Showing posts with label watercolour on altered book page. Show all posts
Showing posts with label watercolour on altered book page. Show all posts

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Self Educating in contour and watercolour



watercolour on book page, A Bold Venture
It's tempting to do the same thing and perhaps repeat the same errors.  I guess one of the questions the NEAC drawing scholarship has made me think about is what assumptions do I bring to my drawing that are interfering with my observation? I am learning (anew) to look critically at what I am doing in order to do it better the next time. Sometimes, maybe even often, I return from one of my life drawing classes, a workshop or a studio visit feeling quite inadequate. In a way I also feel like a performing seal who hasn't learned the routine. But, of course what I don't want to do is to perform.  What I do want to do is learn and progress.

One of my big 'fails' has been the three watercolour workshops I have taken part in.  The teaching was good but I didn't have the time and head space, at the time to test things in a way that was relevant to me.  I was trying to think like the teacher, because that seems to me to be the best way of getting the most out of a workshop. As a beginner with watercolour,  I knew after the workshops that I would need to do a lot more of it later - until now I haven't had that elusive time. I have been thinking about things though, and in preparation for my exploration, I bought something that I learned about from Rebecca (life drawing) called 'watercolour ground' to paint on surfaces so the watercolour adheres in a similar way to watercolour paper. While at Great Art in London one day, I found some Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground.  There were other varieties, but the one I bought was on sale and in a smallish tub, so afordable. There wasn't any white, though, so I bought buff titanium. I painted that on a gessoed book page in my ongoing altered sketchbook, A Bold Venture. 

Before beginning a watercolour, I began another project I have been wanting to start. My friend and mentor, Jack Heliker told me (when I had graduated from Stanford) that I should read Kimon Nicolaïdes' book The Natural Way to Draw, and complete all the exercises. Heliker and Nicolaïdes had both taught at the Art Students' League. In New York, I worked my way through some of the book.  Recently, I decided that alongside my current Drawing School learning, going back to Nicolaïdes would be a good discipline.

The rules for the first session (3hrs total, of which I did 1 hour) were that you needed to not look at your paper, to draw the contour with a very sharp 3B pencil and to work on a piece of manila paper 15 x 20 inches.  I couldn't find a 3B, so used a 4B and used a pink pig sketchbook, standing at an easel. 

30 minute contour drawing
Beause I don't hold my pencil properly, my hand got very tired.  My brain got very tired and in the first drawing I looked at my paper to find a place to start quite a few times. In the second drawing, below, my drawing became smaller and smaller, but I really tried to feel the contours.

30 minute contour drawing

After really looking for that hour, I moved over to the watercolour experiment. I explored the techniques Neil had shown us.  My book was on an easel, so it dripped, but I used paper towels and Q-tips to mop up. Lots ot think about… quite a challenge!