Watercolor Workshop

This is information for folks enrolled in my watercolor workshop offered through Schoodic Arts for All and any one else of course!
While some paint will be provided, should you wish to invest in your own supplies here is the list of what we will be using. Most critical is to get  the specific paint listed.
The focus of this workshop is creating work with color. Now of course, folks' definitions of what is 'good' color differ. The key is to know your supplies so that your color is a CHOICE not a by product or something settled for.
I personally resonate with vibrant subtly shifting color. I am not one for earth colors ( unless of course, I am painting earth, or dense colors. If I want opaque I switch to oil or pastel  since those mediums can remain vibrant even when the paper is occluded.

Beginning list:
Working with a limited palette has its merits. Only 3 colors can create the rainbow. By using just 3 it is easier to learn more fully and quickly the properties of the pigments.
I begin with
Cobalt Blue - a true, transparent, non staining blue
Rose MAdder Genuine - transparent, non staining slightly blue pink
Aureolin Yellow- transparent, non staining slightly blue yellow
We will begin with these colors learning their properties as well as creating all the colors of the color wheel.

This painting was completed with the above colors:

Then we will add:
Opera - transparent, non staining true pink-- excellent for making orange
Viridian- transparent, non staining intense green good for making darks
The addition of these colors  permits mixing purer special colors like orange and a greater range of cool and warm grays.
How to be the scientist.
Learning the properties of our supplies requires initially being the scientist. First we must ask the questions:
1. How does one color mix with another? What is the range of colors two colors create?
Does beginning with one color then adding another create a different color than when the order is reversed?
Which pigment weighs more and consequently move slower in water?
What happens when pigment is added to water on the paper?
What happens when pigment is put on the paper first then water?
What are all the ways water can be applied?
Color can never be seen separated out from its context. What happens when you put different colors beside the focus color?
What happens when a touch of hte complement is added?
How best are rich darks created?

These are just some of the beginning questions to explore. Some folks will like to do their explorations in an actual picture while others will want to play first. What ever method speaks to you, keep a record and never let the pressure of creating a 'finished' product prevent you from playing.

Asian Ink Painting-Other Techniques to Try

As with all mediums there are wonderfully kinky techniques which can be used to create different affects.So it is with Asian Ink painting. Here are ones I have learned and discovered:
1. If using suen paper, both sides become the canvas. Paint the picture first then when the ink is dry, flip the paper over on the felt and play with painting on the back. Washes can be done this way as well as depicting specific objects. Washes can include diluted ink, vegetable color, tea, coffee, coffee and cream, wine ( I like a Merlot myself.) These washes will make the painting on the front of the paper pop.

2. Take a small piece of screen and load it with paint. Flick it with your finger. This is a lovely way to create random leaves. It takes some practice managing pigment/water ration, density of pigment on screen so it does not goober and color placement so that mud is not created!

3. Paint a wash on the back of the paper, then as it is drying flip paper over and apply ink or perm. white
( No bleed) or if you have access to it gofun- ground sea shells mixed with nikawa. This is how the scales of fish, the luminescent white of lotus and peonies is created.


4. Charging the brush with a variation. Charging the brush means to put different moisture and pigment contents into the brush in order to have hard and soft edges and differenng values in one brush stroke. This is done by dipping the brush in water, then 3/4 into a different value, 1/2 of the tip in another and the tip in dark drier ink. Take out extra moisture from the BASE not the tip ( because the base is the well) What also can be done is putting pigment on only one side of the bristles then as the brush is manipulated across the paper that color will come up intermittently.

5. Cream as well as alum make  good resists each of course creating distinct effects.

Asian Ink Painting-Books and Ideas

There are several excellent books worth owning if one is interested in Asian Art. These are books I have visited and revisited over the years. They are beautiful and  informative and worthy of deep perusing especially if one is working in this medium
Books which help with actual technique include:
The Way of the Brush by Van Briessen. This book both explores the different uses of the brush and styles which have developed over the centuries as well as the spiritual principles which shaped ink painting.

The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting- The wealth of information in this 'how to' manual is incredible!  Written in the 1700's it is a culmination of samples of all the different styles of how to paint and depict nature's objects. It is very clinical so the painter must be ware of not copying directly in order to make a painting. Copying to learn the marks of course is very efficacious.

3000 Years of Chinese Painting and Between Two Cultures published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art contain many reproductions of paintings. By looking through these two books one can see the evolution of painting, the different schools' methodology and spirit and beliefs which engendered this art.

 

I have found absolutely critical to pursuing this medium is practicing all the different ways of depicting objects. Because the style of learning is so prescribed, copying the teacher's work, students tend to emulate that style.While this is not in and of itself bad, if the student does not experiment by applying the specific skills in new ways, work will have the cast of the teacher. 

This is definitely the conundrum of the Asian style of learning. I deeply respect the fact that Asian education perfects the skills of the medium being learned. But the method to achieve this can limit the learner's expression while in this country we tend to 'be creative' before we learn the skills. My goal therefore, has been when teaching is to develop a two fold program teaching the skills while fostering the vision. I have had students of Asian Ink Painting come through the gallery who had never learned the why  or analyzed what  caused what affect. Consequently, they could only repeat the specifics they were taught. I encourage all of you who are learning this medium to  practice the strokes over and over again until they are second nature then dream about how they can be applied to depict the scene which stirs your heart. Play and when you find an aesthetic mark think about how it can be used to depict that scene.

Understanding the Painting.

When looking at an Asian piece analyze how brush strokes depict planes of objects.

Try to determine what was painted first. It will be the object which always comes forward.

Look for the 3 parts of the picture plane, bottom is closest object, middle than top tends to be most distant. Check relative size.

How many values are in the paintings. 5 tends to be the minimum.

What are the negative shapes- the unpainted on areas. Most likely they will not fit into a geometric shape but be interlocking.

How was the brush moved across the paper.Pauses result in softer edges, flying whites are created by a faster moving brush.

Where is the compositional tension?  Many paintings for example, will have elements pulled as far apart as possible yet keep the tension so it does not become two pictures.

How is movement captured.

Charging the Brush

Ink painting, especially on raw Suen paper, is all about brush work. The Asian brush is constructed so that all parts of the brush should  be used on the paper. Techniques include

1. Charging the brush. The Asian brush can be charged with 4 colors and moisture contents. The base is the well and can hold a tremendous amount of liquid. The tip coming to a very fine point, can create drier lines. And of course there is the range in between. Usually the tip is charged with the darker, drier pigment and the base lighter and more moist solutions. Because of this, practicing angling the brush in all directions is important.
2. Using the brush length incrementally pressing from tip to base depending on desired width of stroke, desired softness of edge and movement or direction of object being painted.
3. Movement of entire arm and wrist include angling the brush so that the base of the hairs is on top of the stroke and at the bottom of the stroke moving in all directions.
4. Pace of brush movement over paper- slower movement means more moisture absorbed out of brush into paper which of course equals softer edges.
5. Brush strokes on dry paper create totally different effects than on wet paper.

When I have been painting in this medium for many days, brush stokes become so nuanced and so articulate that the subtle shifts of value in a peony evoke soft folds of silk. Light is depicted in an entirely different method than classical western painting.
Should you undertake Asian brush work., I highly encourage you to  play- play with absorbing moisture from the base by wrapping a white towel around it where the hairs meet the bamboo, play with dabbing a different color in the middle of the brush on one side alone, play with clear water then dipping the tip into pasty ink, playing with fleeting movements across the paper then pausing, playing with standing above the paper weight dropping onto the brush as it begins a journey across the page, playing with wrist movement which fatigues every muscle...
play  until all track of time is gone and you are one with your brush....

Asian Ink Painting- Composition A State of Mind

Learning about Asian Composition can not only inform western art work, it can alter how we perceive. Having been blessed with opportunities to live and be deeply immersed in other cultures, has taught me never to assume a convention with out rigorous questioning. A thrill becomes the epiphany of  "I can see it!".
In Asian art, the empty space is as important as the painted on space. The areas cut out by objects should be as beautiful and eloquent as the defined elements. Placement should encourage the viewer to enter the world of the picture - not be such that the viewer remains outside looking in as western art  commands with a focal point. Elements of the objects can begin off the page then meander in and out taking the participant to unexpected places.
The Asian Artist especially in Haiku, but also in the visual arts takes the specific to the universal then back to the particular. The Asian Artist has 3 goals. First to solicit the response, "Oh that is nice", then of wanting to visit. If the artist is truly successful, the viewer wants to stay.
I recently read a lecture, "The Sound of Silence in Chinese Painting"  as reported by Linda Arntzenius on Theresa McNichol's work. Several key ideas are "Ultimately, the scholar-painter became the 'instrument" of communication between nature and humanity. " "Chi (or qi)- breath,vitality, life force-was not a question of dexterity, but rather, one of expresson. Eventually, Chi became a requirement in the other arts as well:literature first then poetry, which was sung. By the end of teh 5th century it was applied to painting and calligraphy.  The etymology of the Chinese character of which means 'to listen" and is composed of the elements, ear, king, mind, eyes, one-ness, heart." McIchol posed the question then," In Chinese painting what is require of the viewer?" to listen with our mind rather than with our ears, better still with our chi."(sz0139.wc.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/h/printmessage?id=60580&xim=1)

What Asian painting has taught me is how important it is that the elements of expression dance. There is a melody line, a tenor and a bass, grace notes and percussion. Paintings sing a story of what can be.