Fall Color: Final Week Reflections

 

11/9/23 Unconvincing raindrops on leaves

The final week in Kathleen Moore’s fall watercolor sketchbook class was a mix of challenging techniques and practicing essential principles of realistic sketching. First was the same raindrop exercise we practiced during winter quarter. It was difficult then, and it was difficult this time, too. In fact, I think I like the ones I did previously better – these do not look convincing to me at all.

Another exercise involved painting an imaginary, mostly bare tree to practice realistic, tapering branches and to indicate depth by using different values of paint (below). Closer ones would be darker and thicker, while branches farther away would be lighter and thinner. I enjoyed this exercise so much that I might paint more trees like this simply when I need a mindless, relaxing doodle.

11/9/23 imaginary tree (painted with the secondary triad shown, which is turning out to be versatile and useful)

Equally enjoyable was an exercise to find a similar tree to draw from direct observation.

11/10/23 Wedgwood neighborhood

In the winter class, we had a lesson in painting reflections in street puddles, which involved a basic rule of thumb to help make reflections appear in the correct location – except it didn’t work for me (see this post). Kathleen was stumped, too, but she promised to figure it out. In the fall class, we had the same lesson, but she presented a supplemental video that explains the perspective problem I had unintentionally uncovered. Perspective is certainly not my strongest skill, nor is it even an interest, so I’m amazed that I actually do understand the explanation. Someday when I sketch a street puddle again, I’ll confirm that I understand the concept, and I’ll write about it here.

In any case, since I sketched a puddle last time, I chose a reference photo from Green Lake to paint this time. I have sketched similar scenes at the lake from life many times, but never with watercolor, so it was interesting to be familiar with the subject matter while using a different medium. I wasn’t pleased with the water’s surface, but Kathleen offered suggestions that I will try next time.

11/10/23 photo reference (painted with the primary triad shown)

The last two sketches, both done on location from my mobile studio, are exercises in using atmospheric perspective and overlapping to give depth to a composition. In the first sketch, the yellow background tree was more intense, but to push it further back, I made it both less intense and a lighter value (this was hard for me because I wanted to paint it bright yellow!). Conversely, I made the foreground tree a bit more intense to bring it forward. (Note that Veridian was used for the street sign.)

11/10/23 Wedgwood neighborhood

In the final sketch, all the green trees in the background hills were just as dark as the tree in front of the house, but to push them back, I made them much lighter as well as less intense. This was tough for me because both my brain and my eyes were telling me that I should make them darker to match reality. (I’m used to fighting my brain to avoid drawing what I think I see, but I’m not used to fighting my eyes, too.) Ultimately, I decided that the sketch was better and had more depth the way I’ve painted it. It was an excellent lesson in using artistic license to create the effect I want to achieve – not simply trying to replicate what I see.

11/12/23 Wedgwood neighborhood

In response to my question during the last few minutes of class, Kathleen very briefly touched on the very same principle of manipulating value, intensity, hue and temperature that I am trying to wrap my head around after seeing Ian Roberts’ video on the subject. It’s obviously not within the scope of Kathleen’s sketchbook class, but I hope to have an opportunity to study painting with her at some point so that I can more fully explore those concepts with her. She remains one of my favorite instructors at Gage Academy for both her teaching methods and helpful feedback.