Weekly watercolor thread
2yr
Gannon Beck
I wish I could commit to painting in watercolor daily, but I think that's a bit unrealistic. Nevertheless, I want to paint more and I am starting this thread with the intent of posting to it at least once a week with watercolor paintings and sketches.
Here are a few of my recent efforts. The first two floral paintings were demos I followed out of Julie Pollard's book, "Watercolor Unleashed", and the last two were studies done from the same photograph.
This is a community thread, so let's exert some positive peer pressure on each other and sling some paint!
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17d
Proko skull watercolor study from life. Experimenting with an orange, green, and purple triadic color palette. I included a few background thumbnail tests on spheres. I was thinking of going full Ghost Rider, flaming skull and chains, just chaos, but most of the thumbnail tests felt overwrought, so I went with a more simpllifed shape gradient. Still feel like I overworked it a bit, but here we are. On to the next one!
Really like your edges, especially those near the orbital sockets and the brow.
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17d
Really nice work! The gradients and color shifts are really beautiful.
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30d
Watercolor skull study
Love the colours in the shadows did you go in more opaque on top of the dark or vice versa?
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3mo
Excellent! Great likeness!!
Putting some color on sketches I made last fall at the Marine Corps Combat Art Symposium. At the symposium we went out for a few hours and covered The Basic School as they were conducting MOUT training. In addition to being a cool thing to cover, getting to listen to how officers depart wisdom to other officers was an added bonus. I did my best to let some of that wisdom in as I was drawing.
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7mo
I was inspired by Hyun Jin Kim's watercolor process. Worked from a photo, started direct with paint, no sketch. I really had fun with this one.
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7mo
Breaking in a new Schmincke Pocket Palette. Underberg, still life.
Made it to local land-locked kokanee salmon spawn which happens a few weeks of the year.
Curvilinear perspective watercolor last weekend at a garden. Challenged myself to fountain pen only and watercolor.
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10mo
I love this, fantastic work!!
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10mo
Weekend watercolors, 3x4" Joseph Zbukvic study, and a birds-eye shoreline from drone reference.
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1yr
Awesome!! Is this a personal project?
I've been down at Camp Lejeune for the last week doing reportage sketches for the Marine Corps Combat Art Program.
I still have to add watercolor to most of the sketches because I had to draw so fast, but here is one that is done. I'll post more as I finish them.
In an interview, Jared Cullum talked about how he did tons of master studies at postcard size.
I've been experimenting with it a little and I see the utility in it. While it doesn't help much with things like detail and edge control, it is great for color mixing and seeing what a painting looks like at the various stages.
These are all studies of Winslow Homer watercolors.
Love all of these! You have captured the clouds nicely in the first one!
Live watercolor study around my neighborhood. I added some white gouache on the railing of the bridge after coming back at home.
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1yr
Woooow that's in your neighborhood?? What an awesome spot. Looks like a lot of fun :)
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1yr
A study of a Chien Chung Wei demo, I really learned a lot from this one. His extreme simplification of background elements to large washes of warm and cool really struck me. I love the feeling of over exposed light seeping through the leaves. It's a fun photography trick to try to emulate. Also a quick sketch from a photo I took in Lake Tahoe a few years ago. I'm far less happy with the overall composition of that one, the bench became a tangent no matter how I tried to scoot it around. Should have played around with some thumbnails before hand, but I was mostly concerned with putting brush to paper with the short time I had to paint. On to the next ones!
Great study. The interplay of warm and cool really makes it so interesting.
Yes, thumbnailing always helps to fix composition. Your sky looks beautiful. If you want the sky and the mountains to be the main story, you can think of foreshortening the sea some more to avoid tangents or cropping the bench as in a close up shot. But it’s really better to try multiple paintings rather than being hung up on one.
I've started doing these little sketches on 4" x 6" paper. They re pretty fast to do. I think they are the painting equivalent of doing quick sketch. It's useful to have a five minute version of something you want to turn into a habit, and I think this is it for me.
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1yr
This is a cool one
