Wake-board Whizzkid (WIP)

I decided to do a work in progress piece as an exercise for myself. My son went away with a few friends to the Vaal Dam, an hours drive from where we stay. Sounds like they had a good time by the looks of the photographs he showed me. Anyway, when I saw this pic I decided that it was going to be my next painting.

I think I'm happy with the way it turned out although my husband says there is not much of a likeness..... but does it really have to be my son? I'm not too phased.

After sketching the subject on my stretched paper, I used masking fluid to preserve the white spray around the wake board. I painted a light blue wash over the water. When dry I started painting the features and body.

And then started with the wake board.

Moving on down to the reflections.... this was not an easy feat but I ploughed on.

After adding the reflections of the body cast on the water I felt that it was a bit harsh and lightly sprayed it and mopped the damp paper with a tissue to soften the colours slightly. When that was dry I started adding the blue shadows on the spray and painted in the background and the ski rope.

I put it aside for a while as I'd worked on it all morning and was feeling a bit weary. This also helped me to change gear and refresh the brain. I felt the water was a tad light and added another blue wash which brought the painting together a bit more. When it had dried I removed the masking fluid and darkened the spray a bit more to tie the reflections to the body.

Hope I've managed to do this, please don't feel shy to tell me what you think. My son is thrilled with it and I suppose that's all that matters.

Have a wonderful weekend and happy painting!

New York City..... where dreams are made of!

Our trip to the USA brought new ideas and wonder to my art world. This painting of Conservatory Waters nestled in Central Park NY was alive with wonderful inspiration and beautiful settings for any artist. I would have been happy to have sat there all day just sketching all the sights and scenery, but we had limited time and were constantly on the move to try and get the most of this concrete jungle.

This painting is a late afternoon view as we approached Conservatory Waters on the south east side of Central Park. Most of you will recognise it from a few movies which were shot there such as 'Home Alone 2', 'Stuart Little', 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', Kramer vs Kramer to name a few. I loved the way the sun was catching the sides of the buildings and casting wonderful orange reflections in the water of the pond.

Happy Anniversary !

Well, I'm still around and happy to report that I'm now slowly getting back into painting again after what seems like an age. The last few months have been quite exhausting and busy to say the least and I have really missed my painting. The World Cup Soccer has long passed and visitors have all safely returned home. My stepdaughter's wedding  in the USA went off wonderfully and I can safely say we are over our jet lag and ready for the final haul of 2010.

As I type, spring is about to pounce on us and have already noticed that some trees in my garden have started shooting. Sadly, I missed a few little Daffodils in my garden that came into bloom when I was away. Does this mark my 1st year anniversary of my blog? I remember my very first post on my blog, it was a photo of my first Daffodil of the year. Gosh how time flies!  It seems like it was yesterday! May I take this opportunity in thanking all my wonderful blogger friends who have so diligently popped in and left me inspiration and goodwill comments on my work over the past year. You guys are great, and I appreciate your time. THANK YOU!

I have the WSSA (Watercolour Society of South Africa) 84th National exhibition coming up in September and I need to get some paintings done to submit for it. Unfortunately, I have hit a blank wall for ideas at the moment so will have to really channel my energies into that over the next day or so. Wish me luck!

Lastly, What's a blog without an image.......? This painting I leave you with was a little bit of playing just before I left for the States. I have never tried this before and had so much fun creating it. I laid tissue paper in strips onto 300gsm watercolour paper with Gesso and washed watercolour pigments over the dried paper. The textures it made were quite inspiring. What came from it looks like crags and crevices with  foothills in the foreground. What do you say? Could this be somewhere in the Drakensberg mountain range in KwaZulu Natal? Anyway, wherever this painting takes you -  hope you enjoy it.

Have a wonderful week, what's left of it!

A Morning with Richard Rennie

I was treated  through the Watercolour Society of South Africa  (WSSA) to a wonderful morning watching watercolour demonstrations by South African acclaimed artist Richard Rennie. Born in Zimbabwe (formally Rhodesia) and now settled in a little arty town called Clarens in the Orange Free State, Richard is fully adept to painting in oils and acrylics, but because of his impulsive nature, found watercolour his medium of choice. Richard has had too many 'one man' exhibitions to mention and has exhibited his work in South Africa and abroad. Whilst in his quest to expand his range of subjects which include more impressionistic abstract landscapes, he has returned to painting in oils, acrylics and mixed media.

A completed landscape - Richard Rennie

A delightful person to know, Richard kept the class entertained with his keen sense of humour and had us in stitches as he quietly demo'ed his beautiful work. He claims he is too old to do workshops and now quietly paints whilst his class look on and throw questions at him.

 Richard starts his paintings with a Wet in Wet sky before 

moving onto a Wet on Dry landscape

 

I was blown away by his non-conformist "breaking-all-the-rules" philosophies about watercolour.
Firstly, many of the things I've ever been taught in watercolours were totally blown out the window. There must be some truth in his approach to watercolour if his beautiful watercolours are anything to go by! His sky's are out of this world. His colour selection is very unplanned, he told us NOT to ask him which colour he was using as he didn't know. His palette as huge and looked in disarray with colours mixed all over the show. He did happen to know one colour which is a favourite.... Australian Green Gold made by Art Spectrum. I would assume that it's a wonderful colour to use in painting South African landscapes. He uses a lot of Holbein pigments too. He likes the rich colour it produces and waters down well to get a transparent finish.

An abstract landscape Richard completed for us in under 20 minutes.

He believes we need to go and play in the sand with our new brushes.... just to ruffle them up a bit!!!!!
He claims bad brushes produce the best work! Huh? go figure!
He also never refreshes his water pot.  I've never seen such dirty water..... just he way he likes it.!
Richard unconventionally works from the outside of the painting into the focal point as he believes that you can focus on the main focal area last and add to it if needs be.

Richard Rennie with a completed landscape. Don't know if you 

can see but note his brush just sitting in his rather brown looking water bowl.

I thoroughly enjoyed my morning and wonder if I'll be making use of Richard Rennie's beautiful yet unconventional methods of watercolour. I suppose we all as artist strive to learn constantly in our quest for self-satisfaction and gratification.

On the sixth day, God created the artist, realizing no doubt that He had far from exhausted the uses of color. (Robert Brault)

Life through Artists Eyes!

Cam ~  sketch of a little cutie-pie

Something got me thinking the other day which intrigued me. I was wondering why artists see the world around them differently?. Why do they see things non-artists don't see?. Is it something they are taught or is it just inherent in them as artists?.That's really fascinating and as someone who wasn't always a visual artist, I've definitely found myself looking at the whole picture more and more. I have had no formal training but it's just something that seemed relevant to my work. Have I subconsciously taught myself to look for things like form, textures, light & colours other than the actual picture.

Ravi Vora, a Creative Director with a degree in advertising , summed it up quite simply... we can teach ourselves to observe things in order to release our creativity.

http://ravivora.com/blog/see-the-world-like-an-artistic-genius

So, all the artists reading this, have a look around you and see if you can seperate the observations of an object or picture from assumptions.

Sock in the Darks!!!

There are days in our painting lives when we either find inspiration from nature or get inspired by things we have seen which attracted the eye, either with light, colour or texture. Last night whilst going through some paintings by wonderful artists I read how one artist had used a spray bottle to wet the paper over the pigment which was applied to the paper quite thickly. She let the water disperse over the paper and waited till it was dry before adding the detail to her painting. Seeing that I was in a floral mood, I decided to have a bit of fun last night and explore this technique as well as bubble wrap.

The flowers below are from my imagination - could be a Lupin, Larkspur or Lilac, anyone's guess!

After adding pigment straight from the tube onto a shaped piece of bubble wrap, I pressed it onto the paper in different areas of my page. Then taking the plastic off the paper I sprayed quite intensely with my spray bottle, keeping the paper at an angle so the pigment and water could run off down the page. Not all the pigment bleeds away which leaves intense colour in parts where the flowers are (or shadows). Going back in with more bubble wrap to intensify the darker side of the flower and leaving wonderful deep colours of pigment. I washed in the background colours after the paper was dry as well as adding some foliage at the bottom.

I'm not too sure if this is finished though! I'd like to add in a few highlights where I lost some of the light on the tips of the flowers. I quite like the effect and the way the purple flowers glow.

How fascinating it is when you have a vision and are able to put it on paper. You also discover along the way that with a bit of imagination, you could experiment with other things to create textures and shapes.
I love this medium so much.....Watercolour, with all its subtle colour and value gradations and its many welcome surprises, is the perfect medium for capturing mood.

-on watercolour
The only virtue to it, is to put down an idea about what you feel at the moment. (Andrew Wyeth)

....until next time!

Last day of Jean's workshop and painting session.

Goodness,! It's been a long while since I last wrote on my blog! I do apologies for being so inattentive.

Today I woke up to a rather dark overcast morning with heavy clouds looming overhead. It has definitely also dropped a few degrees in temperature since yesterday. We lit a fire in our lounge in the hope that we can warm up the house on this mizzy, lazy Sunday. A perfect day to add to my blog, don't you agree?!

I also realised that I have not finished off the notes of the last day of Jean Haines' workshop we attended in April. So best I now put on my thinking cap and try and remember all the things we did on the last day of the 'Watercolours with Life' workshop.

Although I have added some photo's of some of the things we did on the 2nd day I would like to go back in with a bit more detail as to how to get some of those juicy washes that Jean so effortlessly achieves.

Jean started off by explaining to us about 'starting points' and bleeding away from that point.
If you were to study your photo, or if you were painting from life, You'd need to establish what the focal point of your painting is going to be. If it were to be painting an animal or portrait, the eye would normally be the first thing that attracts a person to a painting. In the case of a landscape or still life -  a house, tree or prominent flower is a good indication of where to start.

The first demo of the day was the little Muscari and Primroses. Jean had a starting point in her mind. In the Muscari, Jean started with dry brush stokes of tiny blue 'marks' and worked away the colour with water to soften and make it more alive. Remembering NEVER to go back in after you have added water as this will just loose its natural feel and add unnecessary brush marks. Let the paper dry if you need to add a layer or two.

Another tip is to ALWAYS look at your subject even though you might know it well or have painted it numerous times before. Painting imperfections will add character to your subject.

After her demo's we all went off to do 'our' interpretations of what Jean had taught us. I found a lovely Anemone in Jean's vase of assorted flowers to paint. My starting point was the centre of these interesting flowers. Working away with the petals and then finally adding the stems and background, remembering to leave the white paper to trap the lights.

Another attempt.......

I was a little happy with they way these turned out, but Jean was thrilled.... now, the toughy!!!!.....to put it into a whole painting!!!!!!

After we all got a chance to paint our wonderful blooms, we watched Jean do another demo of Daffodil's. Here she explained that the petals were the same size roughly as the circumference of the trumpet. The trumpet was crated with side brush strokes. (No initial sketch) The petals were painted, painting around the shapes, leaving some incomplete (for movement). Adding colour to the outer edges of the petals and bleeding away from the centre of your work gives balance and allows for depth. Whilst still wet, she added tissue in the shape of leaves onto the paper and applying more green pigment around the tissue. Also whilst still wet, for added texture, a strip of bubblewrap was placed on the wet pigment. Here  is an example courtesy of Jean.........

Jean's example of texture added to a painting for interest.

 Adding splashes and  colour to background.

Another Daffodil by Jean with bubble wrap for interest.

I decided to go back to my table after that demo and paint the Stocks from earlier as a full painting with flowers fading into the background, using Jeans techniques.

The day was exhausting again and we slept peacefully that night dreaming in watercolour and wondering what awaited us the next day at Jean's home. 

Jean's cottage was like those you see on chocolate boxes. A cute thatch double story down a narrow country lane. We were welcomed with slobbery kisses by Taffy and Bailey who were so excited to see us all again. After we got settled,  Jean took the dogs leashes out and we all went for a leisurely stroll around her little village countryside. Lambs were merrily wagging their new born tails as the sheep and horses looked on at us with total curiosity. The grass in the fields and meadows were so green, it made your eyes hurt and the fresh spring morning air was so refreshing. I thoroughly enjoyed my morning walk and felt energised for the day's painting. We managed to get lots of photographs taken and found plenty inspiration for our painting session back at Jean's home. Once back after a cup of coffee we settled ourselves in and around Jean's garden and painted, stopping only to watch the antics of her two adorable dogs and cats who looked like they were putting on a show specially for us.

A stroll down a country lane.

Some curious onlookers....

Splashing paint! Having fun! courtesy Jane Minter

Painting in Jean's Garden. courtesy Jane Minter

We all enjoyed our day and some of us got quite a few paintings done... unlike moi !.... who ended up with a lot of binners.

I must say one thing about my trip to the UK this year..... I absorbed much more and felt a sense of  achievement more so than last year. Possibly due to the fact that I knew what I was expecting this time round. I had seen Jean paint before, so this year I applied all my energies into just quietly taking in all I could of Jean's wonderful painting styles. It also helped taking notes!!!

Thank you so so much Jean....! I feel so blessed to have been able to come and watch you paint again. You are also a wonderful host and you made me feel very welcome. Your love and passion for watercolour shines through in every stroke you lay on your canvas. Anyone who is able to enjoy a workshop with Jean is extremely fortunate. I wish you the best of success with your book Jean (which I have now finally pre-booked online).I will always look back on these days with fondness and a smile!

Till next time...................

Indian Cooking Demo's - In time for winter!!!!!

A friend is about to start a couple of real authentic Indian cooking demo's. All sound absolutely mouthwatering! .If you are interested.... please call the number listed below to book.


 
I have begun this new and exciting venture and would like to tell you all about it...

Authentic Indian Cooking Demonstrations

By

Chef Naz

Come and learn how to prepare authentic Indian dishes.

Presented in a professional demonstration kitchen

Conveniently located in Rockvale Estate, Lonehill.

Ample safe parking available.

May 2010 Demonstrations:

Thursday

6^th May

Traditional Chicken Biryani. Chicken marinated in yoghurt, saffron and fragrant spices, served layered with Basmati rice.  Indian meals are traditionally begun with something sweet. Jarda, sweet rice prepared with saffron, almonds and dates.

Thursday

13^th May

Soft, sweet vermicilli, fragrant cinnamon and pistachio nuts. Roasted chicken marinated in garlic, red chilli and lemon accompanied by spicy potato and Roti.

Thursday

20^th  May

Kalya, chicken marinated in yoghurt, red chilli and spices. Accompanied by  Puri, fried Indian ‘bread’. Ghaas, rose and cardamom flavoured milk jelly made with agar agar, a gelatine of vegetable origin.

Thursday

27^th  May

Lamb curry with a thick, spicy and delicious gravy accompanied by Roti made on a traditional Indian ‘tava’. Sweet Soji halwa, cream of wheat prepared with saffron, cinnamon and cardamom and toasted alomonds.

Classes start promptly at 06:30. Approx 2 & a half  hour duration

Learn the specialized techniques acquired through several generations

Simple to understand and easy to replicate

Chef Nazerit Essack has trained internationally as a professional chef for the last 20 years. She is currently lecturing at one of the leading chef’s schools in the country.

BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL!

PHONE TODAY to confirm availability as space is limited.

072 582 9273

My new Toys.....

On the last day of my UK trip, I went through to London on the tube. I landed up in Trafalgar Square! What a different sight met my eye from the last time we were in London some years back - NO pigeons!!!!!!!!!!!! I hardly recognised the place! The square was jam packed with youngsters and tourists milling around and sitting on every ledge and every step, just enjoying being out in the fresh spring air. Once I'd got my bearings and strolled a while I discovered a sign saying "DO NOT FEED THE PIGEONS", I then realised why it looked so different! I have wonderful pictures of the pigeons on my son's head's, nipping their ears, trying to steal seed out of their pockets - but now, there were NO pigeons. My memories of them were wonderful, despite their annoying habits!, But I felt a tad sad that they weren't there to greet me this time.

As I wondered around, I caught sight of the National Gallery which I decided to pop in and look around a while, seen I had a bit of time to spare while I waited for the hotel to get my room ready. What a wonderfully awe-inspiring place to visit. There are just rooms and rooms or should I say floors and floors of art pieces from artists of all centuries and mediums... quite something!  After about an hour I'd only seen a third of the gallery, but I wanted to move on as I was running out of time.

As luck would have it...on my way back to the tube, I came across an art shop Cass Art shop.... some of you might know it. I had a really tough time turning my head and just walking past as by this time I should have checked into my hotel, but curiosity got the better of me and I stepped inside.What a wonderful artshop .... watercolour paints by the score, palettes, mediums, magnificent paper and so much more to tease the artists soul.... some of which I wish we had here in South Africa, but due to freight charges and our exchange rate the selection is limited. As I was gleefully scanning the shelves at all the marvels, I could barely contain myself when came across the most exciting find of my trip..........

 2 squirrel hair mop brushes

Now, I'm sure that some of you are probably thinking 'why did she spend all that money at that shop, as there are plenty other shops to choose from'. Well in truth... I have wanted these brushes for ages and I acted on impulse, and didn't mind.... I NEEDED these brushes. The hardest choice was choosing the size I thought I'd use often. I'm so thrilled with my new acquisition and these are two of my favourite brushes at the moment which helped me paint my Stonehenge sketches.... I'm sure I'll be using them a lot more now too with the loose style I have been practising at my workshop. "Happiness is a new set of brushes"............ pity better brushes don't paint better paintings!

Until next time.......

'Simplify' Watercolours with Life Workshop

Colours, fusions and textures next. The day started off a little warmer than the previous morning, so I was feeling as though the UK spring had really paid me a special visit, just for a bit of sensory overload, and to get the watercolour juices flowing. On my short stroll to the hall where the workshop was being held, I caught the sight of a batch of Daffodils growing on the side of the road with the most wonderful backlit colour. This made my day and was rearing to go on day 2.

 

The word that stood out for me the whole day was 'SIMPLIFY'. From the word go Jean thrashed the word out and we started the day with a wonderful demonstration of some lovely Stocks she brought in. Colour is very evident in Jean's work and she showed us how to make a simple white flower sing by using complementary colours to bring out the whites. The colours she used were Turquoise and Winsor Violet, creating a basic outline with the Turqu and bleeding it away quickly as Turqu dries fast and is staining.

So after a morning warm up of splashing a bit of colour on paper we set about watching our first Demo 

Jean painting the first wash of the Stocks

Jean added Violet  into the wet Turqu for interest. By using some of the colours for your background that you will use in your main subject gives it life and helps tie it all up. Thinking about colour and softening the hard lines with a clean wet brush create highlights and blending into the subject giving it tone and form. For a detailed subject as these Stocks, only a simple background is needed.

 A completed painting of Stocks Jean 

painted some time back

The paintings are built up using 3 layers....

• 1st - a whisper of the main subject.
• 2nd - another layer as the first, adding other colours.
• 3rd - detail

We then went on to painting Delphiniums, this time painting the subject and then creating a subtle background around it. This was so much fun....... Using French Ultra Marine Blue and W Violet and giving the shapes a good base for the first wash. Because of it's intracity, a simple background was painted. Again, painting blobs of paint not the actual shape.

Jean's first wash of 'Blobs'... Delphiniums,

Trying my hand at Stocks.....

  My Dephiniums and Stocks

A demo of a market scene for some of the class by Jean took place while others went back to their tables to paint flowers.  Her demo of how to start and work away from a point of interest keeping clean fresh colour was the main objective of this study as some of us wanted to gain insight as to where Jean starts her 'busy paintings.    

 Jean's demo of a French Market

A brief quick sketch on how to achieve different effects on other varieties of flowers  was done for us after a wonderful pub lunch at the Inn down the road...... I must say that a glass of red wine does help the brushes to flow more freely. In this exercise, were trying to establish the different choices we make with regard to colour, placement of pigment and brush strokes, while studying individual flowers and adding life to them.

Flowers of all types are demonstrated by Jean here...

The Dafs she showed us next were a wonderful wind-down for the day. A mix of varied brush strokes and the use of cool and warm colours and use of light, all in negative painting . Jean does an awful lot of splattering which gives the painting movement. This is very evident in her cockerel paintings we have seen. I was amazed when she splatted a blob of 'orange' in the side of her Daf... but it worked so well, just adding to the excitement of her work. And on that note, before we could even blink the painting session was done.... sad because two wonderfully inspiring days were over but happy in the fact that I was afforded this wonderful trip to come and witness, again, the inspirational wonders or 'magic' Jean weaves with her hand, and meet some of my lovely friends from last year's workshop.

Jean's Daffodils... with a bit of bubble wrap

for excitement.

But the day wasn't done yet... Some of us were treated to a visit and a glass of bubbly at a nearby gallery who was exhibiting Jean's work. This was a special outing as we got to see her work all framed and on display in abundance. I must say, it makes it all worthwhile, the effort we go through, just to achieve lovely sell-able paintings. One feels the reward by seeing them all hanging up together, what a pleasurable sight...... and that is something worth aspiring to! Thank you Jean!!!!!

An Award

Before I forget...... Just before I left for my week with Jean Haines I was kindly awarded "Happy 101 Award" from a wonderful blog friend Martine-Alison . Please take a peek at her beautiful work, she has a wonderful eye for detail and imagination which transports you to a fantasy land. Thank you Alison for this wonderful thoughtful trophy and your cheerful happy replies to my paintings!

 As is customary, I have to forward this on to 10 'happy painters' I follow and whose work I find inspiring. This makes it awkward as I'm finding it hard choosing 10 of my favourites. Each one of my blog friends holds a special something in their creations for me.
So, I am dedicating this award to all the special people whom I follow on my blog list. This award is for all of you who make this world a happier place, for sharing your work and also for helping me keep my brush on the paper and not in my paintbox.....Thank you all! Please feel free to copy this award to your blog page if your blog is listed on my blog list. Happy painting!!

* Watercolours with Life * Spring Workshop in the UK

I'm sure a lot of you are eagerly awaiting my report back on Jean Haines workshop Watercolours With Life Spring 2010.

In this post I'm going to focus generally on my experience of my trip to the UK as well as a brief account of Jean's Spring workshop.

Firstly I booked three workshops with Jean, the first two being 'Watercolours with Life' and the third being 'Spring Flowers'. In these workshops Jean focused on negative painting, initial washes to a painting, the importance of colours and how backgrounds can make a painting sing.

DAY 1
Jean did a demo of a simple Snowdrop. I must add at this point....if you have never seen a Snowdrop in real life, it makes it a little more complex to catch the true feel of a subject. But I plodded along with the rest of the group after a warm up of painting an 'egg'! Jean explained that most subjects are painted with the same technique, just a different shape. At this point I was wondering how a Buffalo was going to be painted in the same way as a Snowdrop!!!!! But after a practice session of snowdrops I attempted a Buffalo and ... yes, low and behold, it was the same technique. Just with different blobs of colour!

 My attempt at Snowdrops

This next photo is of Jean demonstrating Snowdrops......

 Jean in Action

Daffodils were next in the line of  practising flowers and negative background painting.....

Jean weaving her magic across the paper!

My feeble attempt at Dafs!

We then went on to watch Jean quietly demo her famous 'Beardie' paintings. She has two adorable Bearded Collies who own her and she lovingly puts them in her paintings with such adoration.....and it shows! This was to demonstrate to us how you can incorporate the background in a negative wash once the subject was established.

Here is Jean painting  her group of Beardie's....

Jean explained how we have to find a 'starting point' of a subject. In this one, it was the Beardie's nose, but it could also be an eye, whichever is the focal point (as you notice... Beardies have no eyes) I'm having a quite giggle to myself at this statement which has just dawned on me as to why Jean chose the nose.

My Buffalo followed shortly after Jean's demo of Beardies with the negative painting as demonstrated to us. Not all that happy with the outcome, I lost it a bit in the face, but a wonderful exercise of using the same technique as for the snowdrops, dafs, Beardies and egg.

My Buffalo

This was the end to a wonderful day as we cleaned up our tables ready for the next day, exhausted but exhilarated. 

A few things I learned was that Jean has a few interesting ideas in her way of  working.....1:  White Paper- is deliberately left in her paintings, this helps lift the painting. 2: Jean never holds a pencil in her hand.... all her paintings are done without a preliminary sketch, instead she works mainly with a big brush and a rigger. 3: For simplicity Jean also paints half a face which creates interest for the viewer and gives the viewer the pleasure of completing the painting in there own way! Quite interesting, as depending on one's mood or surroundings it could take on different results every time one looks at the piece......

Bye, till next time......

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!