Watercolor Videos

I hope you enjoy watching these videos as much as I have in creating them...the next one is a compilation of the guys I have painted.

Some art friends have wondered what I have been up to lately. I have been working on new landscape techniques that can be accomplished quickly to capture the mood and light of the scene. While I feel like I have been able to do that with my watercolor portraits, it has been a challenge for me capturing the morning light, or a sunset, or the noon day sun in my landscapes that makes me feel... like I am really there. It is all about atmosphere which I feel watercolor can capture. Soon I'll post some of my experiments... Meantime, check out my guy portraits video...

Watercolor - Lady Portraits

Honorable Mention

The Central Florida Watercolor Society had the opening of its Third Annual Juried Show this past Thursday night. 85 paintings were shown, and one of my paintings received one of three honorable mentions. The Juror was Sue Archer, noted National Watercolorist. To be selected was truly an honor...I'm really stoked!

Here is the painting:

Watercolor – 2009 Portraits and Figures

I know it has been awhile since I have up-dated this Blog. A lot has happened over the past few months.

I have been concentrating on improving my life drawing skills. To draw a face or figure accurately in 20 to 40 minutes and place some watercolor washes on it is a challenge. Several times a week I attend a life drawing session. This is not a class but an opportunity for the artist to hone his or her skills at drawing quickly and accurately. You can’t fudge the human face or figure too much! Also, our local Starbucks coffee shop provides interesting faces to draw quickly in stealth.

Faces have always fascinated me. In today’s fast changing world, my portrait clients do not have time to sit for hours while I paint their portrait. To accommodate this fast paced society, I schedule a digital photo shoot on a sunny day. Not only does it give me a chance to get to know the person better, but it provides me the opportunity to observe facial planes that the digital camera may not show well.

This is a recent portrait:













Art friends have asked me different questions on how I approach painting the various features of the portrait in watercolor. The one question that comes up most often is hair. So, I have decided to post a short demonstration of how I paint hair.

As most of you know, white in transparent watercolor is the white of the paper. First, with careful observation of the highlight in a subject’s hair and the underlying scalp and face, we can tone it with a pale representation of those lights. Pale yellows, pinks, and blues and some white can be seen. Most often we paint from light values/tones to dark, this will be the under painting or base of the hair. I let it dry very thoroughly.

Next I use Winsor & Newton art masking Fluid. It is like a liquid rubber cement. Looking at the highlights again in the reference, I mask off the highlights with a synthetic rigger brush, rinsing in water quite often to avoid clogging up the brush. After the mask is dry, strokes of dark hair color is applied following the flow of the hair, changing the color/value/tone as I go quickly. I let it dry very thoroughly and the remove the mask.













Now it is time to paint in the abstract darks, tone some of the highlight areas where I have removed the mask from the paper and scrub with a very small scrub brush to take out some of the hard edges.













More darks abstract shapes are painted in here and there and finer dark hairs are painted with a rigger brush. Lighter hairs are darkened on the shadow side of the hair. I do not paint too many this way, just enough to make it sparkle.













And a detail view:














Recent life drawing with wash:

Watercolor – Portrait

At the recent Winter Springs Festival of the Arts, I was interviewed by a TV news personality, Christine, Fox 35 Entertainment Reporter. She was kind enough to allow me to take a few reference photos so I could paint her portrait. The morning light was shining on her face and I believe I captured the light.













Detail:

Watercolor – Venice Series

Thanks again to Roger a UK artist who has allowed me to use his reference photographs of Venice. In the past few months I have painted two Venice paintings.

In these two paintings I have tried to capture the atmosphere of the morning on the first one and twilight on the other one.

Watercolor – More Watercolor Portraits

The following are recent portraits I have painted in the last few months. Some are painted in a very tight realistic style, while others are fresh and loosely painted. What I love about faces is each one is different and I try to capture the character of the person. I believe I am now able to capture the mood and emotion of the person in that instant. All were done from reference photos.

Most of you visiting this blog know I regularly attend life drawing sessions. I am improving my skills to accomplish portraiture from life in watercolor. In today’s busy world, many of my clients do not have time to sit for a portrait. Thus, I am concentrating on painting loose fresh portraits in a life sessions I attend. Soon I will post some of my recent attempts to do this in a short time frame.

Yes, this is all part of my journey as an artist. I encourage all of you to draw and paint from life. I belive the skills you learn from each drawing and painting from life will really move you down the path of fine art.