A Few More Value Sketches and Composition

Thumbnail Sketches

I'm still at it  -  doing thumbnail sketches.

 On the right are seven sketches done with various pens, pencils, charcoal, conte crayon . . .  This was just to show my students how each one worked in a very small (2 X 2 1/2) and very quick value sketch.  Although charcoal is a mess and I'm not crazy about the way it feels against the paper, I do like the way it blocked in the shapes and the lights and darks without any chance of time consuming detail.  It is the second one down in the right hand column.

The sketches on the left are various compositions of one subject done in Prismacolor pencil,  90% warm grey.  There are unlimited possibilities for compositions and the arrangements of light and dark shapes.

Things have started to slow down a bit, class-wise, but my brain hasn't received the message.  I have classes and workshops coming up really soon, so I have plenty to keep me busy,  but I thought it would be nice to "turn it off" for a couple of days before I start to re-group. 

Did I mention that I have joined a life drawing group that meets once a week?  My friends know what a big step this is for me  -  I don't like figure drawing.  I really don't like it. The things is, I WANT to like it, so I'm going to the sessions.  My right brain is working so hard, I can barely function when I get home  -  function, as in find something in the refrigerator to eat.  Now that's pretty bad for me.  My husband says this is good for me  -  it may be the way some of my students feel when they are just beginning, and now I know how it feels.  I apologize to any of you that I may not have shown proper sympathy.  I don't give refunds for lack of sympathy, but I do apologize.

Value Sketches

More Value Sketches

Value sketches are such a quick and easy way to plan a painting  -  lights, darks. mediums  -  there ya go, all planned out.  Maybe it's me.  Maybe I'm not making it clear enough.  Almost everyone wants to skip the sketches, or make them way too large, or way too detailed.  Someone in class that ended up with a beautiful painting said, "It took me fifteen thumbnail sketches to get that."  Good for her!  That means she could have gone through fifteen failed paintings before she did the one she was happy with.  She stuck with it and planned it out, and the thumbnail sketches really only took a few minutes.

Here's my plan  -  I'm going to hand out paper that has several two-inch squares on it and  felt tipped markers.

I do realize that the process that I find most helpful is not necessarily right for everyone.  However, I do think thumbnail sketches to plan the values and composition are important.  It's one of those things "if you don't know where you're going, you're not going to get there."  My whole life is "I don't know where I'm going" but at least I can control my thumbnail sketches.

The Process

 

Class Demo

This demonstration was to show the process I use to get from, in this case, a photograph to a finished painting.  The top image shows the photograph I was using as reference. In the pencil sketch below that,  I have sketched things pretty much as is   -  because I have to start somewhere. I'm keeping in mind the reason that I have chosen to paint this subject  -  the cluster of buildings and their rooftops, and the lights and darks of the sunlight and cast shadows.

The porches and roof lines on the left really complicate things and don't do anything to support my reasons for painting this.  So I play around a little with removing the jumble of shapes on the left, and move on to a value sketch (figuring out my lights and darks) which is shown in the lower right of the top image.  This is what I use as reference as I paint.  I don't refer to the photograph again. 

Eliminating some of the porches and roof lines has changed the "reality", but what I wanted was the "feeling" of the roof tops and shadows.  This would never make it as a commission or a rendering of the actual scene, but we all have artistic license, you know, and we should use it.  It's fun!

Value sketches can be done very small  -  a couple of inches square with no detail - just shapes to show light, middle and  dark values.  If you make them small enough and simple enough, you can do lots of them in a short time to play around with all kinds of combinations of lights and darks until you hit on the one you like.   Once you've planned your lights and darks, your painting is half done.  The process is pretty painless.

Small Painting - Keeping it Simple

Small Watercolor Demo

Somewhere along the line, I have painted from this value sketch and posted it, but I can't find it to link to it, to compare the two. 

In Wednesday's class we were talking about why we are attracted to a subject, keeping that in mind, and showing that as simply as possible.  In this case I had taken the photograph (years ago) because of the shadows and the simple shapes of the porch and its roof lines. This was a section of a much larger house, but for the sake of simplicity I had chosen to paint this section as a small house.  I didn't feel I needed the rest of the structure to support the simple shapes and shadows.

I "swooped" through with a mixture of manganese blue and a touch of cobalt violet, painting everything that would not be left white, or that I wanted to keep very bright.  As I started putting in the dark green foliage, the fence just kind of painted itself, so I went with it.  I put in the dark shadows along the roof lines and in the porch with manganese blue and cobalt violet again, with some indigo added to get as dark as it needed to be.  I had left the areas on each side of the steps white so I would be able to get in some bright flowers.  I added a washed out warm color for the roof, some neutrals smushed around in the foreground, and that was it.

It moved along from start to finish pretty quickly, and I feel I captured what attracted me in the first place.

If you have some photographs around that you have taken with the thought of someday doing a painting of them, this is a good time of year to get them out and play around with them  -  while we are waiting to get outside and paint.  Take a good look at them, decide what it was you liked about the subject, and paint THAT, and only that.

It was 11 degrees here this morning!!!!

Horton Bay Road

Value Sketch and Finished Painting

Watercolor 5 X 8

This is what my classes are working on this week  -  simple value sketches that are our guide to simple paintings. We are going to be talking about composition for the next few weeks.  Of course, we are talking about composition all the time, but for awhile we are going to be taking it apart and paying attention to all the parts.

I love painting small paintings with a fairly large brush  -  it keeps things simple and moves right along.  If I dilly dally, I start to get detailed.  I don't like detail  -  I don't like doing it, and I don't like looking at it.  Just sayin'.

New Sketchbook

Another New Sketchbook

Last week we made new sketchbooks. After the trip downstate to the paper/bookbinding store, I was anxious to bind a new book.  I think I have made nine of them so far, and  I'm a couple of books ahead now, which is a nice, secure feeling. What if I decide sometime that I am sick of making these, and I don't have any made up ahead?  Actually, I just really enjoy making them.  I don't need a reason, do I?

The drawing is a value sketch that I am working on for a new painting.  I want to use it as a demo for tomorrow's class.

Another beautiful, sunny, fall day here.   I should take a walk.  Does sitting in the sun eating potato chips count as doing something good for myself?  I think so.

Mid-values

A simple value sketch and half finished painting.

We worked with shadows again today in my class. First we did simple sketches and blocked in all the middle values. We transferred the drawing to watercolor paper and swooped through all the areas that wouldn't be left white with a wash of manganese blue. In some areas successive colors were dropped into the wet blue paint, and in some areas they were glazed over the dry blue pigment. There is still some more to be added to the painting above.

Next week the class would like to do some paintings of snow. Perfect. I had started to work on some myself, and snow is all about shadows.

Just went to see It's Complicated. Cute. Now I have to go look up the sound track.

Is everyone painting? Wasn't that on your new year's list of goals - to paint more? It was on mine, and I must admit I haven't done too well. I have to think about it. Have to build up to it. It'll be fine.

Value Sketch

I did a quick watercolor sketch on location back in June, and took a couple of photographs. I printed them out and taped them together, and now I'm working up a value sketch in preparation for a "serious" painting. All that space under the porch roof ( the porch ceiling) bothers me. The value (the lights and darks) is going to have to be just right, and I'm not sure at this point what "just right" is. Well, that's what a value sketch is for - to figure it out.

By the way - we ate the persimmon. I guess it is one of those gender things like zucchini because the girls liked it the guys didn't. We girls were glad the guys didn't like it - more for us. It's gone now. You won't have to hear about it any more.