - Day I

What a fabulous week I've had! I attended a watercolour workshop with Hazel Soan, international artist and author. To say that the enthusiasm and energy from Hazel is electric, would be an understatement. She is bubbling with knowledge and a wonderful person to meet.

Sitting anxiously in my first session, watching as she explained that we are not creating a picture on paper but  a whole array of 'brush strokes'. Shapes are what we must be looking at, not the object that we see. It's all about light and brush strokes!!!

When painting, we need to be looking at tone and light not exact colours.... 'Watercolour' is the reason we paint a subject not the subject wanting to be painted. Do you get my jist? You can take the dullest photo and make it alive with watercolour, as long as the tones and lights are there. Even when sitting out in the fresh air painting a scene,one must look for relative tone. We need not copy the exact colours we see, but paint to entertain the eye!

Leaves: They are not leaves but 'brush strokes'. By adding colour to the leaves brings in life as colour changes according to surrounding and light.

 

 1 stroke 'brush stoke leaves'

 2 or multiple brush stroke leaves

Flowers: They are not flowers but splashes of beautiful colour!

Practising flowers with just brushstrokes 

 Sunflowers using Indian Yellow, Burnt Sienna and Prussian Blue with Aureolin for leaves

Limit your colour palette and keep it simple, "watercolour is perfect".... less is more as they say in the classics.

Learning wonderful tips from Hazel was so exciting. She taught us about which useful colours we should keep on our palettes, the size of our waterpots...hers were surprisingly small!.... and she doesn't use much pigment when mixing either. Pigment is precious and I was amazed to find how much I was wasting by rinsing my bushes so often.

We also learnt wet in wet work with brush strokes. By adding enough pigment strength on the brush will determine how far your colour bleeds back into the wet background, Fascinating!!!!!

 Backlit  Reeds

You can see the different strengths of pigment by the size of the bleed (middle), as the background dried so the strokes became more crisp (right). But one is able to achieve incredibly thin lines in wet paper if your pigment is strong.

One very valuable lesson I learned was that paper is of utmost  importance. The first few studies were done on really grotty quality paper and it shows. I eventually succumbed to using Arches rough 300gsm for my studies! Sounds incredibly extravagant, but found that you can't achieve the right results if you use poor quality paper.


Thanks Hazel for a wonderful first day!!!

I will be back to fill you in on the rest of the week.

Hazel Soan * Watercolour Workshop

Just a quick note before retiring after a full day at Hazel Soan's workshop. Which by the way, is so enlightening and wonderfully informative. I'm taking the easy route for now with an insight from a fellow blogger and wonderful artist Cathy Gatland taken from her blog 'A sketch in Time".

I promise to update you all on her workshop through the eyes of Debbie Schiff soon. But for now.... it's long past my bedtime and I need to be all refreshed for another session of Hazel's workshop tomorrow.

Night night!

Practice, Practice, Practice

That is what top artists will say to you if you want to improve your skills in painting. "A painting a day" is another..... Basically, you need to just paint, paint, paint, even if it's just playing with 'colour mixes', 'shadows', trying tonal values, sketching etc. But we all know that..... don't we? It's not the only way we learn, but it's the best way...... Remember, It's a journey of growth, so enjoy it!

How many of us actually do paint daily?... I'm blushing here, as I fall into the 'non-daily' painters camp! Life just seems to get in the way sometimes and I forget that painting is or should be part of my daily therapy. And boy, do I need therapy! However I do feel terribly guilty if,  by the end of the day I haven't picked up a brush or pencil. 2010however does look promising as I find myself with more time on my hands and less daily interruptions.

I have a few commitments this early this year with 2 wonderful workshops coming up so I really need to practice and get my brushes flowing. The first workshop is with Hazel Soan, who will be visiting South Africa soon - Hazel is an internationally renowned artist and is the author of seven books on painting in watercolours. The other 2 exciting workshops I'll attend are in the UK with renowned artist Jean Haines. http://www.jeanhaines.com/ Jean has been my mentor and inspiration for a number of years now, she has a unique loose style of painting which I admire and is in the process of having her first book published.I have had the fortune of meeting Ms Haines last year at a workshop she ran on 'Watercolours with Life' and although, exhausting, enjoyed my self immensely.

Here are a few sketches I was practicing using Hazel Soan's 'African African Watercolours'.

Sketches from Hazel's book...using my moleskin.

And one using my own photo... minus preliminary sketch.

This painting was from a photo I took at the Rhino and Lion Park last year. 

This ewe was actually feeding.....hence her looking away from the camera,

  I left the young Springbok out of the painting....

I plan to do flowers next.....(Jean style). I have hundreds and hundreds of photos of flower studies.....

so best I get cracking......

Have a lovely weekend all... till next time.....