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Viridian & Bob Kilvert
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Message
Posted
Hi Mark, I've just come across your thread so I hope you still read this. I also attended Bob's painting courses (waaaaaay back) and remember that particular demonstration - a cormorant sitting on some rocks (at least it was in when I did the course). So here goes.
The sky was painted with a thick wash of French ultramarine & burnt umber (rather than the usual burnt sienna) to give a cooler dark. Both are transparent sediments so can be lifted off the paper with water (to create the moon). Paint a layer of water and apply the colour until you reach the wet area. The pigments will separate because each is a different weight.
The rocks are created using alizarin crimson (transparent stain) & viridian (transparent sediment). Using a flat brush create strata lines. Then apply water up to bottom of rocks while they are still wet. The pigments will separate to create foam.
The same technique can be used to create bracken on a hillside. Have the paper upside down so that the land runs into the sky. Dry with a hairdryer (Bob's favourite accessory) once you have enough 'bleed'. Paint in the details once the background is dry.
I hope this helps. If you need to know anything else, just shout as I kept fairly detailed notes. Happy painting.
The same technique can be used to create bracken on a hillside. Have the paper upside down so that the land runs into the sky. Dry with a hairdryer (Bob's favourite accessory) once you have enough 'bleed'. Paint in the details once the background is dry.
I hope this helps. If you need to know anything else, just shout as I kept fairly detailed notes. Happy painting.
Posted
Hi Mark, just been back through my original notes. Is this the demonstration that you remember?
Create a staining wash (alizarin crimson and sap green or Windsor yellow). Applying a sedimentary green (viridian or Hooker's green) to the wet staining wash creates 'instant grass'.
Or gives foliage a softer shape (ideal for paining weeping willow). Use a watery dilution to define the required shape allowing it to blend slightly with background and working into it when slightly wet. Add in detail later once the first layer has dried.
Happy painting.
Or gives foliage a softer shape (ideal for paining weeping willow). Use a watery dilution to define the required shape allowing it to blend slightly with background and working into it when slightly wet. Add in detail later once the first layer has dried.
Happy painting.
Posted
This sounds just like chromatography, using blotting paper - a standard way to make chemicals separate into their constituent parts. but I wonder what would happen if you made a solution of it then froze it. I expect the water would freeze in pure form and leave a powder of pigments on the surface. anyone want to try?
Posted
how do you feel about using techniques in watercolour...do you use kitchen roll to make your clouds ,,strips of tape to get your horizon line ..and hedge rows .blotting out to get distant trees and hills ,. a clear plastic with squares,,copy paper,. floating you paper in a colour,, drying it and using it to give foggy look ,.then painting your daisies with white gauche,,,,,, because it seems to be the way of teaching to paint by TV artists .and they have a full diary and are very popular, are gimmicks wrong or is it just me who avoids them
Posted
Alan, I follow your videos religiously precisely because you DO avoid gimmicks and show us how to achieve effects in watercolour without them. I used to blot my clouds out with tissue in watercolour (in my defence, I only took up watercolouring in recent years) but now lift them out with the brush, and it's your example that is responsible for that. Similiarly, I don't use masking, tape or fluid, or white gouache: I do scratch out now and then, but so do you so THAT'S all right!
I don't know that these techniques are wrong, exactly, but I do think they're taught to the exclusion of all else, as short-cuts or "top tips"; I don't mind the credit-card trick, although my old pen-knife works just as well - but when you think how much can be done with a brush and plain water, if only you know how, I'd be more impressed if some of these tutors you see everywhere would take a leaf out of your book and show what can be done without faffing about with gimmicks.
Posted
if painting roses you sketch in the rough outline ,then wet the shape of the petals ,touch the end of a red paint pencil and you can apply some wonderful effects ,,paint pencils are handy for shading in parts of a watercolour cottage roof to avoid that plain slate roof look , touching the end of the pencil to add shades ..some artists add a black line around things and tree branches when dry, with a black paint pencil made to a sharp point . to get the Seago look in watercolour,,,,first damp out patches of where you are going to place figures and gently blot to give a distant look . do the same with figures as you paint them in until you are happy with their tone, . use in country lane to imitate a foggy look nice to shade a yachts bow.,, also a small hard brush is handy to remove paint to add distant yachts ,, thats were a good blotting paper comes in handy ,,alas the blotting paper today is very thin ..James Fletcher Watson always had large sheet of pink old fashioned thick blotting paper . I have tried to find some but all I manage to find is thin card blotting paper